1 Every Story Has To Begin Somewhere

October 3, 1976

The summer heatwave of 1976 was one of the worst weather phenomena in history to hit the British Isles. Much like a certain child, it was unexpected and unwanted. With it came record high temperatures and the worst drought to be seen in over 200 years. September brought an end to the heat with cold rains which soothed hardened fields and tired hearts. Rain brought hope, relief, and comfort, and with those blessings, it was only fitting that the Earth bestow a curse of equal measure. A child to reap what it could not. A child born of life's end and death's beginning. The night of October 3 was rewritten with the dignified scrawl of an unknown deity. Screaming and kicking at the divine injustice of it all, a new life was born into the world. Out of the frenzied passions of a drunkard and drug addict from the shadowed back streets of London came Alana Hales. Out of the tattered folds of deaths cloak came the worn soul of one Alexis Crevan.

1981

He had named her Alana, her father, that is. The name had tumbled thickly off his tongue in rough Irish syllables wrapped with the strong stench of alcohol. The meaning of the name was mocking in its tenderness. 'Precious child,' he intoned as though a foreign language could mask the lie.

A four-year-old Alana grimaced, her small fingers tugging at the russet carpet beneath her. Her situation was unprecedented, a fate utterly detestable to any sane, logical being. Reincarnation. She continued to lament her situation with tired, honey eyes. There was an unshakeable feeling of not belonging that clung to her developing mind and a sense of wrongness that settled into her bones with every breath. It permeated her every thought, overflowing like blood from a gaping wound. Her mind was a shamble of half-baked ideas and broken memories.

The first few years of her new existence had consisted of periods of all-encompassing darkness. Aeons spent in a haze of sensory shutdown were later dispersed by rarer moments of acute clarity. Those had become more frequent as the days, months and years passed. It should have been considered a miracle, she supposed, but with clarity came uneasiness and increasing awareness of the circumstances she had been born into.

Her father, Johnathan Hales, was a quiet man, contrary to her original thoughts. He was fair-skinned and chubby with light brown pebbles for eyes and a mop of greasy, black hair. Thick, metal glasses framed his eyes, shielding them from the outside world. He seldom spoke more than a few words to anyone. Instead, he seemed content to sit in front of the television shouting the answers to game show questions at the pixelated screen. His mind was brilliant. She had spent days watching him effortlessly answer difficult quiz questions without so much as a pause in his speech. Her initial surprise, however, had long since given way to pity as it had become clear that the man's intelligence was vastly overshadowed by his social impairment. Johnathan Hales could barely make it past the front door most days. He flinched at sudden noises and skittered away from the conversation before it could even be initiated. It made the small effort he made for her all the more significant in her eyes.

He would sit her in his lap and spin stories of ancient civilisations and forgotten lands. With a silver tongue and broad smile, he would offer them to his young daughter as though expecting her to understand his advanced vocabulary. She embraced each word tenderly. Some stories she had heard before in half-forgotten memories and hazy dreams. It was a past life that flashed behind her thin eyelids when a silence lasted too long. There were visions of beautiful artworks and complex constructions, faceless people and unknown places. Perhaps it was a mother, a father, a brother? Hers or another's? She could not tell for sure. That in itself may have been a mercy. She could not even recall how she had died and only knew with absolute certainty that it had been painful, ugly and horrible. Then, there was nothingness, emptiness, a void without meaning or time. The darkness had consumed her and embraced her tenderly all at once pulling her existence thin only to twist it in another direction when it refused to break. Was she supposed to break? She had asked herself that question far too many times.

"Alana," her mother crouched before her small form with blond hair in disarray. "Come to momma, sweety."

The voice was as alluring as fingernails on a chalkboard to the perfect pitch ears of an infant, but Alana complied nonetheless. It was one of the few times her mother was not high on heroin after all. It was to be celebrated. Katherine's gentle eyes were trained on her daughter with an intensity only newly made mothers had. She watched as the girl picked herself off the filthy carpet and toddled closer. Tiny fingers wrapped around the woman's bony wrist, followed by a silent, knowing gaze. There was no judgment in those young eyes, just a tired acceptance as she was led to the kitchen for lunch by shaking hands. Her mother would be using again by the end of the week despite her efforts to come off the drug. Alana would make the most of her time with her.

1982 November

Alana's father died shortly after she turned six. She had watched her mother deteriorate for another month before the woman gathered the wits to send her daughter off to primary school. It was a late enrollment, but Charton's accepted the child with little complaint as expected of the low decile school. The elderly next-door neighbour, Linda, had assumed the role of pseudo mother in Katherine's stead. Alana had little complaint about the arrangement considering it acceptable, if not better than it had been previously. It was undoubtedly a step up in terms of hygiene as Linda allowed the small girl to make use of her apartment's shower once a week. Their own apartment's shower had long since rusted from lack of maintenance. It also didn't help that her mother regularly forgot to pay the bills.

