Gasping for air, Edlatine fondly known as Ed awoke with her heart pounding loudly in her ears. For a moment, Ed was completely and utterly confused of the whereabouts of her, but this was neither heaven nor hell.

Ed cracks her dry eyes open and blearily glances around. Her surroundings appear as if many Asian cultures were meshed together. From the architecture to the people walking about in the open street she easily spots hints of Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Indian, Turkish and various other styles mixed in wonderful exquisite mix of cultures.

Vendors shout in the streets in a language, which to her own surprise Ed can clearly understand. But couldn’t recall such a language ever existing on Earth. The smell of spices fills the air as she notices familiar foods on the street: Takoyaki, Curry, Samosa, Jiao Zi, and so many other foods being sold in the open street.

Ed warily scans the surroundings as she sniffs the air and her stomach rumbles with hunger. Given her current inexplicable circumstances, she cautiously climbs to her feet.

Ed winces as she climbs to her feet and only manages a weak hobble by leaning against the alley wall as a crutch. Her face twists as she futilely attempts to not breathe the stank and wades through the street filth.

She continues to venture further and further into the alley as far away from the open street as possible. For now, Ed just wants a place where she can rest and think. The alleyway seems to stretch for an eternity until she at last sees the blue sky beyond the buildings horizon.

Ed slows down as she reaches the end of the alleyway and edges slowly towards the edge. Years of survival instincts that was forcibly drilled into her take over. Ed’s eyes flicker cautiously as she observes her surroundings. By luck or perhaps something else entirely, beyond the alleyway lays a dense forest.

Ed turns for a moment and looks back at the alleyway and the forest. The alleyway provides little protection and no possible food sources, whereas the forest could possible provide food and some means of protection. Yet the forest is currently amidst spring time and she has severe allergies. And could possibly die of a severe allergic reaction again. However, remaining in the alley meant certain death.

Having finished considering the possible outcome, Ed hobbles as best as she could across the open area and into the forest. She sniffs unhappily as she enters the forest and carefully pushes her way through the first brush. The brush rubs against her for a moment as it reluctantly releases her.

Ed stiffens for a moment and holds in a shriek of pain as she glances slowly down at her foot. A thick thorn had easily pierced through the thin straw sandals on her feet. Ed clenches her teeth as she painfully removes the thumb-sized thorn from her foot as she screams silently in the back of her throat.

Having nothing to cover her wound, Ed rips off the lower seam of the ragged, dirty pant leg and bandages her foot, before continuing one her way. Much more cautious, Ed carefully places one foot in front of the other before taking another step across the ground.

Time passes slowly on her journey as minutes seem hours, but the shadows tell another story stating that only an hour has passed by. Ed finally exits the thick dense forest and finds a small clearing. A small pond lies in the middle of the clearing.

Rather than rushing out into the clearing and drinking her fill, Ed sits down on a thick tree root and waits. The hours go by and finally a female doe appears from the tree clumps and trots towards the pool. The doe drinks her fill before darting back into the forest as swiftly as she came.

Ed with calm, experienced eyes continues to survey the clearing for any further signs of the clearing being a trap. The forest grows dark and as the shadows lengthen, Ed slowly crawls into the clearing as she keeps close to the ground. As best as she could, Ed scuttles to the pond and begins to scoop the questionable clean water into her mouth and drinks it slowly.

After having drunk as much as she could, Ed craws back the way she came. Unable to find a place of shelter, she huddles under the branches of large tree at the edge of the clearing. Her stomach grumbles loudly in protest as Ed tries to make her sore body as comfortable as possible against the tree roots.

Ed digs her nails around some loose tree bark from the tree trunk and with some effort manages to tear the bark off. She munches on the bark slowly and shrugs at its taste. She had eaten far worse at times to survive. With a grumbling sigh, her stomach unhappily accepts the meal placed before it.

Completely exhausted both mentally and physically, Ed closes her eyes and falls into a deep slumber that only a child’s body can enact. Animals come and go during the night, but nothing out of the ordinary appears. And most importantly, nothing approaches nor awakens the slumbering child.

