The Vulture King

Enna has something in common with the young Lorenzo de' Medici: no one mourns her father's death. But Lorenzo lives in a palace, surrounded by family and friends, holding the future of Florence in his very hands; Enna, instead, has no one and nothing left, including the reins of her own life.

She has to come face to face with the Grim Reaper before she finds hope, and a new place to call home. She's not a child anymore, but she fits in with the orphans and foundlings living at the 'Spedale degli Innocenti'. It's a hard life, still not harder than the one she's known on the streets.

However, something unsettling is unfolding inside the walls of the hospital, and Enna discovers the existence of something worse than the Reaper himself, something darker. Bloodthirsty creatures with uncanny features steal children in the night, though no one else seems to notice, or care.

Enna is the only person truly willing to unravel the mystery, to save innocent lives, and above all, she shall not wait quietly for her turn to vanish.

With a criminal dwarf as unlikely ally, she shall stand against a nightmare.

- Entry for The Open Novella Contest 2019