Rinoa clenched her fists in anger, her eyes shooting deadly arrows across the room at her father, a tall ageing man of about forty. His face was an angry mask; his greying hair tousled his eyes glaring fiercely at his daughter.

"Get out of my way Caraway!" Rinoa glared defiantly. She would never again call him dad. She shouldered the overfilled backpack and marched purposefully towards the door. Caraway's solid frame blocked her escape, he towered over her menacingly. Rinoa squared her shoulders her brown eyes flashing dangerously.

" I told you to get out of my way!" She screamed, her hand outstretched towards the door handle. Before she could pull the door back and run, her father's arm grabbed hers, rough grip on fragile skin, he began to bend the arm back, twisting his finger into her skin. Pain erupted up her arm, she screamed, tears flooding into her eyes. With her free hand she began to hit him, her blows landing on his face, making her fists and his face stain red. Still he did not let go. Rinoa wasn't beaten that easy, bringing her fist into his stomach and kicking with ferocity at his shins. Caraway grunted and fell to his knees, his hands nursing his stomach. He looked up and his brown eyes met twins of his own. His daughter stood above him, eyes full of tears as she lifted a bronze study lamp above her head, and smashed it against her father's skull with a sick crack.

There was silence in the room. Rinoa stood perfectly still, the dying light of the sun hitting her back through the open window. Snow fell outside in the street, blanketing the world white, while Rinoa stared at her father's motionless body. Her body twitched and she dropped the lamp, the bulb smashing into fluid white pieces. For what seemed like an age, Rinoa stood there, as if nailed to the pine floor. As night smothered day, the reds and pinks that had stained the sky ceased to exist in an inky black sky.

Rinoa let out a moan.

It was not supposed to be like this…I was gonna just go, he wouldn't know until he came in…why did it have to happen like this!

She slid to the floor, her pack falling with a crash beside her. She sat with her head in her hands, a waterfall of black hair fell across her face, curtaining her face and falling across her breasts. She began to shake as the tears fell more violently, dotting her sky blue t-shirt with an indigo blue.

It's his entire fucking fault! If he hadn't put work before me and mum, then she wouldn't have left and…

Fresh sobs escaped from her, silver ran down the tracts of her cheekbones, like rivers across a flushed bed. Rinoa ran her fingers through her ebony hair, her ivory fingers digging into her scalp. She moaned and continued to scrape at her skull, almost as if she were trying to empty her head of the bad memories. To forget the painful times that still lingered in the pre-frontal lobe of her brain.

I awoke from a nightmare. I sat up in bed, the sky blue duvet twisted from the struggle that had played through my mind. I stared into the darkness of my room, just making out the dim shapes a gang of soft toys perched on the shelf by the door, there lifeless eyes stared back at me through the darkness. I shivered from the cold wind that crept through the curtained window, caressing my hot face, as if it were a cool hand, wiping the sweat that beaded across my forehead. I threw back the duvet; a choked woof came from the foot of my bed. I swung my legs down from the bed and went to investigate the noise, the floor creaking as my feet crept across the boards. I stood hesitantly at the foot of my bed. Moonlight sneaked through the curtains, lighting up a mound in the duvet. My hand reached out and touched the duvet, pulling it back. A pair of golden brown eyes. The furry face of Angelo nuzzled mine, licking my face wetly with a long pink tongue. I pushed the dog away from my face, and sat down heavily beside her. Angelo snuggled next to me, pawing at my nightdress, as if to chase the kitten that danced across the pink cotton of the gown. I stroked her soft head, felling her silky black and white hair beneath my fingers. Tears where still in my eyes, and Angelo looked up at me concern in her liquid gold eyes. I whispered softly into her velvety ears. "It's okay…I just had a nightmare…I'm okay now." But even I realised I was lying…the dream was too vivid it was too real, and even now as I looked around the blackened room, after the dream I was still watching for shadows.

Dark…just total impenetrable blackness…and a thing that stood there, with only the whiteness of an insane grin…I…called out…to mum. But she was just a dim figure in the dark, I could only make out the clack of her heels…and her beautiful voice as she walked calmly through the darkness, singing to herself…But she was walking down there…where it was. Mum! Mum! Come back! Not down there! Don't leave me here on my own! Not in the dark! I…could hear it…whispering…whispering the word Hyperion. Over and Over and Over! It wouldn't shut up, the word was swimming through my foggy mind, I could see it, hear it feel it taste it, smell it! Sharp pain came from my chest…I screamed, it rang through the dark… and cold laughter came with it, melting into my screams in an insane melody that echoed through my head. I looked at my chest…scarlet stained the nightdress, the white kitten was covered in gore. Between my breasts was a fountain of red, and the head of a blade that glimmered with it's own source of spectral light…Hyperion.