Yet all during her restless sleep, Ed dreams of a girl named, Ame.

Birds happily chirp their little hearts out as Ed awakens. Ed grumbles loudly and opens her eyes to the sunlight coming through the trees. She closes her eyes for a moment as she enjoys the sunlight until her nose sniffs with unease at the pollen in the air.

Ed stiffens against the tree as her eyes fly wide open and almost twitch at their current location. Her eyes roved all over the place until she lowered her gaze to her current body. The body seems to be wearing tattered rags that not even a desperate wild animal would want. From the tears in the clothing, she can easily see severe bruising across the flesh.

It couldn’t be, could it? It simply wasn’t scientifically possible. But no matter how much, Ed thought about her current predicament, she could not find a single rational explanation.

With a painful sigh, Ed climbs to her feet and carefully heads out into the clearing. Taking a bath always seems to help and her body is in desperate need of one. Ed yawns tiredly as she hobbles across the clearing and begins to strip carefully to protect any further tearing from happening to her clothes.

Ed’s thin body shivers slightly at her undressing, but she’s bathed in worse climates and places. With a slight hiss, Ed wades into the pond and begins to scrub her body. With great relief as she cleans herself, she discovers that she is still of the female gender.

Her mind automatically returns to a time long ago, 11-11-20XX, T-Day, the day the world collapsed. On that day, Ed, a young student studying Mechanical Engineering and Physics was attending a military seminar. Being on a military base, when the first wave of mutants hit was the only reason she survived.

However, her parents and her older brother had not. It had been over 30 years, since they had perished and she no longer remembered their faces. Her memories of them had faded much like one’s childhoods do as memories become like long forgotten dreams.

After T-Day, any individual possessing certain skills was immediately drafted into the military as one of the many much-needed personnel. Ed was immediately assigned to the Weapons Department with the primary job of research and creation of weapons to combat the mutants.

The years went by and though humanity could produce military weapons that were simply unfathomable, in the end, they simply weren’t enough. No cure was ever found and the preventive vaccine for the Virus T was still in its trial phase, when the final base of humanity fell.

All hands went on deck for even the scientists on base were active combatants. Every member of the base went to the surface to fight valiantly for humanity, yet only Ed refused to go. Her fellow scientists glared at her with hatred for her callousness, but Ed remained unmoved by their words as they all left to their certain deaths.

For many years, Ed had been creating a device known as “The Gate.” Its primary function was to create a gate to another location, a teleportation device had it ever succeeded. However, Ed had theorized that if a single miscalculation had occurred, the gate would unleash an unstable wave of quantum particles and dangerous energies that would cause a space-time distortions and wipe out a large radius of the surroundings. The aftereffects can only be imagined but not fully determined.

Knowing this, Ed still proceeded with her research. If humanity couldn’t win, then Ed would ensure that all their enemies would be dragged to hell with them. However, Ed had vastly underestimated and miscalculated, the gate had not only ripped through the base for miles around, but tore through the very fabric of time and space.

Ed sneezes from the pollen in the air as she climbs out of the cold water. Shivering slightly in the morning as she waits for her body to dry.

Ed feels her head hurt for a moment as she lets out a soft sigh full of mixed emotions and closes her eyes to think. She most certainly died yesterday in the blast. But this body was hers and yet it was not.

Ed theorized that the body of an infant could not handle her full consciousness. Naturally it would take years for her personality to awaken given her prior deaths traumatizing circumstances in addition to the time needed for the body to be able to support her mind’s complete manifestation.

Ed opens her eyes in understanding of her current predicament. Her current self was a child named Min Ame. Her father was a nobleman known as Min Hee and her mother was the second wife, Ayako. Her biological mother did not care for Ame and as such, since birth a young maid by the name of Sada had been Ame’s caretaker.

There existed two other wives, the first wife, Ehuang and the third wife, Nuo. The first had given birth to a daughter and a son, HuiFeng and Hong. Whilst the third wife remained barren. The relationship between Ame and the two wives and her elder siblings wasn’t terrible as they appeared to be amiable towards each other.

