The Runaway Huntress

CHAPTER 1

Bang! Bang!

       The gunshots made her stop on her tracks as she looks behind, though already kilometres away from them. "No! Dad! No!"

      She suddenly woke up, panting heavily. She had dreamt of it again. It's been five years and yet the memory always haunts her. The guilt of leaving her parents behind to save herself devours her. The pain left her numb and void inside. Since she can't sleep anymore, she got out of bed and went to the bathroom.

    Facing the sink, she turned on the water and splashed the cold liquid to her face. Looking herself up on the mirror, water dripping from her chin. Then turn to her dead eyes, slowly coming alive as golden rings like rays of the sun about to set is staring back at her, a sight anyone could gasp for. The burning yellow formed in her black pupils as memories flashed. Even the cleanest, coldest of water, can't tame her raging anger. The scenes haunt her even when she's wide awake.

      "Mom!" The cries of an eight-year-old girl, her mother held captive by two strange men that suddenly barged in their home.

     "Get to your daddy, sweetie. Go to him!" Melicia pleaded for her daughter to escape.

     "Go! You need to listen to me! Please, save yourself. Run Melisca! Run!"

     The child followed her mother's request. Her little feet shouldn't be taken lightly for she has the speed of a wolf.

    Another memory shifted when she was barely eighteen.

     "I said run!" Her father shouted, holding down his brother.

        "No! I'll fight with you!" She stated bravely.   

       "Your mother wanted you to live. Don't put it for nothing, Melisca! Only know that we both love you endlessly. Go! Run for your life! Leave!" Cabril can't hold his brother down much longer.

       With tears of hopelessness, she turned around and started running away for her life.

      She closed her eyes, as she shuts down the memories that engraved her mind. Faces of her parents pleading for her life, their cries for her to escape, repeatedly crushing her inside. Even gasping for air is painful enough. Hot tears she didn't know that has been bottled up, sliding down her pale cheeks. Hatred is even an understatement of what she felt by then. She exhaled heavily, to somehow ease the pain of her constricting chest.

      Haven't noticed that her grip on the sink made the concrete crumble, and blood dripped from her hands down to the tiled floor.  Opening her eyes, gradually, the yellow faded, wishing that pain would go along with it, but it remained deep within her soul, she can almost taste in the air her greed for revenge, the boiling sensation, erupting inside her. Though reeking of spicy anger, she welcomed the feelings for it's what only keeping her alive, the courage to breathe beyond the guilt that is suffocating her. She places her hands in the running water, watching her own blood flashed down, she thought that soon it would be their blood that she's cleansing away from her bare hands. Then the cuts closed itself. But her soul could never be healed, laying inside her in broken shards.

       She trotted out of the bathroom and went to the terrace. The apartment she's temporarily staying is just a shabby one, as the whole building. She won't be there for long, arrived yesterday, only there to capture someone. A wanted criminal for killing his wife in jealousy.

     Melisca Lorwey is a bounty hunter, she works for the authorities. She started four years ago when she saw on TV an ad about a missing criminal with a large amount on his head, giving it a shot since she's only living by herself and can't get a stable job.