Prologue

The night was dark; an almost deathly haze surrounded the entire house. The little girl in her room quivered as hushed screams came from downstairs. She knew what was happening; her mother and father were fighting again. It was a usual occurrence in her life.

She grabbed hold of her blue stuffed bear and hugged it tightly. " Why do they always do this?" she whispered sadly to her toy, " Why can't they be more like you and Mrs. Blue."

Receiving no answer from the inanimate object, she simply lay in her bed and tried to sleep. A few hours later, the little girl still couldn't sleep. The noise her parents made kept her up all the while. They were getting louder now but then the arguing abruptly stopped.

"That's not good." she whispered to herself, "Let's go see what's going on, Mr. Blue."

She grabbed the stuffed bear and quietly trudged out of her room and passed her guards. She had become familiar with their routines so it was easy for her to outsmart them. After all, she was a Hwang, and a Hwang is not an idiot.

Her mother drilled it into her head so many times since she was old enough to talk. Now at ten years old, she was the top of her class and she was also well-trained with weapons. She didn't understand why she was being trained to be best but she did what she was told without complaint. The scars on her brother's body were enough to warn her of the consequences of disobedience.

As she tiptoed down the stairs, the sound of her older brother's voice made her freeze in her place. "Holy crap-nuts." she cursed. His voice faded so she knew she was in the clear. She was meant to be sleeping at this time.

A quick glance at the hall and she was off to her mother's office. As she got closer, she heard muffled pleads and all the hairs on her body stood on edge. She felt the darkness surrounding the room and it seeped into her soul.

"This is bad." she whispered to her teddy bear.

Slowly, she pushed open the door and withheld a gasp. Her mother was holding a gun to her father's head. "This is the last time you cheat on me, Charlie." she whispered in a pained voice. Her father's face paled.

He stared at the shiny surface of her weapon before falling to his knees. "You don't have to do this."

Tears flowed down her eyes as she forced out a heavy breath, aiming the gun at his head, "If only that was true."

The little girl let her tears fall. "No mommy." she whispered quietly. She didn't dare enter, knowing that her mother was not in the best state of mind right now.

"Goodbye, Charlie. I love you." her mother sobbed.

"Aniva! NO!" was the last thing Charlie said before a bullet made home in the middle of his skull and he fell to the ground a dead man.

"DADDY!" the girl screamed and ran into the room. She ignored Aniva's frantic and insistent mumblings and hung onto the dead body of her father. Through blurry eyes, she glared at her mother and sneered, "You monster!"

Aniva took a look at her hands and the gun in them and without even saying goodbye to her daughter, she put the gun in her mouth and shot the last bullet.