Shortly before Ame’s 5th birthday, she had been taken by a thief belonging to certain gang posing as a manor’s manservant. Being so young and small had been the saving grace that allowed Ame to escape the drunk thief to busy celebrating. Too small to understand, she found herself lost and alone on the streets.

Ame perhaps by instinct pretended to be a boy as she took to petty theft and begging to survive. It was logically speaking far safer to be a boy on the streets than a girl. Not that being a boy was any safer, but there was a far lesser chance of being taken to become a plaything.

Ed opens her eyes and sniffs unhappily to herself as she glances at her lower body. She found bruises and wounds on her upper thighs. From the fragmented memories, she had escaped badly hurt and promptly died alone on the street.

Very well, since she is living now on the world known as Sen, she will live as the third young mistress of the Min Household, Min Ame. But first she had a few old scores to settle.

Ame sighs to herself as she climbs to her feet and dresses herself. She sniffs unhappily at putting on the dirty clothes, but she has no choice given that this is all the clothing she possesses. As she puts on the clothes, she notices a small pocket sewn into the clothing that, she had not noticed before.

The pocket contains a small pencil sized knife, a rusty looking black ring, a glowing rock and a small jade pendent. Without hesitation, Ame slips the ring onto her right hand to prevent its loss.

Ame tilts her head as she closes her eyes and tries to remember any information on the person who had killed the child. The information slowly pours into her mind, Gamon, a low-level street thug, who had suspected Ame of being a female and was ironically part of the gang searching for her.

A night ago, the thug had managed to corner the child. It would have never had happened if the child had stuck to her usual route, but Ame had heard about a caravan planning to leave for Chiseong. And thought to steal a rare-looking stone that had being attained by blacksmith and sell it to an appraiser to pay for her way.

The thrill of being able to finally go home caused the child to lower her guard. Though the theft was successful, the child did not pay attention to her surrounding as she escaped and ran into Gamon. Both, drunk and bored, he decided to confirm for himself his suspicions and pursued the child. And though, he was successful in confirming his suspicions, the child still managed to escape with an inch of her life still intact.

Ame opens her eyes and lets out a small exasperated sigh. What a grand mistake, but humans are all the same. Once triumph is in sight, man loses track of his unguarded back.

Ame glances down at the jade and spirit stone in her pocket. Though she could easily return home now, she was not in a habit of leaving lose ends. She frowns to herself as she remembers her current appearance.

Without hesitation, she kneels by the pond and grabs clumps of mud. Soon, Ame’s face and hair is covered in grime. Only glancing at her appearance in the pond leaves her satisfied. Before leaving the area, she grabs some bark for breakfast, before once more hobbling away.

*

A portly man slaps a rough looking man, leaving a large red ring marks on his face.

Gamon holds his anger in as he bows before he replies to the boss, Yo.

Yo narrows his piggy eyes at Gamon and roars, “This is your last chance, Gamon. Find the girl or else.”

Gamon deepens his bow and replies, “Yes, boss. But why the hurry?”

Yo snorts and leans back in his seat. “That is none of your business, but someone is willing to pay through the nose to get that girl. Is that understood? No mistakes,” Yo growled as he narrowed his beady eyes at Gamon.

Yo could not permit another failure. And though he had killed the idiot who lost the girl, it had barely quelled the lord’s anger. This time, failure is not an option.

Gamon presses his lips tightly together and says, “Yes, boss. I will have all the men and street rats on the lookout for the girl.”

Yo, satisfied at the response, leans back and dismisses Gamon with a wave of his hand. As Gamon rises to his feet, a trio of scantily clad woman sashay into the room with food and wine in their arms. Yo’s full attention is on the women as he leers at them. He only turns his attention away once to glare at Gamon to shut the door.

Gamon softly closes the door as he curses the perverted, fat man. Gamon vows to himself, that once he captures the girl, he will kill the boss. Then, he will be the one with all the riches and beautiful women in his arms.

