CHAPTER 1 | A Soaking Wet Urchin

It was a 'more than humble' station if you could even call it that. Nothing more than a collection of rusted metal and wood. The gray of it all was washed out by the strange black-green of the plank floor. Lyra was mostly convinced that its hue was due to some kind of festering mold. There was no hint of charm about the place. But how could a ramshackle house in the middle of the slums be charming?

The weather had worked against the house, too, and the white coats of paint on the building's walls were heavily faded. The windows, too, were shaded with grime that would probably outlive the area's inhabitants. No one had the time to clean it, and even if they did, no one cared enough to try.

It was little more than a trashed piece of garbage in the corner of a shady street. And despite how she loathed it, this all made it an ideal place for Lyra to stay.

She had a feeling the woman who had owned the place was never going to show up again. The idiot had run off in search of some long-lost dream which she had little reason to still believe. And oh, how the neighbors gossiped like mad, about how she was insane and would end up dying of hunger in the streets or worse, be killed and thrown into the sewers to rot. It was probably true though; they were the only places dreaming got you in those wretched dumps. And although Lyra hated gossipers nearly as much as dreamers, she wouldn't have found that place without their unlikely collaboration.

Hoping that chatter wouldn't begin of the filthy urchin that had taken refuge in that even filthier heap of trash, Lyra lived there in secret. She was good at that, at keeping quiet, it was the only way she had survived, the only way she could steal, the only way she could run from a world she hated. Maybe she and the previous tenant weren't so different after all.

*

That night, everything had been shut down in response to the storm. Lyra bit back a whining groan as she grasped her stomach and leaned against the wall. You'd expect an urchin to be used to going hungry, but Lyra was too skilled a thief to starve. She was not wretchedly thin nor was she overweight, and though she wasn't bulky, she was fit, with slender muscles that ran along her limbs. She would've been pretty, too, if it weren't for the muck covering every inch of her skin.

The rain pelted obnoxiously down upon the tin roof, leaking through every crack and crevice, and into the room. Lyra glanced down at herself, and at her soaking clothes. Her sopping black hair hung limply around her face; her dirty grey trousers clung loosely around her form. For a moment, she remembered the feeling that she had buried deep inside of her. For a moment, all she felt was cold and alone.

She hated that feeling. It felt like dying, it felt like taking your last icy breath and letting it sink to your stomach. It felt like letting all your weaknesses and insecurities stab you repeatedly until you bled out on the ground. So, Lyra did what she always did and ignored the feeling until it disappeared. She wouldn't feel sorry for herself, she couldn't, she didn't deserve to.

So, she leaned back against that moldy god-forsaken floor and let the rain roll across that useless roof and fall against her skin.

"I suppose a good washing's been overdue anyways," Lyra muttered to herself.

She drew her attention to the window, water streamed down the pane like a wild river filled with a burning ferocity that she knew laid dormant somewhere within herself. She found comfort in the shifting clouds and the last of the sky's dimming light as the world was painted with dull greys and blacks. She eyed the torrent raging against the window like a lion tearing apart its prey, and Lyra smiled as the storm within her took a tiny step forth.

Lyra's heart was made of iron. It had always been hard to break, but after the constant storms that had ravaged it, even the iron moaned and groaned. Still, it refused to crack. Iron was like that, strong and unchangeable, but unmalleable and closed off. Iron didn't splinter or shatter, but eventually, it rusted into an ugly reddish-orange. And perhaps Lyra only found comfort in the rain because her heart was too rusted for even it to dare touch.

*

The next morning, she awoke to the startling sound of thunder. Her heart pounded, and her mouth set into a frown as the sound of it filled her empty home. Lyra grumbled in contempt. It seemed that the rain would not be ceasing any time soon, but Lyra refused to go hungry another day. So, the girl found her feet, and trekked down the haphazard pavement, towards the forest where she knew she'd find quarry.

Hunching her shoulders against the rain, Lyra felt the drops run through her hair, off her shoulders, then cascade down the back of her neck. She dug her grimy fingers into her pockets and fished out a dagger. Her stomach growled and ached as the overgrown, muddy grass stuck to her ankles and pants. She aimed to ignore the pangs of hunger knotting within her abdomen, for Lyra had simply learned that it was more efficacious to get things done rather than wish things done.

As she stalked through the forest, a putrid smell invaded her nostrils, despite her better judgment, curiosity got the best of her. As she pushed through the dripping foliage, she spotted a bloated carcass lying dead upon the grass, its fur was a dull, almost sickly, white. The creature merely laid there, a withered husk that had drunk up the suffering world around it, wasting away.

The carcass seemed fresh, but it already smelled awful. Lyra's stomach churned as she bent over the creature and examined it. She stopped breathing and felt her heart leap into her throat, her every breath choked and labored. Its innards were seared black as if something of pure malice had been killing it slowly from the inside out. Lyra swallowed the bile slowly climbing up her throat.

Then she felt it, that presence, that creature of pure blood lust standing behind her. Undeterred by the growing storm.

Lyra turned.

And there it was, staring right back at her.