I was alone.

My insides turned to ash and my blood turned as cold as ice. Was this what dying felt like? I couldn't quite recall. It wasn't hard for me to say with certainty that it would hurt less. This pain was raw, excruciating. It tore apart at you from the inside like someone had unleashed a hurricane within the chasm of your chest.

Screaming and crying echoed throughout the streets, a scar that refused to fade pain was. Families still desperately searched for lost loved ones. They already knew full well if you weren't behind Wall Rose already you were as good as dead. Why did they still try? It was fruitless. I covered my ears and curled up against the grungy wall of a deserted alleyway. It was hard to escape the wailing. The remnants of such tragedy would follow us survivors around like our own shadow. Trauma is a constant companion to its victims.

Tears continued to cascade down my face even after the pain morphed from rabid to hollowing. They had been afflicting me every moment since. Sometimes it would just happen and there would be nothing to do to stifle the grief. I had no control. I never did, not once. Not when they came and tore apart my life by its thin seams. Snap. It fell apart so easily, so quickly.

Stop. Get up.

I rose from the fetal position I held, brushing off dirt that had gathered on my pants and wiping away the tears. With a pang I recall what Mother always used to tell me, the most beautiful of flowers bloom in the greatest adversity. The world and its inhabitants had become my enemies. They both were forcing me to my knees, begging for survival. No more. I was going to live and not anyone would stop me.

Promise me! Promise me you'll survive.

Some promises made were constructed to be shattered. Other were forged to be fulfilled.

Norman Kirkland finds me stealing a peach. Mostly I found low risk victims to swipe from, a stale loaf of bread from a basket or a few loose coins that clattered to the ground as I bumped into them. The food shortage was making the population rabid. The week prior I had to claw a man's face to stop him from pummeling me just to get the last bite of my moldy bread. Refugees and others on the street like myself had it the worst. Not only did we have to go hungry for days on end, but our fellow citizens treated us no better than rats. Four months after the breach of the wall and people's sympathies had been depleted like water in a drought.

Usually, I was cautious and handled my thieving with great care. The sight of the peach in the plump woman's hands had been enticing enough to make me reckless. I would have gotten away with it had it not been for the greasy haired crime boss. He had grabbed me by my hair and yanked hard enough that I saw red. After the splintering pain faded, I grew furious and stomped violently on his shiny boot-clad feet. That was my second mistake. Norman punched and kicked at me for a few minutes. I didn't cry, I didn't whimper. I barely reacted. Looking back, that's probably what kept me alive.

"You're one tough cookie, little rat," he had said with a sneer that raised the hair on my arms. His eyes concealed something sinister as he picked up my chin. I willed my face to remain passive. "How'd you like to fight for good ol' Kirkland here?"

I glared straight ahead, barely registering his presence.

"There's something in it for, food and maybe a bed if you win enough."

Norman had gained my attention and he reveled in that. He knew how to take advantage of a starving orphan, "What do you say to that, brat?"

I nodded. Another nasty smile later and I was up on my feet, hand in his and being led out of the alleyway he had dragged me into.

I wish I would've spit in his face instead.

I met May after one catastrophic fight left my face in tattered ruins. She was fairly adept at cloaking herself deep into the shadows and I never noticed her until her hands were skillfully stitching my torn skin back together. Her hands were fluttering all over the place like the wings of a hummingbird. I took in the callouses adorning her knuckles. May was not gentle when she mended my wounds, she was firm and little harsh. Maybe had this been a different time in my life I would've have thanked her. Instead I brushed her help away as soon as I could sit upright. I had no time to be indebted to little girls who would go missing at the end of the month like they always did.

My job in the Underground was not to make friends. It was to win fights and provide Norman with a pretty penny.

Somewhere along the line it got worse. Norman threw me into fights with odds that saw me losing with severe consequences. He paid me less, fed me less, and eventually he took away the blanket and cot he had provided me with. All the while I was a bruised canvas with splintering ribs and bleeding color. I was able to heal myself fairly well with only my own hands and minimal supplies. I set my broken bones back into place and used old, musty clothing that I had outgrown as bandages.

The next day I was absolutely pummeled by a man twice my size. Usually I fought other street kids, but Norman said it was time for me to move up to the big leagues. He told me I had an aptitude for fighting, and while that may have been true, my wit and agility did little against pure brawn. These were hardened men who had probably spent most of their lives snapping kids like me in two like a twig. A scrawny and malnourished girl had nothing on them, not even with an incredible tolerance for pain and a sharpened mind able to usurp the older and stronger kids. My finely honed survival skills did nothing to ward off this giant's fists as they dove into my face.

May was there to drag away my ruined form from the ring. This time I bat away her hands with my fading strength. Anger bubbled in my chest like molten lava ready to burst from a volcano. How can you be so weak? My body ached with fiery anguish as I attempted to bring myself to my feet.

May sat me back down and pulled out her little wooden box of medical tools she had scrounged from careless doctors above-ground. She looked solemn as she brushed her hand against my swollen face, "You need me."

"I don't need anybody," I spat, trying to crawl away from her kindness.

"Yes you do," she said, sounding a little fiercer this time.

There was this naivety about May, her innate need to help every suffering child here was foolish. She refused to see the nefarious people who meandered about in this hub of criminals and orphans. But, she also radiated this certain shade of toughness. How she always insisted on defending the younger kids reminded me that if a mother bear. I think some part of me admired this little girl with her flimsy ideals and strong words.

