How it Began

The small child wept as her parents threw her onto the ground. Wishing it was just a nightmare; she curled up into a ball and sobbed. Her parents left her there to bleed. To die…but the little girl did not die. She was still alive. They were ignorant to how powerful she really was. To what a threat she could be.

A great pain welled up in the girl's chest. She screamed for her parents but they didn't look back. She screamed again, but this time in pain. She watched colors dance around her, and she watched them shoot up in and out of her. The entrance felt like a million needles piercing the skin and through the bone, upon exiting her body, the rainbow was colorless. With one last scream she fell into a deep sleep.

Her parents walked in silence back to their home. They tried to forget what a horrible thing they had done, but a parent can never forget a child. They lived with that pain, though. They reminded themselves that if they hadn't done it, they would have died themselves. That only reminded them of how selfish they really were. Her mother grew to hate herself, her hair grayed faster than it should have over the years, and after 10 years her head was covered in gray hair. The father of that small child grew to focus on the fact that they were forced to by their village chief as punishment for the crime they had committed. The sin they had committed…

It was on the girl's fourteenth birthday that she learned her name. She had lived by Nanashi for so long. She had lived in solitude, hiding in the forest her parents dumped her in. But she still went to school. And she bathed in a nearby stream. She stole money and food to get by. She was still alive. She never forgot what her parents did to her though. The memory haunted her. She threw away Nanashi and began going by her real name. Michie…her name was Suzuki Michie. That's what it said on the birth certificate they found for her. That was what she told her school's principal. That was what people began to know her as…that is who I am. Though I may not be proud of my name, I have one. That's all that truly matters. It's who I'll always be. So call me Michie.