The sunlight was blinding, the air was warm and the weather was nothing short of amiable. Chirping birds flew about in the sky, tossed in with wisps of white clouds among the startlingly bright blue. The streets were lit up with nearly angelic light, and the dust had settled overnight, covering the uneven ground in fine sheets.
Western Rukongai, District 55.
Shabby wooden houses lined the sides of the road, the dwellings of people to whom Lisa Yadomaru would never truly belong. There often came happy sounds from inside them: sounds of laughter and sounds of interaction. Sometimes there were sounds of sadness, but after the sadness there was always comfort, all of which Lisa had never genuinely experienced before. But she was certain she had experienced the contempt that came from the people's fear: fear of the unknown and of anything greater than them. And then there was the loneliness and the separation. For the townspeople, it was the easiest way out; it was their default setting when it came to people like Lisa.
It started years ago. She used to be normal, but her time with normalcy was so brief that she didn't remember anything. She wasn't a little kid anymore. Once it started, it only got worse. People feared her; that was the best way to describe it. It was some aura that surrounded her and suffocated those around her. They didn't know what it was, but something about her made them uneasy, and they found that the simplest way to deal with that was to put it down and ignore it. Lisa heard their whispers, even when they weren't around.
"Did that girl talk to you again?"
"Yeah… well, she tried to, but I got away."
"Thank goodness."
"I know, scary stuff, right? What was her name again?"
"Lisa, I think. Too pretty a name for a creep like her."
"Yeah, just don't think about it anymore."
This world was cruel. Human nature was cruel. And fate was the cruelest of all.
Alone in her sphere, Lisa ignored the complaints of her growling stomach and tucked her spindly legs into her chest. She curled up in the nook created by the joining of tree trunk and branch, turned past the first page of the dilapidated book balanced across her knees, and began to read about a better place, maybe one where she belonged, even though she knew they only existed in children's dreams. But she still was a child, so she held onto that hope a bit longer.
Just a warning for future chapters, since most of Lisa's history isn't shown, I'm going to be taking liberties with a lot of stuff, even when the Vizards come into the picture.