Ace's stepfather silently drove them to the grand house near the Blue Phantom's Lake in Broken, Arrow, California. This is where Ace and her family lives. Well, her family used to live here. Now all she has is the man who ripped her life from her hands in an instant of gunfire and blood.

Ace's stepfather helped her out of the car. "I hope you're happy." He growled. "Look what you did to me." He motioned to his face. The dried blood was hardening on his wrinkling face. Ace couldn't respond. She didn't even remember who he was for a second, but it came back to her in a blurry memory of screaming and pain. He was the man she hated for her whole life. She threw her whole being into despising him.

The little girl was helped out of the car roughly. He didn't care for her, he wanted her gone. He wanted the money. Young Ace's blue eyes moved lightly around the house. It was old, but huge and pretty. The wooden floors creaked under her polished black shoes and Ace was led into her bedroom, up a staircase of spiraling wooden stairs that led up to a pretty yellow room.

The sunlight wafted into the room both eerily and beautifully. Ace was led to the bed, where she crookedly sat down. Ace Black was left alone in the room, alone with nothing but her partial thoughts and a head full of memories that were broken and in disrepair. Toys were scattered about the room. Someone had lived here once. That someone was Ace, but she hadn't truly lived, hiding the man who pretended to love her. She stayed locked in her yellow room, playing with her toys.

Imaginary friends danced with her until the sun came up. Sun fairies played on the rays of light until they too died away and the black of night overcame Ace's room. The dim glow of the waning moon filled the room, and Ace was left alone. She'd always been alone, she realized.

Ace's memory came back to her in bits and pieces as she repaired her mind by herself. She remembered the screams of her sister when she'd been killed. She remembered when she'd been told her mother was dead. She remembered her sister's optimistic smile that lit up a room. A smile you'd only come upon maybe three times in a lifetime. Little Ace was left alone in that dismal and decaying room by herself.

She'd ponder on memories and play in the corners of her mind, losing herself within herself for hours and days at a time. When Ace would come out of her fazes, she might find the willpower to stand. She'd be pushed down again as fragile as a rag doll, but Ace was determined.

It was on a windy, rainy November day when Ace found her spirit. She'd come out of one of her illusions, and Ace saw things… differently. She stood, and lifted her glass-white hand. She gently lifted her hand to open the brass door handle. The little girl's face was sunken and pale. She looked older than the little seven year old she was. Ace slowly opened the creaking door, and her polished black shoes took one slow step at a time down the spiraling staircase. The house looked dim. The once beautiful flowered wallpaper was peeling and cracked from lack of care. The house looked unused and smelled of stale cigarettes and emptiness.

Ace took one step down the creaking stairs, then another. Her porcelain hand slid down the splintering wooden rail. Her icy blue eyes spoke sadness and grief, although her mouth couldn't move to speak. She stopped at the end of the stairs and looked around the main room.

A broken white couch sat rotting in the dented floor. The green paint had faded and become more beige than anything and most furniture was broken or old, even dangerous. Toys lay randomly scattered on the floor. Always-smiling jesters with their painted smiles and teddy bears with matted and unruly fur with only one eye or a patch on its arm stared at her through beaded eyes.

Ace looked at them sadly with her pale face and walked forward. She walked towards the white door, freedom beckoning to her. But that all stopped with the slam of a door and a loud voice calling her back.

"Little girl… where do you think you're going?" Yelled Ace's stepfather. "Nowhere." Said Ace in a fragile and high voice that seemed to fit her in an eerie way. He was shocked. "You can't be out here. YOU AREN'T SUPPOSED TO BE ALIVE!" He yelled, and it shattered both Ace's soul and her will.

"I try to starve you out! I GODDAMNED LOBOTOMIZED YOU!" He yelled, his voice cracking. "I try to thirst you to death. How are you still here?!" He commanded, and Ace said nothing. Her white hair fell into her eyes eerily, and she turned slowly towards him, facing him.

She reached out a hand to him almost in the way someone would ask for something. Ace's stepfather collapsed.

Ace possessed a power many of us can only cower in fear of.

And it just killed a man.