𝖆𝖓𝖎𝖒𝖆 𝖎𝖒𝖒𝖔𝖗𝖙𝖆𝖑𝖊 ━ 𝖑𝖔𝖌𝖆𝖓 𝖍𝖔𝖜𝖑𝖊𝖙𝖙

𝔭𝔯𝔬𝔩𝔬𝔤𝔲𝔢

1850

8-year-old Verena De Luca was lying contently in her bed when she heard the screams from the corridor. It was late at night, her mother had allowed her to stay up to finish reading a book about America. Once she had finished she dowsed the candle next to her and roughly pulled her duvet up to her neck.

She had just laid her head down to sleep when she heard her mother's scream. It was a high pitched shriek, then loud sobs followed, echoing in the hallway. "mio figlio, they've killed mio figlio."

Verena pulled her covers to her face, trembling, a cold sweat starting to form between her eyebrows. She could still hear the sobs from the hallway when her father slammed her door open, with a shotgun in hand. "Get up Rena, we need to go"

Verena quickly pulled the covers off of her and slid out of bed, her white night gown falling to her ankles. She quickly grabbed clothes and packed them in a bag. Her father snatched her bag and wrapped her coat around her, picking up both her and her bag, running to the end of the hallway to pull her sobbing mother off the floor

"Natalia we have to go, we have to leave now Amore Mio"

He takes his wife and daughter leads them out of the house into the snow, Verena furiously shaking from the cold. "Papá, I want to go home"

"We can't go home anymore Tesoro. We're going to Canada, we'll be safe there"

They walked for miles before suddenly Verena dropped to the ground writhing in pain. "Papá, Mamá, Make it stop." She screamed, writhing on the ground in the snow. Everything was on fire and she let out a blood curdling scream.

Then she went quiet.

Blood was dripping in the snow, and Verena looked at the origin of the blood. Three long spikes made of bone are shot out of her knuckles on both hand. She looks down at her feet where she had 2 spikes on her feet, piercing through her boots.

Her mom let out a scream, "what have they done to you" Verena started to cry in fear of the new bone growth.

Her father kneeled in front of her and wiped the tears from her face with his thumb. "It's okay, Tesoro, we'll keep you safe."

They walked even more in the cold, each of them exponentially loosing energy as they trekked in the cold. They stumbled across a village in their final steps and found themselves tripping into an inn. "Please help my family, we just need to make it to the port, we just need a room for a night" her father begged to the clerk.

"Yes, yes of course" the clerk lead them to their room where they barely made it to the bed. Her father tucked her and her mother into bed and waited till they had fallen asleep to take his place on the floor in front of the fire that had taken over the fireplace in the room.

The next morning, the De Luca family continued their trek through the snow until they made it to the fields, and by nightfall, they reached the dock. They managed to make it on the last boat set out for Canada, Matteo De Luca carrying a sleeping Verena on his back as the family boarded the boat.

The De Luca family found solace in Canada, they built a house and built a life for themselves. Verenas mother had her other siblings Isabella and Dante. They were happy.

Till the grief of loosing her older brother, Marco, hit her father like a train. He would come home from work each night, stumbling into the kitchen, taking his anger out on her and her mom.

Verena took the hits though. To protect her mom and siblings. She would never fight back with her claws, scared to cause more harm than good. That was till she realized how fast she healed.