Another SoMa fic. I love them so much. ^-^ This is my first time writing a multi chapter fic so I hope you enjoy.

Please Read and Review.

Diclaimer: I don't own Soul Eater or Moby Dick. Why do I have to do this? I don't think anyone would believe I was Herman Melville.

A tall girl strides down the hallway of her school, back straight, eyes forward, pointedly ignoring the stares and judging eyes glanced crudely in her direction.

But this isn't just any girl with ashy blonde hair, tied up into neat pig tails that tumbled their way down to her shoulders, making her way to the next class. This is the heroine of our story, Maka. But you should know this scene is abnormal. It's not the average high school set up you would expect.

Now don't make any mistakes. The people squinting their obtrusive eyes at her were normal, the hallway she walked down was normal, the world she lived in was normal. The abnormal one was Maka herself. At least, she was considered to be.

If she wasn't then I may not have had a story to tell you, but she is, so I do.

Now look at me, I'm getting off track. Let's get back to the matter at hand, Maka.

Maka Albarn was always a strange girl. She didn't act like a normal child. When she was young, rather than asking for toys at Christmas like all the other children in her class did, Maka would ask for books. A request her, quite astonished, but happy, parents fulfilled.

They gave her all kinds of books. At first it was only small children's books, the words of which were simple to the eye and easily comprehended by the young reader. It soon became apparent that Maka need stronger books then such.

When she was young, Maka craved books. She loved reading and soaked up any new information like a dry sponge. She read more and more until she had read all the simplest books in the library. Soon she was reading more complex and intricate books. Hundreds of words each and none of the pictures required by most her age. This has not changed in Maka as a seventeen year old. She still loves to learn the same as she did.

She was happy. Maka didn't care that the other children distanced themselves from her for a reason she wasn't even aware of yet. She had her books to read and she had her Mother and her father who loved her with all their hearts could muster. But this situation changed drastically on that one fateful day.

Maka was still young, maybe eight or nine, when it happened. She was on her way back from the library, pink ribbons dangling from the neat pigtails her mother and placed her hair in, when she saw the smoke, and the people gathered around the spot where her house should have been. Where her parents should have been waiting for her to return, smiling and asking her what books she had gotten this time. But it wasn't, and they weren't. Instead there stood a pile of charred rubble, the remains of her old life.

Completely ignoring the warning cries of the police officers and fire men, she ducked through the legs of a tall man with shaggy black hair and ran onto the frail form of the broken house, calling for her mother and father. As she ran she stepped on a coal from the still burning wooden wall. Giving a sharp cry of pain, Maka stumbled backwards and fell, doubled over from the pain of her now badly burnt foot. The police man she had ducked under grabbed her around the waist and pulled her away from the burning rubble. Maka screamed and yelled, crying her lungs out for the man to put her down so she could find her family. They were the only thing she had. They couldn't be hurt. And they definitely couldn't be... No! They were waiting for her somewhere! She would see them and her papa would hold open his arms to jump into, his sky blue eyes filled with love for her, framed by his short red hair; just like he always did. And her mama would stroke her hair and tell her small mirror image that everything was okay; just like she always did. She had to find them. She had to!

Maka wasn't stupid. She knew what happened when a house was burnt as badly as hers was. People died. Or at the very least were injured. She just didn't want to believe it. That it could happen to her or her mother or father.

Flashing lights and a whaling siren ripped her attention away from her darkening thoughts. An ambulance was parked at the other side of the house, dragging two severely charred bodies into them. Maka stared wide eyed, going ridged in the man's arms.

"M-Mama?" She whimpered. "Papa?"

It was then Maka realized how real life is, and how easily it could be taken away.

A hand covered her eyes, taking away her sight and giving her the pure bliss of darkness. She could no longer see her world crashing down around her, but she could feel it. It hurt. Like a knife was twisting in her heart. The blade slipping deeper and deeper... Maka clutched at the center of her chest, with one small hand balling up the fabric of her young dress. She felt her weight being transferred as the man gave her to someone else.

