Vital - Book 1 (On hold: to be rewritten)

1. Shadows

Wren Shadow had only ever recieved three gifts in her seventeen years. 

They weren't the type of gifts you could put on your bedside table, or read, or wear, or play with. They weren't the type of gifts you could take to school or show to your friends. You wouldn't put them on your birthday list or your christmas list. These weren't the type of gifts you ask for.

 Morning sunlight streamed in through the windows, reaching around the edge of the thin net curtains- the type that kept no light out whatsoever but seemed to look fancy from the street below. It didn't bother Wren all that much. She never needed her sleep anyway.

She pushed off her cover on her bed and stumbled across the room. The wooden floor was cold under her feet, after the carpet was ripped up to heat the orpahnage during the winter of 2998, her first year at the orpagnage.

She opened the window and leaned out, savouring the rare British sunlight on her face. There was a knock at the door, and the hatch at the base of it opened. Typical, thought Wren, as a tray of porridge slid through. The hatch was hurriedly slid shut. It seemed like the whole world was scared of her now. They won’t even go into my room anymore, she thought, poring the bowl of lumpy porridge down the sink. She’d eat later. 

She stood in the shower, letting the warm water pour over her pale skin while trying and failing to drag a comb through her knotted hair.

Of course there’d been the scientists. Ever since she was abandoned at the orphanage by her terrified mother, scientists had been trying to get hold of her for tests. The problem of this was that scientists couldn't seem to keep their damn mouths shut, so, naturally, the whole world knew about her, and her 'dark and powerful talent' that people couldn't stop talking about but seemed to be scared of at the same time. 

She looked in the mirror as she finished beushing her very dark brown hair. It was curling, as usual, and stood a stark contrast between her pale skin and green eyes. Sighing, she pulled on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt then her blue DMs. She snatched up the scrap of paper that had arrived on the tray, and penciled down a few things she needed; conditioner, bar of soap, 10 pounds phone credit. Not that she needed phone credit. She had no-one to call. In fact, she used her phone more for listening to music and feeling the time then anything else.

The orphanage workers spoiled her rotten, giving her anything she wanted, in exchange for her staying permanently in her room. And she did just that. Or so they thought.

After putting in her earphones and slipping her messenger bag over her shoulder, she clambered onto the window sill and jumped off, landing five storeys down on the quiet back street behind the orphanage. 

She still preferred her old home, Prague, to London; Prague had just been so much prettier. But she’d exceeded the age when the orphanage there stopped looking after kids when she was 15, so she came to London. London had it’s benefits, she supposed as she turned into Regent Street. London was so big and busy; it was easy to blend in. Also, whenever she needed to get out, Regent’s Park was literally a few streets away. 

She stopped at a Pret and brought a breakfast bap, being careful to keep her hood low over her eyes as she payed. 

She looked down at the pavement as she walked, watching the footprints outlined in their usual shining blue ink appear and fade. The lines that created a street map on the pavement were there as usual for her to follow; one of the things she could see and others couldn't.

From the beginning of her life, Wren had been abandoned by her so-called mother. But Wren had always managed to find her way home, thanks to the map on the ground that was always there, in it's shining blue ink. Before she was ten, she couldn't understand that her mother no longer wanted her, so just kept on coming home again and again. But one day, it finally clicked. She lost her mother in the crowd and found her way to the local orphanage, never to see her mother again.