In a world where witches demons and criminals run amuck, nothing is as big of an issue as overpopulation.
It was when the sky turned dark with smoke and the crops shriveled in the fields that finally the government decided to do something- but how...
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While many doctors told her to believe the contrary, Fareen knew in the most clinical sense that she was insane.
No matter of remedial sessions or talking could change that fact, and Fareen was slowly getting sick of being babysitted every waking hour of her day.
While most of the residents of Gardenwood got to enjoy afternoon tea time and babble away to their small toys, Fareen was rotting away at a desk with her scribe. He was supposed to fix her; evaluate her brain and tell her how she went wrong and what had been done to bring her to this low point. Every day after getting inconclusive results he would shove herbs into her hand and instruct her babysitter to take her back to her room.
It was the same waltz for months.
At first Fareen had found Walter, the scribe, amusing. How easily she could upset him, watching his mouth curl and nostrils open with a long exhale of air, his eyes twitching at barely restrained irritation.
Oh walty walty Walter, So fun to mess with.
But then he'd gotten boring.
This place had gotten boring.
Three meals a day of annoyance. With a side dish of long existential laughter every afternoon.
Here she was stuck again, staring at a decaying ceiling with the paint peeling. She'd even named the dead rat in the corner. Desmond. Because it sounded like deadmond.
Laughter bubbles up in her chest as she rolled over on the cold floor, crawling over to Desmond to poke at his tummy and laugh harder as he didn't respond.
"Desy, you're so quiet today." She cooed.
He didn't respond.
She giggled until her throat scratched and the boredom ebbed away just a little. Then she sat up and looked out the window.
"Let me out. Let. Me. Ouuuuutttttt." She yelled to no one. Maybe they could hear her.
Before her sudden lock up, Fareen had been a villain. One of the best, or technically most feared; Crimson Ace. She was the one one who killed fifteen heroes and always managed to dodge her own, who left in the pockets and hands of every one of her dead targets a single ace card.
Someone had turned her in for her insanity, or maybe the CARE program had just finally had enough with her running amuck and ruining their public image.To hell with it, she could do what she wanted. The rules of The Game stated that she had free run to attack anyone she wanted except the hero assigned to her.
Oh, but the very thought of being back out in the streets prowling the shadows made a strange long sigh leave her mouth.
She ached for her axe. She missed her playing cards.
Crawling to the wall adjacent to the small dingy cot that constituted a bed, she scratched another mark with her nails. It was a difficult task seeing as Walter had ordered her nails shortened when she had scratched up her babysitters eyes.
"Gonna get out when the sun goes low, hush little child just let it be so," she hummed.
Fareen would have broken free months ago, save for the insanely heavy security, the presence of cuffs on her wrists every time she left her room, and the thick metal bars screwed Shut to her window. Nothing would get them off, not ramming, pulling, pushing, bending, or chipping away at the plaster below the nails.
As she sat, she let her desperation take her away.
Her mind carried her in fantasies of blood and panic, in doing so whisking away the dusk hours of the day until the moon hovered low in the sky.
Nothing new. Never escaping. Boredom. So bored....
A sudden screech wrenched her attention to the glass looking far down at the foggy streets below her, thick matted red curls covering her face as she tilted her head and slowly stood up.
Bare feet slapped against stone as Fareen crossed to press her hands to the window to see a black figure whisk away just in time, and taking with it the bars that had withheld her freedom.
"Oh, the bogeyman, he comes for me." She muttered, giggling softly, a smile curling at her lips.
Cracks suddenly exploded around her hands as something hard smashed into the glass. This definitely caught some attention, for she heard thick boots stomp closer and closer to her room.
"Bye, Desmond." She whispered mournfully to the corpse in the corner.
Fareen pushed her weight onto the window, feeling the cold glass on her arms, and watched as the world shattered into a million pieces. Then she fell fell fell, until her back hit something rigid and her arm cracked and she tasted leaves and dirt on her tongue.
How long had it been since she's jumped that far?
Adrenaline rushed her tummy as her babysitter's head poked out from the sill three stories above her head, and with a simple little twist of the wrist she waved.
"Tell walter im sorry. It just wouldn't work between us," she called.
The man seemed less than Pleased, and quickly darted into the darkness at his shoulders to call a crew.
Her arm hurt like hell, her head was bleeding and her back was sore, but she was free.
When a voice sounded beside her, she felt herself jolt upwards as instinct rushed to her body.
"Well hello doll. I think it's time you come with me," a thick country accent said. It was sickly sweet and deep, and after a moment Fareen raised her gaze to the boy in front of her.
Gray eyes greeted her, the tap of a cane sharp on cobblestone.
"Oh, it's you, boogeyman. You've finally come for me."