Content with his dreams, Gamon exits the building and gathers his subordinates. He orders them to leave no stone unturned and to find the girl at all costs. Or else, they would end up like the last street rat that crossed him.

Said street rat had merely bumped into Gamon during one of his moods. Not only was the poor street rat beaten, but later was sold to a Parlor of Pain. And no living being lasts more than 3 months at a Parlor of Pain.

After hearing Gamon’s words, all the men gulp in understanding of the dire consequences that awaited them if they failed. The men rush into the streets and gather the street rats and send them to scurry every corner of the street.

*

The day soon becomes night and Gamon still had not received word. By this late hour, Gamon is certain it is only a matter of time, before the new of success arrived. Without worry or care, Gamon heads to the Plum Inn to have a drink and some fun.

The atmosphere at the Plum Inn is good as men were laughing and drinking loudly as they held women in their arms. Gamon fondles a woman’s chest as he drinks and drinks the night away. Unaware of the passage time, Gammon rather drunkenly says, “I’ll be back. I gotta go take a piss.”

The men laugh as Gamon tosses the indignant woman onto the floor and exits the inn. Somehow, Gammon managed to stagger out onto the empty street. Still staggering, he manages to walk a bit further down the alley, before pulling down his pants. A soft trickling sound is heard as he sighs with relief.

Gamon hears a soft rustle much like a cat’s, but before he can move, he feels a red-hot burning sensation in his back that just as swiftly disappears. Furious, Gammon pulls up his pants and turns around to face his opponent. His eyes widen in the darkness as he finds no one, before him. A cold wet liquid spreads down his back causing him to shiver.

Before he can move, a terrible pain erupts in his groin area as Gammon lets out a scream of pain. Gamon falls to the ground and touches his groin to find a gush of blood pouring out. Gamon lets out a scared whimper as he raises his eyes.

Gamon’s eyes widen in understanding and fear at the small figure in front of him. Gamon swallows and says, “You’ll never get away with this! You’re merely a street brat! Boss will kill you when he finds out.”

A strange impish smile appears on the small figure’s dirty face. “I see. Well, in that case, we must make sure he never finds out, eh,” Ame softly whispers to a fellow conspirator.

Gamon opens his mouth to shriek, but his voice never leaves his throat. A spurt of blood begins to gash out of his throat. He tries to breathe, but soon the faint gurgles fade away completely as everything grows heavy and dark.

Ame carefully wipes the blood off the blade ignoring the frozen glazed look of Gamon’s corpse and hobbles away into the darkness of the alley. She needn’t confirm that Gammon is truly dead seeing as she severed two major arteries.

Ame slowly hobbles away and once more returns to the outskirts of the town. With care, she places the spirit stone on the jade pendant. The jade pendant glows for a moment and a glowing circle activates around Ame.

Ame sniffs at the pollen in the air as she waits to be rescued. Soon the sound of movement is heard as men appear before her. An elderly man that seems familiar says, “Mistress Ame!”

Ame feels her body growing heavier as she falls forward into those arms in exhausted sleep. Tomorrow, she will learn more, but for now she will rest.

*

Yo is sound asleep and naked on the large bed. The trio of woman lay in the nude as well strewn across the large portly body. The window flies open as an elegant middle aged man mysteriously appears in front of the open window.

Startled awake at the sudden presence Yo glances around as the women mumble in their sleep and continue to dream. Yo swallows and says, “Your excellency, I did not know you were coming. Had I known, I would have prepared something suitable for thee arrival.”

The elegant man’s eyes are chilling to look, causing Yo to have the urge to hide himself behind the sleeping woman. “Where is the girl?” The elegant man ordered.

Yo shivers and says, “Soon, we will have her by tomorrow.”

The elegant man glances down at his ring and fiddles with it as he says, “Tomorrow. I see.”

Yo sighs in relief as the elegant man turns around to leave. The elegant man snaps his fingers, and from the shadows, a creature emerges as the elegant man vanishes into thin air. The blood curling screams of Yo and the women can be heard echoing through the entire town until there is only eerie silence left in its place.