"Don't look sweetie." Maka recognized the voice of a librarian she knew well. She was a nice lady with a soft voice, brown hair and emerald eyes, a shade lighter than her own. The woman was her favorite person at the library. Her name was Kana. She always picked out good books for Maka and never treated her like a nuisance. "I'll take you to my house for now."

"Mama and Papa are coming back, right?" Maka asked showing a rare glimpse of her childlike innocence. Kana's lack of speech was an answer on its own. Tears poured down Maka's cheeks as. She sobbed into the librarian's shirt.

The police man offered Kana a hand. She took it and he pulled her into a standing position still holding the whimpering Maka wrapped in her arms.

"I assume this means you are going to become her foster guardian for now?" He asked. Kana looked down at the tiny child in her arms; her heart lurched for the poor broken-hearted girl. Kana decided she would work hard to hold together the shattering pieces of Maka's innocence. Maka was too young to know the horrors of the world they lived in.

"Yes, I will."

Maka lived with Kana for four years after that. Though Maka still missed her real parents with a sharp needle of pain that always stood underlying a hole in her heart, she came to view Kana as family. Every day Kana would fix her a lunch of homemade foods, which cause delicious envy in all the other children. She would kneel down place her hand on Maka's head and tell her to have a good day at school. Those six little words overflowed with the motherly affection Kana felt towards her young ward. She needed Maka to know she was cared for, so the dark absence of her true parents would not completely drag away her heart.

Maka loved Kana's home, her home. It was a quaint little cottage-like structure nestled on the outside of town. The inside walls were a warm honey color and the sun filtered its rays richly through the windows. Also, being a librarian and a writer, Kana's house was filled to the brim with books. Multiple bookshelves sat snug against the walls of living room, neatly packed with books of all shapes and sizes. When Maka first saw them her eyes went wide with adorable childish wonder, she nervously stepped over to one of the shelves and read the titles of the books printed in curvy gold lettering on their spines. Kana observed her discomfort and smiled warmly. She crouched down next to Maka and used her index finger to pull out a relatively thin book and give it to her. The young girl's eyes sparkled her mouth opened slightly in awe as she stared at Kana.

"You don't have to feel nervous. All the books here you are free to read."

Unfortunately, Kana's loving attempts to keep Maka's heart open to others was precisely the thing that caused it to close.

Fourteen year old Maka walked at a normal pace, towards her home in the same condition it normally was, nothing was amiss and she was blissfully unaware of the happenings of that day. But soon the black shroud would be lifted.

Maka placed her hand on the cool metal of the front doorknob, she twisted it and the unlocked door clicked out of place and yielded to her guiding hand.

The lights were on sending their usual sparkling beams in every direction but the air was stale and the house was silent.

"Kana?" Maka closed the door and neatly placing her book bag against the wall. There was no answer. Maka looked at the clock on the wall ticking away, it's pendulum swinging back and forth according to the pattern of seconds. The sound would have normal been quite relaxing to Maka but in the heavy silence it seemed to resonate around the room loudly which gave her a disconcerting feeling.

She advanced slowly into the house, every cell in her body screamed for her to turn around and run away from the ominous scene but she pressed on. She touched the handle on the door to Kana's room the cold metal sapping the heat from her fingertips. She twisted the knob and slowly opened the door. A wave of air carding the metallic scent of blood crashed over her, assaulting her senses. She hadn't needed to see her guardian to know what had happened, but she did.

Kana lay on her bed, her face gazing towards the ceiling, though her eyes remained unseeing, her mouth was opened slightly with shock. A large gash split down her middle, clawing from her chest down to her stomach. The room itself was virtually unscathed save the bed beneath her died crimson and thick with blood. It was a horrifying sight for any person. And Maka? We could triple that number.

Maka clasped her hand over her mouth and stumbled backwards, the stool outside the door tangling itself in her legs and causing her to fall backwards toppling over a coffee table and a lamp. The animalistic instinct of flight filled her completely blinding her she desperately scrambled away from the scene.

