By the end of the third year, Alcid was walking from the main school building to her dorm and walked by a group of demons. One big demon insulted her, she threw an insult back at him and stood looking coldly at him. He turned around, saw the way she was looking at him and that only made him angrier. He walked towards her, grabbed her with is left hand by the neck and slammed her against the wall.

“Who do you think you are you little pest? You think you could insult me and get away with it?” The demon said, squeezed his right hand into a fist and prepared to hit her face. Alcid was holding his left forearm with her hands, kicking him and trying to get free. The other demons yelled at their friend to stop but he ignored them. Alcid started to panic and out of fear the acid started to come out of her palms, dissolving the demons forearm.

The demon and Alcid fell to the floor. The demon screamed in agony as the acid completely dissolved his forearm and hand in a few seconds. One of his friends ran to get a teacher and Alcid was just sitting on the floor, looking at her palms baffled. The teacher arrived and they called an ambulance. The ambulance took the demon away and the teacher took Alcid and the other demons to the school principal.

“Explain what happened.” The school principal said.

“The injured demon attacked me. He grabbed me by the neck and started choking me. I saw that was going to hit me and I defended myself.” Alcid said.

“Is that what happened boys? And if you lie I will know.” The school principal asked the two demons.

“Yes. That’s what happened.” They said, not wanting to suffer the same fate as their friend.

“All right. I will not punish you this time because it was self-defense. However, you have to be more careful with your powers young lady. Now off you go.” The school principal said.

Alcid headed to her dorm thinking about what the school principal said. She had powers. Her acid came out of her palms, not just out of her flower. This has never happened before. On her way to the dorm, she picked up a rock and held it in her hand. She concentrated on letting acid out of her palm, but nothing happened. She repeated it all the way, until she reached the dorm. Maybe she couldn’t control her powers at will, but at least, now she knew that she had them. Alcid told the news to Kheba who immediately gave her a bunch of things she wanted to get rid of.

“You can use those for practice.” Kheba said.

“I’m not a garbage can Kheba.” Alcid said with a serious look on her face, but she took the things Kheba gave her.

Alcid practiced controlling her powers every day and after two months, she successfully dissolved a doll head in her hand. She was so happy that she invited Kheba to go out to lunch and shopping with her.

“Yes! You did it! I’m so proud. Yeah, let’s go out, just don’t dissolve my fork.” Kheba said and laughed.

They had fun out walking around town. They had lunch, went shopping, visited the City horror museum and walked past the City library. That’s when Alcid remembered the paper and the symbol. Alcid made a mental note to come back here and search for the symbol. They made it back to school a few minutes before dinner. After dinner, they went to their room and had fun with dissolving things that Kheba gave to Alcid.

The next day Alcid went to the City library and asked the librarian about books with the demon symbols, but the old demon symbols that belonged to old demon families. The librarian gave her a piece of paper with a list of twelve books so she went and searched for them.

Alcid found them, she took the oldest book first and started to compare the symbols in the book with the symbol from the paper. In the oldest book, she found a similar symbol that represented the royal family, it dated back many thousands of years. It wasn’t the same so Alcid kept looking. After a few more books, she found another symbol that looked similar to hers. It represented good fortune for the royal family, it was similar but it still wasn’t the same. There were still five books left, so she took another one. That one was useless, but the next one had a symbol almost identical to hers, only one line was missing. The symbol represented the prosperity of the royal family. This was getting weird, all the symbols that were similar to hers had something to do with the royal family.

Alcid quickly went through the last two books, and in the last book, she found her symbol. Her symbol represented the change and prosperity of the demon royal family. She sat there looking at the symbol thinking that it must be a joke. She was a simple farmer’s daughter, what connection did she have to the royal family that were murdered seventeen years ago. The same number of years as she was old. Alcid put the books back on the shelves and headed back to her dorm room.

In her room, Alcid sat on the bed, looking at Kheba’s symbols. “How do you know if the demon symbol on a paper scroll is real?” Alcid asked.

“Easy. If it belongs to you, or your family it will glow silver if you touch it. I’ll show you.” Kheba said. Kheba had two paper scrolls with two different symbols on it. She touched the first one and the symbol glowed silver. “This is my family symbol. The circle represents unity and the maze inside it means prosperity.” She said and touched the other one that also glowed silver. “This is my symbol, well, not just mine. It is the symbol of the hundredth generation of the Krampus family. All my sisters and brothers from my generation have the same symbol. The four spirals represent strength and the hands with claws above and underneath it mean to keep us safe. Every symbol has its meaning and that meaning gives it power.” Kheba said.

“Wow. So your family gives each generation a symbol?” Alcid asked.

“Yeah, but other families give each of their children a symbol. We are special because there are so many of us.” Kheba said.

