Blood seeps out from my bare hands. The hot, red, pasty substance coats both Maka's gloved and burned fingertips and my dirty scrapped palm. She has been dragging me for over a mile now. Where could she possibly want to take me? Most likely she is just dragging me to my death. She will take me to an abandoned ally way and beat me up for taking away everything she knew.

"We are almost there! Just a few more blocks!" she is so reassuring. It almost makes me doubt that any bad can come from this day.

But, with my luck, this day will possibly go very, very wrong.

Shards of glass and old rusted scraps of metal litter the bare streets. Destruction always was the one thing I could manage to pull off. This had to be, by far, the most destructive time of my life. I had managed to burn down a city, kill so many innocent lives, and even have the guts to run away from it all like a coward. I know what is coming for me in the future. That is why I ran away. I did not want to see the faces of those I loved and cared about be burned to the ground because of my clumsy actions.

It was one of those situations where you are told to never look back. You are told to run and keep on running until you find your destined spot.

But I am one of those selfish people who looked back and saw their home go up in flames. I had watched as sparks caught other houses into monsters of fire and smoke. I was the one who cried about it all night and all morning because I was just dumb enough to turn around. The two seconds it took to turn ended up ruining my life.

So, as this mysterious girl drags me down the torn up cement, I can think of nothing but the damage I have caused her and myself. My foot hits a bump. Looking down, I can see that it is yet another bone from one of my unfortunate victims. Chills run up my spine. What if I had known that person? Who could it have been that I have just lazily placed my bare foot on top of? Just the thought of it makes more tears flow from my eyes. One large drop lands right inside the vacant eye socket of the skeleton.

"I'm so, so sorry," I whisper, though it was barely audible. I doubt that Maka heard it.

I can hear a faint noise from up a head. It sounds like… Talking? So there are more people here. Well, that's just great!

"We're here!" Maka lets go of my throbbing hand, sending the still wet blood to the cement, where it stains.

I only take a few steps closer. Through the steam and smoke, I can make out what looks like… Fire? But everything was already burned, right?

Some more voices intrude my thoughts.

"Yo, Maka! We were waiting for you," Sais one voice. This one sounds like a girl. She sounds tough, as well. Maybe she, too, ran from the sweltering flames.

Maka giggles a bit.

"Yeah, yeah! I know," she turns in my direction. "Come on, Crona. Don't be shy."

"Crona? Who's Crona?" The same voice comes again, al though she sounds a bit more confused.

I walk in a couple more steps. I can now clearly see the scene that lies before me. There are three girls sitting in a circle beside a flame-engulfed log. In the center of the flame is a hat. They must be using their own clothing as fire fuel.

Maka walks up to me, her blonde hair hitting me in the face. It is quite soft except for a few spots where dreadlocks have grown in.

"This, my friends, is Crona. I found her crying on top of a skeleton." Yeah, thanks for the details.

I see one girl, a very tall girl with straight black hair and large blue eyes, cringe at the thought of dead people. How she would have hated to be me, having actually killed everyone in the city. Well, almost everyone.

"Crona, eh? I think I know you from somewhere…" it is the tough sounding girl again. Getting a good look at her, I can see that she has straight, yet thick, blonde-orange hair. Her eyes are narrower and green, like Maka.

She stands up and walks over to me with ease, as though she had been living in the wild all of her life.

"My name is Liz, and judging by your looks, you must be Crona Gorgon, eighth grade." How did she know? Wait… I have seen her before. She is that ninth grader that walks around with her sister, Patty, who was in my grade.

Oh, god. Where is Patty? Have I killed her? Patty was everything to Liz. Man, this is worse than I though!

"Um… yeah. Th-that's me." I blush a bit. It is still hard to talk to her. Looking over her shoulder, my heart is filled with relief. There is Patty, sitting there with that happy little smile on her face and care free eyes shining right back at me.

"Oh! Hiya, Crona! Long time, no see!" She jumps up and bounces over to her sister's side. "So, why have you come here? Is it to see… The cat?" She really confuses me.

"The… whu..?

The black haired girl stands up and walks to my side.

"Oh, so you don't know? You must be new here." Yeah, right. "The cat is said to live on the sixth floor of the tallest skyscraper in town." She waves her hand in a circular motion above her head, indicating the tall towers that I demolished. If only these girls were not so clueless. They would hate me, probably, but it would make me feel much less guilty, and much less like a liar. Great! Now I'm just being selfish again!

She sticks out her soft, pale hand to me. I really don't want to take another hand, but at least this one does not have the scars of my unfortunate doings stamped all over it.

"My name is Tsubaki," She puts on a very kind smile. From that instant, I can tell that she is a very kind and gentle girl. Her eyes shine with maturity. A maturity that I never got. If I had had that one thing, I might not have burned down my city and killed these innocent girls' families.

"Oh… um… hi" I take her hand. My cold blood coats her hand in a sticky red splash. Her eyes go wide and her skin turns so pale that she could easily resemble a sheet of copy paper. She obviously cannot handle gross things like blood and death, as I have seen from her previous reactions.

She lays her head in her hand and backs off slowly. She must hate me, just like everyone else in this miserable world, this hell come to life.

"Heh. Don't mind her. Tsubaki is still a bit creeped out. She lost her entire family to that fire. Even the slightest mention of death freezes her up. That is why she is sitting in the alleyway, not near the camp out." Maka does not know how what she just said kills me inside. So I have tortured someone, after all. I have accidentally killed someone from the inside out, mentally and emotionally.

I watch in guilt as Liz rushes over with Patty close at her heals to try to comfort Tsubaki from what I have done to her.

"So… anyway," Sais Maka, sensing my unease. "About that cat."