Alana trudged the concrete pavement that led to school slowly with wandering eyes. Her class was the first door on the right of the corridor, and she took a seat with little preamble. A few children leaned away from her person with scrunched up noses. It had been a while since she had washed her clothes. The thought was fleeting for the girl and disappeared as soon as it appeared.

"Forget to wash again, Alana O'smelly?"

She didn't grace the voice with a reaction. The taunts were always immature, and she had long determined it best to treat them as just that.

'I see you forgot your manhood again, Donald. Or have you found a way to make it invisible in those tight jeans?' Alana cursed him in her head before sighing inwardly and gently chastising herself. 'Down, girl. He wants you to fight back. Don't lose the war in exchange for a single battle.'

"Looks like you've finally gone deaf like that old man of yours huh, O'smelly? You gonna kick the bucket too?"

'Empty words. They are empty words.' She repeated her mantra, silently biting back a scathing reply. Beneath the tangled and possibly nit-infested mess that was her hair, she eyed the boy. He was at least two years her senior as were all the kids in her class. She had been moved up a year though it hardly made any difference except to increase the antagonism towards her. She bit back a growl as he reached for her jumper and dragged her light body out of the seat.

The form teacher was always late on Friday mornings.

The boy shoved her to the ground with a laugh and dropped two pence by her face.

"I suppose you can't afford a shower.' Beggars shouldn't be choosers right, O'smelly?" He jeered as her hand snatched the coin off the ground.

'Damn right, you little punk.' Alana resisted the urge to through the conveniently sized projectile at the brat's square face. If she was lucky, it would break his glasses lens and puncture his eyeball. 'Maybe another day,' she thought as the form teacher chose that moment to grace the class with her presence.

"Miss Hales, please remove yourself from the floor." Alana sighed once more. At least she had gotten two pence out of the morning.

1982 December

Six was decidedly Alana's unlucky number and a horrible age for a child of her stature. She gazed at the schoolyard bully with a deadpan expression as he tripped over his shoelaces and proceeded to blame her for his poor coordination. She was, apparently, an all omnipotent being with super magical powers that could trip him up while standing several metres away.

'Honestly, do people just have a natural hatred toward me? Is it because I di…' Her mind swerved reflexively to avoid the topic. That was a dark well of depression she had no interest in jumping headfirst into. She had tried that once, and it had not ended well.

By the time she reconnected with reality, she had found her face pressed against the sweet, dirty, unsanitary ground. Her eyes teared up. She just had her weekly shower that morning.

'You monster! How could you betray me so, dear bully-san?! Your usual beat up was scheduled two days forward.' Alana wiped her tears with a sniffle then used the damp sleeve to clean the muck off of her soft-featured face.

"Oi! What the hell do you think you're doing?!"

The next thing she knew, bully-san was being acquainted with her dearest friend 'la floor', and she was being picked up and guided to the other side of the schoolyard. Alana turned slightly to get a look at her apparent rescuer as annoyance, gratitude and suspicion warred in the back of her consciousness. Black hair combed back from black eyes, tidy clothes, above-average height. She shifted to her right with eyes narrowed in concentration as she appraised the boy. Well-built, trained even. The grip on her hand tightened before releasing her as she made to pull away. Her gaze dropped to her shoes in a show of submission as old as time itself.

"Thank you," she mumbled awkwardly. It was the first time she'd had to thank someone other than Linda she realised with no small trepidation. She disliked the thought of being in yet another person's debt.

"You're that kid that was moved up a few years, right? I'm Jake Matthews. I got moved up a year as well; otherwise, I'd be in your year level." He introduced himself easily while shaking her hand. The action caused the girl to blanch for a few seconds. 'What sort of eight-year-old shakes hands so professionally? Better yet, wherein the seven hells had this kid been hiding this past month?'

"Alana Hales. Nice to meet you," she smiled politely.

"You really should fight back. That bully's never going to back off if you don't." She gave him a careful look as she considered her response.

"There is no point in fighting back once if I can't beat him badly enough that he'll never try again," she explained slowly with mild embarrassment that she was even trying to explain her actions to a child. It would be a wonder if Matthews could understand her words at all. "Fighting is just asking for trouble, and I doubt a teacher would take my side if push comes to shove." The small frown that appeared on her face could have earned the pity of any adult had she cultivated the skill.

Matthews gave the short girl an indecipherable smile and patted her head. She tilted it in question, but he only shook his head in an almost friendly manner.

"Come sit with me at lunch sometime. My dad used to teach martial arts ya know so I can maybe teach you a thing or two." Her eyes widened at the offer.

"A-Alright," Alana answered somewhat in shock as she stared at his departing back. She had forgotten what it was like to have a civil conversation. Hell, Alana had forgotten what it was like to feel human. Now that she had remembered what it tasted like… She didn't think she could willingly part with it.