Hex

Prologue: Goodbye

A girl with bright green hair was sprinting down the dirty alleyways of Zaun as quickly as her relatively short legs could carry her.

Everyone in their band of misfits apart from the smallest trio of kids had gone to rescue Vander, who had apparently been kidnapped by Silco's men. Then Powder had gone to help. And the girl, whose hurrying footfalls echoed in the empty streets, had been left alone with Ekko.

Finally, there were explosions in the Shimmer factory. Brighter and louder than any of the enforcers' explosions during the battle on the bridge...

And she couldn't leave them. Couldn't leave her second family to die like her first.

It had started raining and every footfall caused a mini tsunami in the puddles under her feet.

Running out to the back of the huge building, she stopped in her tracks completely.

It seemed like her brain took far too long to process the image before her. Once she knew what was going on, however, she wanted to unsee it.

Vander, in the form of those mutated, shimmer monsters lay dead before her feet. He was unmistakably Vander, however. Lying in a pool of his own blood. Her father, the person who had saved her after her real father had died.

She fell weeping onto his chest. Rain and tears rolled down her face. She didn't know what had happened, she didn't want to know. All she knew is that her world was broken. She wished she could feel nothing, but she wasn't so lucky. She thought she could imagine the glass shards of her broken heart cutting into her flesh.

Opening her eyes, she could see through the tears Vi and Powder a little way's away. Apparently they hadn't seen her, as they were screaming at one another. She didn't think she could scream now.

Then, Vi was running away, in the opposite direction of Vander's body. And Powder was screaming for her to come back. Before collapsing back into sobs, Powder finally noticed the girl on Vander's body. Her best friend, maybe apart from Vi. But Vi had gone and neither knew for how long.

Powder collapsed in a fit of sobs as well and none of them noticed as Silco came up from behind them with a knife.