A/N: Here it is, a new SI fic as Lily Baskerville, mainly because her backstory is really interesting and I think it'd be cool to do. I'll make up stuff as I go along, but I really, really like Lily. I don't own PH or the characters. I'm continuing this, I suppose.
So: female as female OC.
Her name may not be important to the story, but the character she becomes definitely is, regardless of what happens.
Third person pov.
""For children are innocent and love justice, while most of us are wicked and naturally prefer mercy."
― G.K. Chesterton
"That was when it was all made painfully clear to me. When you are a child, there is joy. There is laughter. And most of all, there is trust. Trust in your fellows. When you are an adult...then comes suspicion, hatred, and fear. If children ran the world, it would be a place of eternal bliss and cheer. Adults run the world; and there is war, and enmity, and destruction unending. Adults who take charge of things muck them up, and then produce a new generation of children and say, "The children are the hope of the future." And they are right. Children are the hope of the future. But adults are the damnation of the present, and children become adults as surely as adults become worm food.
Adults are the death of hope."
― Peter David, Tigerheart
Retrace I: Lily
Life is a tricky, fickle thing.
It can start in a second, and end in a heartbeat.
There's nothing you can do if your life is going to end but accept it.
That is how the human spirit is, tending to deny the truth of their imminent deaths, even if it makes no sense.
Such is also the fate of the young girl, the heroine of her own story, here-but to tell the tale, we must go back to where it began-in another time, in another world altogether.
A young woman walked into the apartment she shared with her boyfriend, named Paul. She tossed her keys on the countertop, pushing her reddish-brown hair out of her eyes with one hand as she settled herself down on a chair, setting her purse down. Her name was Melanie, and she had everything she wanted in life-a loving boyfriend, a good, if not a bit crappy, job as a nurse at a hospital, and her loving parents, whom she visited as much as she could.
Melanie greeted her boyfriend with a hug, but he didn't really respond, something which confused her.
"Is something wrong?" She asked, but he didn't respond before getting up to face her, with something behind his back.
"I think we need to talk about our relationship. I'm getting tired of this life, I can't live like this, Melanie!" He yelled.
She stepped backwards, shocked by his sudden outburst. "Paul, what brought this on? You're not still mad about that guy I sent a text to, are you?"
"Hell yeah, I'm mad!" He cried, grabbing her arm and shaking her. "You hear me, you stupid woman, you only belong to me!"
She felt afraid of him for the first time in her life. Shaking, Melanie ran for her life, up the stairs, only to hear the sound of something whizzing behind her and hitting the wall.
Oh god, oh dear god-he had a gun.
Paul, he was seriously angry.
She raced to her room, and locked the door, freezing upon hearing him walking up the stairs, slowly but surely.
"Melanie, let me in. We're going to talk, right?" He said, knocking on the door.
"No..." She whimpered, on the ground, the phone in her hand, slowly dialing 911. As she did so, she heard the operator ask what was wrong.
"Hello...it's my boyfriend. He's trying to kill me, he's got a gun! Please help me!" She hissed into the phone, as the pounding on the door grew louder, and then she heard him kicking the door, and then the sound of cracking.
The door was breaking down. She dove under the bed, hiding under it in an attempt to stay concealed from him.
What in the world could have brought this behavior on? All she did was text an old friend that she once had a crush on. That wasn't cheating, was it?
She heard the lock click and the door swing open. Oh god, he had her keys.
"Melanie," He announced, walking in the room, "Are you in the closet?"
She didn't answer, fearing to answer him.
"I know where you are, you stupid bitch." He growled, peering under the bed and grabbing her by the hair and dragging her out.
She kicked and scratched, fighting back.
He pulled the trigger, and a bullet hit her in the arm.
She screamed, holding her bleeding arm and falling back.
"Stop it...please! I called the police, they're on their way here!" She screamed.
He smiled widely before pointing the gun at her chest.
"Goodbye, Melanie." He said, smiling as he pulled the trigger.
She fell to the ground, blood pouring out from under her as she watched him through her dying vision as he pulled the trigger on himself.
'I don't want to die.' She told herself as everything faded to black.
The Village of Ebauche
A young woman held her newborn infant in her arms, staring at it in interest, before she frowned. "Another child, dear."
"Her eyes are so blue." Her sister, Katherine, remarked, her arms folded.
"Is that my new baby sister?" A young girl with reddish brown hair remarked, "She looks so ugly and bald."
"Now, now, dear, she's just a baby. I think I'll call her...Lily."
The boys around her snickered.
Right from the very start, Lily was never wanted by her family. But at first, things were normal.
At first.
Lily always knew she was a strange child.
From a young age, she was afraid of men and would back away when her father approached.
She was a shy, quiet little girl, however, and would retreat into a corner when yelled at by her brothers and teased, as often happened due to her bright red hair.
"You look like a carrot, Lily!" Her brother taunted.
"Shut up!" She cried.
A strange thing happened then.
Her brother was falling backwards, suddenly pushed by something.
"What did you do to him, you strange child?" Her father bellowed, but a frightened Lily had no answers.
"I didn't mean to hurt him!" She cried.
She received a slap from her father and no food for the day.
The five year old retreated to her room.
Everyone was suffering. They were all so hungry and so was she.
She often never got the food she wanted, nor the love she desired.
When Lily thought over it, she could sometimes see visions of some other life.
She knew not to speak of these strange dreams, for her family would call her insane or worse, a monster.
More and more, the strange incidents happened.
The more it happened, the more angry her family became.
Her mother and her father beat her more often, starved her.
By the time she was around twelve years old, they'd had enough of her.
"I think it's about time we get rid of her." Her father said, thinking she couldn't hear.
Shaking, she fell to her knees, letting out a pained cry.
Her mother and father grabbed her, dragging her out to the village square.
A group of people chanted, "Monster, brand the monster! She's of the devil!"
"Stop it!" She cried.
Pain...pain...pain.
She cried out in pain as she was branded on her face.
"Get out of here, you freak, and never come back!" Her mom screeched, as the other villagers glared at her.
She hesitated, staring at them.
They started throwing rocks now. "Get out! You're useless! If you don't disappear, we'll make you!"
Frightened, the child ran for her life, pursued by the angry mob, stopping when she entered the woods. Turning back, she saw them standing outside the woods, watching her before turning away and leaving.
She was all alone now.
Cold, wet, and hungry, the child lay, shaking.
What had she done wrong to deserve this?
Tears came down her face as the child cried, for her life had been stolen from her.
Night fell and she was slowly falling asleep when she saw it.
A flicker, a flash of something.
A bright yellow light flew in front of her, and then another.
Lily stared in fascination as they illuminated her body.
She was suddenly filled with understanding.
She belonged somewhere. But...where?
Getting up, she walked, to god knows where, on her aching, blistered feet.
She must have been wandering for days, when she finally approached a girl with a red cloak.
The girl's crimson eyes traveled over her before sympathy came on her face.
"Who are you?" She asked.
"I'm...Lily. Help me." She whispered, too weak to stand up.
"You poor thing. Are you like me?" She asked.
"The lights guided me here..." She muttered.
"Don't worry, Lily, you'll be fine here." The pinkette said, catching the girl as she passed out in her arms in a dead faint.
For now she was with her own kind, the Baskervilles.