When Kheba was in class Alcid took out her paper scroll and touched the symbol. It glowed silver. It had a maze, two hands with claws, one over and one under the maze and two snakes with heads shaped like arrows encircling the maze and the hands. ‘So the symbol means prosperity, safety and the snakes going in a circle probably mean change like the book said. I have to find the royal family symbol on a paper scroll.’ Alcid though. If the royal symbol doesn’t glow, all her troubles will go away. ‘But what if it glows?’ Alcid though.

Summer came and Alcid went back to the village, to her family. This summer she looked at her mother and father through different eyes. Alcid still loved them but she was upset that they were keeping such a large secret from her. One night at dinner, she asked her parents. “Who am I?”

“What do you mean Alcid? You are our daughter.” Her mother replied.

“Dad, who am I?” Alcid looked at her father with a serious face expecting a different answer. She knew that her father wasn’t a good liar.

“As your mother said...” He started to say but Alcid interrupted him.

“I know what mom sad. I’m asking you. Who am I?” Alcid said.

“Ahh… Well...” Her father looked at her mother, who gave him the I’m going to kill you look, and continued. “You are our daughter.” The words came out of his mouth as if they weighed a ton.

“So you are still going to lie to me?” Alcid asked.

“We are not lying to you. You are our daughter. We raised you, we cared for you and we still do. But...” Her mother suddenly stopped talking.

“But we are not your real parents.” Her father said.

“Then who are my real parents?” Alcid asked.

“We don’t know. Men on horses came to our village. They were carrying you, wrapped in a blanket. They told us to take care of you and they gave us two paper scrolls.” Her mother said.

“They told us to put one school in your bedroom, but we didn’t want the others to see it, so we put it under the mattress. And the other one we hid.” Her father said.

“I found the one in my room. I found out what it was and that’s why I’m asking you who I am. Can you give me the second scroll?” Alcid asked.

“They told us to give it to you when you come of age, when you finish high school.” Her mother said.

“It’s my last year in high school, I’ll be eighteen in a few months. What’s the difference?” Alcid said.

“Ok.” Her father said, stood up and went to get the paper scroll.

“If you knew, why didn’t you say something Alcid?” Her mother asked.

“I need to be sure before I tell you what I found out.” Alcid said.

Her father returned with a paper tube decorated in silver letters, he opened it, took out the paper scroll and gave it to Alcid. She unrolled the paper scroll and looked at the symbol on it. On the top was a crown and underneath it was a circle. Between the crown and a circle was the infinity symbol. In the circle was a maze, in each corner of the scroll was a spiral. Alcid touched the crown and the whole symbol started to glow gold.

“What does that mean?” Her mother asked.

Alcid put the royal scroll on the table, took the paper scroll that was under her bed, out of her bag and put it beside the royal scroll. First, Alcid put her left hand on the symbol from her bedroom and it glowed silver. Then she put her right hand on the royal symbol and both symbols glowed gold.

“This mom means that I am the lost daughter of the king and queen of demons that were killed almost eighteen years ago. The exact number of years as I am old.” Alcid said.

“What are we going to do now?” Her father asked.

“Nothing. I will hide the paper scrolls and we will tell no one about this until I finish high school. I have started to gain powers I didn’t have when I was little and with the knowledge and my powers I will avenge my parent’s murder.” Alcid said.

“You have powers?” Her mother and father asked at the same time.

“Yeah, let me show you.” Alcid went out of the house, grabbed a rock, put it in her palm, started to produce acid in her palm and dissolved the rock in seconds. “That’s not all I can do. I can shoot acid at others from any part of my body.” She said happily.

“Wow! You have powers. This is a time to celebrate. I will make your favorite meal tomorrow.” Her mother said.

“Thanks mom.” Alcid said and started to roll up the paper scrolls, put them in the paper tube decorated in silver letters and in her bag.

After summer vacation, ended Alcid was back in school. The last year was the toughest. Together with classes, they had field trips and had to write papers on things they have learned in the past two years. Alcid even grew a bit in these four years. She had to buy a completely new wardrobe because she outgrew all the clothes she brought from home. Now taller, leaner, more composed, with bigger claws she started to look more like a real demon.

When Alcid wasn’t in class or doing homework, she concentrated on finding out what exactly happened to the king and queen of demons. She knew that the king tried to ban killing the mortals and that the demons rebelled. The king had the power to control fire and the queen to control ice. They were so powerful that, in the attack on the palace, they killed more than a thousand demons.

‘So, with such powers, how did they end up dead? They had to be betrayed. But who had the most to gain from killing them and stopping the ban on killing mortals?’ Alcid thought. The only ones who came into that category were the demons that possessed or scared mortals. Then she remembered. There were demons that fed on mortals. They were very rare and very dangerous. They were the largest and scariest demons that could singlehandedly kill hundreds of demons, so Alcid concentrated on these demons.