Prologue: perishing hope
Anguish. It was all she could feel at this point. Pure anguish which consumed every inch of her soul now. She had been soaring through the heavens on wings of chakra for hours now. She soared on as every last droplet of her energy was being poored into her journey. The only source of energy fueling her now was panic. Pure and undeniable terror which was present in her every thought and feeling. The air bit her as she flew as fast as she could, freezing the blood running from open wounds on her pale skin. Her shredded clothes gave her very little comfort. Her body was slowly giving out. She could feel every muscle in her body aching. She felt herself slowly dropping from the skies, falling from grace once more.
Slowly the ground got closer to her body until she felt her body being dragged along the rough gravel, ripping and tearing her skin even more than before. She finally came to a stop face down into the dirt. Her knees were simply bloody wounds now, and her arms were on fire with cuts and scrapes. She slowly picked her face up off the dirt, bringing her hand gently to her lip. She looked to see a crimson line running along her index finger. She looked behind her, and picked herself up off the ground and began to run.
She ran in severe agony for a few more miles now. She tried to ignore the pain, but the less pain she felt in her mangled body, the more pain she felt in her soul. The emotional pain and trauma was more than she could handle. It was deeper than any cut or scrape on her body. Her mind was flooded, overloading with gruesome images and painful memories of times long ago. Fears and terrors she was hoping to leave behind years ago had finally caught up with her. Her frozen blue eyes reflected the pain she felt in her soul.
Her painful run slowed into a cripled walk, and then to a forced limp. Even though her vision began to blur, she managed to recognize a gate a few yards in front of her. She staggered towards it, trying her best to stay upright. She began to hillucinate, and each step she took brought a distant, painful memory. A face. A life. Each life was once so precious to her. But as her hopes and dreams did years ago, these faces, too, did fade with every step she took now. Past friends, close family, familliar faces all perished in front of her, as did all of her hope. Every face that appeared before her and disapeared again took a part of herself with her. A final face of a man flashed before her. As he faded away, he took with him the last part of her, her will to live and keep going, away with him. She fell to the ground, and everything around her faded into nothingness as she plunged into a dark world.