When Earth Turns To Ashes

The Girl With Too Many Secrets

A single backpack was all it took to carry everything of Selene's old life. It carried all the money from her bank account- which wasn't much; the only letter her mother had ever written her; Some clothes; a picture of Selene and some distant family she couldn't remember; her small braided bracelet; and some tools in the hopes of gaining a job as a mechanic. Everything else she didn't want.

She left no note. She told no one of her leaving. She would have bet money that they wouldn't even figure out her absence for a couple days. Her disappearance would be a blessing they would probably thank her for.

No one would miss her. Not Adri. Not Pearl. Not Garran. Not Cress. Not anyone from school. Not her teachers. Not even Kinney. Everyone would move on with their lives, forget her and her pitiful existence. But she would never be able to escape them, not really; just like how she couldn't escape her own mother. Their words would graffiti her mind, reminding her of all her faults and how she could never truly be loved.

You did a terrible thing. You killed Peony, and you're going to pay for it.

Hadn't she already paid? The pain of grief was enough to kill her. The knowledge of what she had done was the worst torture.

When we're done with the, you'll be nothing but dust and ashes and cinders.

How can you destroy something that has nothing left to demolish? How can you wound something that's already dead inside?

You deserve this, Selene. You deserve the darkest and most fiery places of hades domain.

She already lived in Hell, so what difference would it make?

You're a freak; a sociopath. Do you even know what love is?

How could one know love if they have never received any?

I don't even know why you stay here. No one wants you.

Monsters were always unwanted, that was why they were chased away with pitchforks and fire. But what did you do when you yourself was an uncontrollable monster?

Selene shook herself, trying to chase away their words, but she knew that they would stick with her forever. They were what made her the broken girl she was just as much as her name. Echoes of anger and sorrow would forever call throughout her mind and in her nightmarish dreams of what Hell was supposed to look like.

Acceptance would be the path of least resistance in Selene's case.

Towns flashed by as Selene's bus moved at high speeds. The original plan was for her to move to Portland, but she knew that it was too close, too familiar. She had lived with two different Foster Families in Oregon, and someone might remember her. She couldn't let anyone know her name.

In the end, her going to Colorado was something of a lucky chance. She'd never been in living memory, though she knew that it was her birthplace. She hoped that no one would know her.

Slinging the backpack over her shoulders, Selene had no regrets- except for one. She wished she had been able to save Peony; Ran as well. They were the misfortunes that followed her, and now that she knew where Selene was, she had to leave once and for all and never come back. No one could ever again know where Selene Lihn was; it was too dangerous.

That was one of the reasons why Selene was going to disappear forever.

Cinder Lihn, on the other hand, was not wanted by anyone. She was the fresh start that Selene needed. She was a new opportunity, a phoenix risen from the ashes of her catastrophic past.

Selene would never say her name aloud again, for it was a curse that only destroyed everything that she loved. Her name was a brand, and with her new name, she would finally be set free.