I hugged Angelo harder, we where a blur of black and white under the light of the moon. Tears escaped from my eyes and fell onto Angelo's fur, glowing silver in the moonlight. I felt her smooth pink tongue on my face, as she licked away the salty tears. I continued to cry in long salty flows, my brown eyes reddened by the sting of tears. Giving Angelo one final hug, I climbed off the bed and walked towards the door, the floor boards singing under my steps. I turned back when I reached the door, and gave Angelo a little wave as I turned the cold handle. Light flooded into my room, a bright beam glided across the floor, lighting up the clothes that had been tossed on the floor last night, the book that had fallen from my hand as I slipped into a world of dreams, into the nightmare. The nightmare. Mum would know what to do...I would go to her, cry in her arms feel her soft hands on my face drying the tears away. She would tell me it was okay…that there were no monsters in this world, that the darkness sometimes plays tricks on us…there is nothing in nightmares. Dad would back her up then, he'd say in a cross voice. "Rin, nightmares are not real, they are just produced by a bad chemical reactions in the brain, dreams are chemical…there is nothing real about them!" I could almost see his face reddening with anger as he told me that I was stupid to be frightened of shadows and monsters that came long ago from the Lunar Cry, I was fifteen years old, to old to believe in such things. I preferred Mum's method to his.

I stepped into the corridor, my feet sinking into the warm deep red carpet that flowed down the corridor like a soft magenta river. I padded down the corridor, under the eyes of the people in the pictures that hung from the walls, memories captured and framed, people long dead kept alive. I reached the door to my parent's room. I hesitated then…Dad would be angry…but I needed Mum…I needed to be confidant in reality. I pushed open the door slowly and poked my head round the door, squinting through the dark. In the dark, things seemed to blur together, as if they were all uniting in the blackness.

"Mum…Dad?" I whispered into the darkness. The night swallowed my words and echoed my call. I stood like a cold pale statue at the foot of my parent's bed, a biting wind entered through the curtains, whipping up my short night dress, making it float around my thighs. The room was empty of both of them. I scratched Angelo's head thoughtfully, my fingers buried in the soft white fur on the top of her head, crowning her like snow.

I turned away from the door, and made my way too the stairs, a tight paranoia suddenly around me, as I crept too the bottom, into what looked like an inky black hole, a stairway to hell. My feet hit the cold hallway tiles; I turned, facing the door to the kitchen, shut, a bright yellow frame of light spilling from the crack beneath the door. Still cautious that Hyperion's master lurked in the shadows, I flattened myself to the wall, my footsteps silent as I slid across the wall, my hand reaching for the door handle. I child like panic stabbed at me as I heard an ominous creak on the stairs, I grabbed the handle, pulling it down roughly my eyes wide with fear.

I fell into the room. My father didn't even turn too look at me as I slumped onto the floor, tears that I held on too through the dark now glistening in the kitchen light had run down across my pale cheeks. His face was red and like mine tear stained, his attention on the back of a fleeing woman, a woman with long dark hair…

"Mummy!" I screamed, as a younger Rinoa would have done. She stood frozen at the doorway, unable to make the decision to come back into the house, or to leave, to go out into the night.

I stoodup. I ran.

I grabbed her hand, her smooth white fingers enclosed around the black handle of a suitcase, pulling her back towards me. Her eyes where on mine, her's sky blue, mine chocolate brown. Both filled with shimmering tears that brimmed across our dark lashes and ran down our cheeks like streams of melted ice.

"I have too, she choked out of her pale pink lips, "I have to go Rinny, please let go of my arm."

"Mum…" Like a sheep I bleated the three-letter word unable to make the words I really wanted to say happen.

She unwrapped my hand from hers, gently pulling my fingers away. She took a step outside, her black-heeled shoes clacking on the stone pavement. She continued walking towards the gate that separated garden from outside. I was always told outside was dangerous as late as this after dark, and here was my mother, dragging a heavy suitcase through the remaining slush of recent snow, shivering as she unhooked the latch, the gate swinging wide and slamming with a strange finality as she walked away, beautiful and fragile under the stark Lamppost light.

Dad wasn't doing anything. Dad was just standing there. His fists clenched tightly blood pooled on his knuckles dripping onto the terracotta floor, where daggers and small crystal like shards of glass littered around his feet.

My mothers figure was becoming more distant; I was loosing her too quickly, too soon.

I ran out of the door, in seconds I was running down the road. How long did I have? I didn't know. All I knew is that she had to come back, or at least take me with her.

Don't leave me behind mum.

There was pain irrupting in my side, the worst time for a stitch. With gritted teeth I forced myself on, gaining speed and distance. Not enough, she was still so far away, turning down into an alleyway. I crashed into the dark after her, cold slush splattering up my bare white legs, numbing almost burning cold.

Hyperion!

I was back in the nightmare world.

I watched her die!

Shadows lengthened as the hours passed. It was pitch black before Rinoa made any movement, pushing back her thick ebony hair she stood up. Shakily she made her way too the door, picking up her suitcase. Rinoa had no concept of the only absolute essentials; she struggled as she lugged her overfilled case out of the door. Snow crunched beneath her battered converses as she stomped towards the gate. With a loud crash she swung the gate back and stepped out onto the pavement.

Shadows rolled out beneath the lamplight, snow glittered under the light as Rinoa ran. How long has it been since I started running? 5 minutes? 10? She didn't know. Her heart banged inside her chest, an exhausted red pump, her whole body ached and her brain muddled, and tears still swam.

Rinoa staggered, her body crumpling as her exhaustion caught up with her. She slid to the ground, ice thawing beneath her body. She sat there, her head inclined in the direction of the sky. The sky was beautiful, for a winter night it was clear, and stars that burned so far away seemed extra bright. Under that sky, Rinoa felt so small, so insignificant. Sleep took her then; the last thing she saw was the glittering of those distant yet glittering balls of hydrogen.