Once Maka got outside the house she was sick. She wiped her mouth, eyes filmed over with unshed tears from the harsh gagging. She pulled her cellphone from her pocket, her badly shaking hands made it extremely hard to dial those three numbers.

911.

She didn't talk. Couldn't. Her voice wouldn't cooperate with her. They sent police, the wailing sirens drawing curious eyes from the windows of other houses.

Maka clamped her hands over her ears, squeezing her eyes shut and clenching her teeth. She hated that sound. She hated it. It brought her back to the charred remains of her old home, and now this.

Those sirens signaled death.

The police swarmed her she didn't look up but weakly pointed him the direction of the house remaining in her kneeling position on the concrete.

After a few moments action whirred. Urgent hands nudged her ushering her into the back of one of the cars.

Maka can't remember much that happened after that. Questioning, alibis, innocence.

A recent spring of serial killings. Apparently so big time investigator got involved, he had known Kana. He solved the case in a matter of days then left. The man was taken to jail. Solitary confinement for the rest of his life.

Maka shivered living the rest of your life all alone. It was a cruel punishment even for a murderer.

None of it mattered, Kana was already dead. The damage to Maka was already done. She'd let another person become a part of her heart and had been torn to pieces.

There after Maka began to see how people treated her. When her parents were gone she had Kana to comfort her but once Kana was gone she had no shoulder to cry on. People acted coldly to her, only exchanging a few words when absolutely necessary.

There was no real reason why. Not yet any way. Perhaps it was a premonition of the future. An uneasy feeling towards something Maka herself had not yet discovered. But she soon learned.

Maka could see souls, and with them, peoples personalities. At first she couldn't control it. A flash of soul here, a personality trait there. It varied. But as time went on, under her careful concentration and vigorous practicing, she could see them at will and read their traits as if simply leafing through a book.

People didn't like it, they called her a freak. No matter how much she used it to keep people from being hurt.

Four more years past by after Kana's murder. And here we are, back at the beginning of our story, with Maka walking down the hall, here peers silently judging her with their stares. Let's see where our adventure takes us.

Maka closed her green eyes that, if anyone took the time to look at them, resembled the deep green of pine needles. She groped around in the darkness with her mind searching for a strand of light to latch on to. When she found it she opened her eyes. All of the physical bodies in front of her melted away revealing their souls to her intrigued eye. She smiled to herself as she examined soul after soul, absorbing the knowledge. It wasn't an evil smile, nor a sly one, it was just a smile.

"He's not interested in dating you." she told a girl standing to the side of the corridor with her 'boyfriend'. "He's only thinking of sex." She didn't look at either of them, kept walking even after the satisfying din of a hand across a cheek rung out. A bit blunt, perhaps, but she deserved to know and Maka wasn't interested in beating around the bush.

Maka reached her class four minutes early. She gracefully seated herself and pulled out a book, her eyes hungrily scanning the pages of the novel. This week, she was reading Moby Dick. The real world faded away and she was on the rocking deck of a whaling ship, sea foam spraying with every wave lapping against its belly.

Maka was dragged out of her reverie by the sound of snickering behind her. She turned and glared at the source of the disturbance which was a group of young girls, freshman probably. Doing a terrible job of hiding their mocking of her. She sucked in a breath and released it through her teeth, trying to fight of the urge to hit them all over the head with her book. She would have lost the internal battle if it weren't for the fact that it would get her suspended. They giggled rather loudly again causing Maka to clutch her book tighter.

"Hey freak!" one of them called. "Not going to tell me my personality? How rude." Maka whirled on the girls activating her ability; she stared at the girl with a piercing glare, practically immobilizing her. The girl's eyes widened, as if suddenly questioning the intelligence of angering the 'freak.' Maka latched on the characterized energy emanating from the girls soul, her wavelength.

"You look before you leap. You're the type that looks at an ice cream Sunday and only seeing the calories. You're the weed that thinks itself a rose. Oh wait; you probably don't understand any of these complex metaphors." Maka drawled, her voice dripping with the loathing of being taunted every day. "In simpler words, you're an arrogant girl who thinks she's a lot cooler then she is, and everyone knows it." She turned away with a smirk at the girls agape mouth opening and closing like a fish gulping water.