"I'm going to probably have to set several of your bones back into place and apply some antiseptic to prevent infection," May said, assessing the damage with an intense gaze. "It's going to hurt."

"It already does," I replied. She pulled out a small jar of transparent liquid. I tried to keep the surprise from leaping on my face, most medicine was crude even in the hands of experienced medical practitioners. This seemed to be a step up. "Where'd you get that?"

She grinned impishly, "Norman has me steal drugs and run them to customers. Sometimes I swipe a little something extra."

May began to press the antiseptic into my wounds and I hissed despite myself. The liquid stung as it burrowed itself into my bleeding and torn skin. My broken bones came next. I barely allowed myself to flinch even in the slightest. The pain was almost overwhelming but I shoved down the cries erupting into my throat. She finished my bandaging me up.

"All finished," she said, humming a little tune as she cleaned up.

I sat there in silence for a moment, contemplating my next words with care. "Thanks," was all that I managed to force out.

May smiled a warm flash of teeth that reminded me of the sunflowers that used to bloom around the forest in summer. From that point onwards she called me friend.

As I grew older and the fights became more violent, I understood I wasn't going to be able to stay here forever. Norman was a businessman, and if one of his orphans wasn't making enough money he'd do away with him. I'd seen some of my fellow fighters be dragged away from our cots in the sewers in the dead of night. In the morning there would be no trace of them except for the telltale stain of blood. It was only a matter of time before I faced the same fate. My body just couldn't hold up to the beatings anymore, the lack of food and water weakened me considerably.

Aboveground, May told me, the food shortage only worsened. She'd seen people whose bones jutted out from underneath their worn clothing and that their skin sagged from their bodies. The mere thought of the famine sickened me. I could only imagine the refugees looked like the walking dead. Was the same to happen to us? Or had it already begun? In the near two years I had spent in the underground I had never once come across a mirror. Perhaps the stray puddle, but never the reflective glass of a mirror. I didn't know what I looked like. May said I looked haunting and gaunt, that I reminded her of a ghost. Maybe that's what I was becoming, a ghost.

Eventually, Norman pulled from the ring and had me and the other girls relocated. It was about a two day journey to the innermost edge of Wall Rose and we arrived to one of Norman's private estates. The maids, timid and frail once sighting our escorts, led us through the garden into the back shed. The men, our escorts, watched us with a vigilance that made my skin crawl. They stroked the butts of their guns and the hilts of their daggers and licked their lips. Once inside the shed the maids scurried away, wan with fear. I couldn't blame them, I felt queasy with fear despite myself. The other girls remained ignorant to the glint in their eyes but I knew. This was the greed of men. They would take and take, never giving and never stopping.

One man made to grab for Victory, a girl of ten with bottle curls that bounced when she laughed and rosy cheeks that shone when she smiled. She was the essence of pure in an almost angelic sense. That was about to be ripped from her. The man began to drag her outside, purring as she began to cry. Another man halted him, he was smaller and his eyes were beady with apprehension.

"Boss said that they were to be left untainted," he said, licking his lips nervously. "Said that our buyer don't like spoiled goods."

"The only thing that's bein' spoiled is my good time," the other growled.

"You really wanna test Mr. Kirkland's patience?"

Victory was shaking like a leaf as the man who held her in his viper grip tossed her back into the shed. The little girl yowled as she landed on her wrist with a crack! May was there in an instant, massaging away the pain and attempting to make a makeshift splint. She wiped away Victory's pearly tears and sang to her in a hushed voice. The girl's cries dulled into whimpers and silence fell over the shed.

I avoided looking the other girls in the eyes, trying not to feel guilty for not being able to stop what was to come. There was no way I could fight off my own fate and their's. I could only run and hope that it wouldn't catch up with me.

The sun rose and as it spread its light across the sky my heart sank. The dawn brought about what I had been dreading. I had to save myself. It took all my willpower to swallow the bitter feeling in my throat turn away from all these little girls. In the that moment I realized that I, too, was just a little girl. Perhaps I was something older trapped in a fragile body, but I couldn't avoid the way I was shaking. There were certain things that I couldn't deny my fear towards. Death was one of them, and this, a fate worse than that eternal end, was another one.

I picked up my body which was heavy with feeling. I wanted to exterminate those feelings inside me and leave myself blank. I wanted to restart, to leave behind all the grief and love and terror storming inside my chest. There were things I wanted to forget, to erase from existence, that couldn't be. Memories were branded on me and would follow me everywhere I ran. My past would always catch with me, I realized.

Stop it. STOP IT! JUST LEAVE ME ALONE.

May's face bore into my own and saw what lay beneath. The girl peered at me with pity and understanding. I think in that moment she burrowed herself within the depths of my soul and felt the tremors as it broke into a thousand little pieces. I shoved her out by looking away and heading towards the door. I never quite understood or knew who I was. There was no way to decipher the rhyme or reason behind my emotions or my reactions. It just was. Now, I decided who I was going to be. I was no longer that meek little girl, I was going to be more. I was a survivor, and if that made me a villain and coward as well, then so be it. I made a promise and I was going to keep it whatever the cost.

I opened that door and I didn't look back.

(a/n);

I hope you enjoyed reading this despite the shitty quality! I really love Wisteria's character and I'm hundred percent ready to delve deeper into her character. The next chapter you'll find out what happens to May and the other girls. You'll also see what happens to Wisteria in the wake of all of this and what she decides to do.

Feedback is much appreciated!