Hey, guys! This is my first fanfic ever, and I'm honestly really nervous about publishing this, but what's life without a couple of chances taken, right? Anyway, enjoy!

"My daughter, I have given you the gift of a human life. Use it to learn the compassion that you will so desperately need to fulfill your destiny."

Too bad I was too young to remember the last words my father spoke to me.

I was born into this world, as any child is. My parents were kind and loving, and... I looked nothing like them. Nor anyone in my village, really. While everyone else had dark hair and brown eyes, I had bright, white-blonde hair and eyes so grey that if the light caught them just right, they appeared to be silver. As if the fact that I looked as if I didn't belong wasn't enough, my parents decided that it was a good idea to name me Kei'al'i. My mother claimed that she heard it in a dream and knew that it was meant to be my name. Frankly, I just thought of it as letter vomit. While everyone else's names were simple and common, such as Lucia or Jefferson, I was stuck with letter vomit.

It was because of these things that I never really had any friends growing up. Six-year-old me would rather have stayed inside, reading and learning, than gone out in the cold to have "fun." At ten, the only reason I left the house was to go to school or do my daily chores. Then, I would go back inside and read.

The only time I felt a pull to the world outside the walls of my home was on my fourteenth birthday. I had looked out my window at the familiar view of the great mountain that was located not far from the village. The full moon was shining brighter than I'd ever seen it and I felt this strange urge to get closer, as if I had a string connecting me to the moon. Before I even knew what it was I was doing, I opened my window and, pulling up my long dress, climbed out. Five minutes later, I had sprinted the half mile separating my house from the mountain. Without slowing down and without a second thought, I started climbing. I stayed on the paths and even ground as much as I could, but as I reached the middle of the great mountain, I had to climb up a straight vertical wall of rock. By this time, my feet were cut and bleeding and my face was drenched in sweat. Nevertheless, my hands grasped any protrusion they could get a hold of and pulled my tired body upwards.

Until then, I had never felt true agony. As soon as my bruised and bloodied feet touched the first foothold, I let out a scream of pain. It felt as if I had decided to run barefoot across the Devil's playground and then proceeded to stand on hundreds of knives while lemon juice was being poured on the open wounds. The pain was so intense that I felt myself nearly black out. Somehow, I found myself at the top of the wall. As I was sprawled on my back, panting, I fought the urge to inspect the wounds on my feet. Seeing them would only make it worse.

I was so tired. Five minute's rest couldn't hurt, I reasoned. Just as my eyelids slid closed, I felt a strong tug on that invisible string that connected me to the moon. Grumbling to myself in an unintelligible language, I stood up. I had put my left hand on the hard, pebble-covered surface of the ground and immediately let out a hiss of pain. Once I stood up, I inspected my hand, the moon seeming as if it was shining brighter in order to provide me with a greater amount of light. Through the blood running off my palm and down my wrist, I could see a large gash running vertically through the center of my palm. Two small holes were also stabbed close to my fingers, where I assumed I had hit them on some sharp rocks while climbing. I wiped the blood off of me and onto my light brown sleeping dress, the rough fabric of the woolen garment hurting my wound even more.

With my good hand, I wiped the salty tears out of my eyes before they could reach my pale cheeks. No matter what, I refused to cry. I had to be strong, even with no one but the moon and stars to see me. Sniffling like an idiot, I walked in the direction of the moon. It was almost as if I was in a trance, not looking away from the shining white light of the full moon, my bloody feet knowing exactly where to take me. After walking on my screaming feet for what seemed like hours, I found myself in a large meadow. I kept walking through it, the grass getting stuck to my aching feet and the long weeds reaching out to slice the overly soft and sensitive skin of my arms.

Finally, I reached the edge of the meadow, where the delicate wildflowers seemed as if they had been throwing themselves off the side, reaching far out over the cliff below them. I dared not look down, for the moon was a much more welcoming sight than the ground, hundreds of feet below. I plopped down on my knees, sitting on my feet, effectively getting blood on the back of my nightdress. As soon as that thought popped into my head, it went flying out, the light and calmness of the moon filling my head, and I sat like that until the sun had begun to creep up near the horizon. I panicked, not wanting my new friend to leave me.

"Wait!" I cried, "Don't leave me! I'm not ready!" Suddenly, a voice spoke in my head.

"Do not be afraid, my child. I will always be watching over you. Until we meet again," the voice slowly started to fade until the sun rose, leaving me alone on this ledge in the middle of a mountain with no idea how to get back down.

Then, a hand grabbed my shoulder, turning me around to face the large silhouette behind me. I screamed but as the light fell across the man's face, my scream died, being replaced with confusion.

"Mr. Bennett?" I asked, astonished. "What are you doing here?"

"Looking for you, Kei." Mr. Bennett was the local farmer who, in his spare time, helped enforce the law and protect the townspeople. The fact that he was here, in the middle of a meadow halfway up the mountain looking for me, planted a seed of fear in the pit of my stomach.

"Why, Mr. Bennett? I was just on my way home," I replied, hoping to get out of this situation as quickly as possible. Mother and Father would not be happy if they found out that I had snuck out and climbed a mountain, of all things, in the middle of the night.

"There was an accident late last night in this area. A boy fell into a frozen lake and died. When your parents awoke to you being nowhere to be found, they panicked. Naturally, we sent out a search party to find you and make sure that you didn't fall in a lake or slip off of a cliff. Who knows what could have happened to you?" I stopped listening after the second sentence. A boy had fallen into a lake and died? It was November, the cold air that always came off of the mountain should have frozen any lake to the point that it was thick enough to walk, even skate on. In fact, I had been planning on going skating on a nearby lake just yesterday. I couldn't stop wondering what would have happened to me if I had gone skating, would the ice have broken, would I have fallen in and drowned, dying a cold, panicked death? I found myself thinking one thing over and over. Who was this boy?

"The boy who died, what was his name?"

"Jackson Overland."

Please read and review! I want to continue with this, but I also want people to read it and enjoy it. Dost thou understand my dilemma?
Anyway, thanks for reading!