The teacher walked in, then. Preventing the girls from acting once their shock wore off. Maka huffed a small laugh. Perfect timing.

That day crept by unbearably slow for poor Maka; it seemed the torture was on a heightened speed lately. She rooted through her bag for the key to her apartment. She pushed open the dirt brown door minding herself of the rough patches that desperately needed sanding. The room was small, and there wasn't much in it. Only one room and a small water closet off to the side.

A tiny stove sat cuddled up in the corner of the room. A low bed that had seen its fair share of sleeping figures in its life laid in the middle of the wall its center sagging in on itself from the constant flop of bodies onto it. A small dresser filled empty space on the other side of the room standing under a dusty mirror.

Maka trudged in pulling the door close behind her and allowed herself to collapse face first onto the bed which gave a protesting squeak. She groaned pulling one of the pillows close to her chest.

The only thought that lulled through her brain as the dark tendrils of sleep pulled her down was, "I wish I could just leave this world sometimes."

Maka slowly opened her eyes. It wasn't morning yet, darkness still occupied the small room. She turned her head slightly to look at the small black box flashing, red colored numbers displaying the time.

10:23pm

Maka stared at the clock intently, as if it were about to grow legs and start dancing. She quickly glanced around the room before pushing herself up slightly with her arms. The room was wrong, it wasn't hers. The things she noticed were minuscule, the color of the clock was off by a few shades, or the dresser wasn't sitting the right way against the wall. Most normal people would not have noticed them. But as I believe we have clarified, Maka isn't normal.

Maka jumped off 'her' bed. "This isn't my apartment." she muttered to herself. She slowly backed towards the door. She grabbed her discarded book bag before exiting the room.

Maka stopped, completely quiet and perked her ears, having thought she'd just heard a strange sound but wasn't quite sure. Then she heard it again, a low bellowing moan which made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up and caused a shiver to rack up her spine.

It didn't sound human.

Maka ran down the stairs, taking them two at a time, before she burst through the double-door exit and the cool night air caressed its fingers across her face.

As she stepped out, the first thing she noticed terrified her, the moon had a face.

Terrible features, blood dripped from between its rotting yellow teeth. (Not to mention the relative size of this moon compared to her old one was astronomical.) The sight made Maka want to scream but the sound was caught in her throat as she tried to make it.

She tore her eyes from the atrocious moon and she surveyed her surroundings. The buildings were different then they had been when she had fallen asleep. Though they were all in the same place as they had been the style was completely different, more bright and (for lack of a better word) flamboyant.

As Maka ogled at the new architecture her city had seemed to acquire in the short hours she had been asleep, she didn't notice the menacing presence sneaking up behind her. She twisted around lightning fast as fits of laughter echoed into the empty night, the source coming from behind her.

When she saw who, or what, it was every self-defense or judo lesson she'd ever taken came flying into her mind and she bent her knees, ready to pounce if necessary. This only seemed to bring more mirth from the shadowed creature as if it knew she didn't have a chance against it.

The creature stepped out of the darkness with one confident stride still sniggering. At a first glance it could have appeared a normal man but in this close vicinity Maka could see he had gnarled tusk like teeth that grew in every-which-way and sometimes tore through the calloused tissue of his lips completely. He also had dirty yellow, dagger like finger nails that flowed seamlessly into the rest of his finger, no start, no end. Maka subconsciously began to back away from the monstrosity.

"More power!" He giggled. "I'm going to eat your soul now." The monster tilted its head in a mocking way and gave her an innocent stare that made her blood boil. "Alright?"

"Not if I have anything to say about it." She hissed back.

The beast chortle some more then, in a sudden drop of demeanor, growled furiously and lunged at her.

Maka leaped back, surprised by the sudden movement. The monster swiped its claws at her missing her flesh by a far to narrow margin. It snarled and pounced again, teeth aimed for her throat. Maka flipped backwards pushing off the ground with her hands, planting her feet well away from the beast. She silently thanked all her years of gymnastics for a split second before the beast's slow mind realized where his prey went.

Maka backed up a few steps and, to her utter horror, found her back pressed up against a brick wall. Her eyes widened as the monster grabbed her wrists pinning her to the wall. It grinned maniacally, framed by the yellow light of the laughing moon.

"You put up a decent fight, girlie. Your soul's not normal; you're going to be delicious." To her disgust the creature brought its face to her neck and opened its mouth. Hot breath rolled out of its open maw rolling against her skin causing revulsion to well up in her as a snake like tongue lolled out and dragged over her skin. "It's time for you to die now." The creature pulled back raising one of its clawed hands to deal the final blow the other holding her in place. As the hand descended the one thought that flittered through her mind besides fear was that she would be able to see her parents and Kana again.

But that reunion would have to wait. The thought was cut clean from her mind as a sharp shout and a flash of metallic red freed her from the deadly embrace.

The monster reared back, squealing as it dissolved into a flurry of black ribbons leaving behind a glowing red orb. Maka recognized this as its soul. It wasn't like souls she's seen in their bodies, it was dirty, corrupted. But still, it had a glowing beauty that captivated her.

Maka gently reached out fascinated by the orb, her fingers centimeters away for brushing against the soul and a voice stopped her.

"Hey! Hands off." Maka whirled around to suddenly notice the scythe embedded in the wall a little ways away from where she'd been only seconds before. It was a sleek weapon, a jagged pattern of red and black running down the glossy blade. A design on the tang of the scythe (the place where the blade connected with the shaft) resembled a piercing scarlet eye.

It honestly looked like something from a fantasy novel. For a moment Maka half expected a cloaked skeletal figure to appear and claim his weapon. She found herself unconsciously glancing around the spacing in between the buildings searching for her fictional reaper.

Her eyes were drawn back to the blade as a brilliant blue light engulfed it. The form shift and the light dissipated leaving behind a tall boy standing instead.

Maka gaped for moment, he was skinny but well-built though it was hard to tell as he was wearing a black pinstriped suit with a red dress shirt underneath, his hair was white though if she had to guess he wasn't much older than her, his most shocking feature was his eyes, they were blood red. Looking back she knew why that was. He was probably albino, his pale skin attested to that but the color disconcerted her, the sight of any blood did, but who could blame her for that after she witnessed the murder of someone close to her. Not that his appearance was what startled her, the dude just transformed from a fucking scythe!

He glared at her for a moment before shoving past her to the monster's soul. He snatched it up and, without hesitation, dropped it into his mouth. He chewed it couple times then swallowed it giving a satisfied huff of air. Maka tensed up then shivered, a strange revulsion at the sight holding her.

"What are you?" She asked before she could stop herself. He turned to look at her, scrutinizing her with his bloody eyes.

"Eh? What's it a flat-chested girl like you?" A flash of anger surged through her veins and she pulled Moby Dick from her backpack and smashed the spine into the top of his head.

"Maka chop." She mumbled under breath.

"Ah!" The boy dropped to the ground cross-legged clutching at his assaulted skull. "What the fuck, bitch!" he gingerly touched the spot and winced. "God damn it that hurt." He hissed. Maka crossed her arms and huffed turning her face away from him.

"You deserved it." He glared up at her from his spot on the ground. Faint voices of wandering people echoed from one of the streets branching off of this one. The boy looked down the street for a moment, his hand still twisted into his messy locks.

"Whatever." He groaned standing up and then he was gone. Maka wasn't sure how it happened; he just sort of vanished as she blinked. For a moment she thought of the possibility of a hallucination but quickly nixed the idea as hallucinations cannot be hit in the head with books. She twirled on of her pig tails with her index finger as she asked herself:

What the hell just happened?

First chapter complete. I'm sorry it's pretty long... Strange I usualy apologize for short chapters. I guess that's a good thing. ^^

I would really apreciate reviews, they make me happy.