Alynia

Her mothers hands stretched out, but they were brutally ripped away from each other.

"Alynia!" cried her mother, "No! You can't do this!"

The little baby began to cry as the guards roughly shoved her into a cot and onto the cart.

Tears ran down the grimy, dirt covered face of her mother as the cart rumbled away. As the guards chucked her onto another cart. As the prison door swung shut.

The baby soon became a toddler. A toddler that became a child. A child that became a teenager.

At the age of 13, Alynia ran from the orphanage. She had heard the name of the village and it wasn't hard to track it down. What she learnt destroyed her.

Her father had been a generous man. He helped all he could. Too generous. Debts began to pile up. First, they seized his horse. His clothes. All his possessions. Then, the house. Him. Her mother. She was taken to an orphanage.

This was not the way to end poverty. She first killed when a thief attacked her on the road. The next time, it was easier. She learnt to block her feelings. She did her best to fix the problems the world was ridden with.

---

Alynia looked up the bars. They were high and imposing, but she was confident.

''I can probably make it. This is just like the tree in the orphanage. Just, a bit smoother''.

She pulled herself up the wall, and grabbed the metal railings. Almost slipping, she struggled to find a foothold. She scrambles up, however, and finds a gap where a brick fell out. Relieved, she stops and rests for a moment, breathing heavily.

"You ain't gonna last very long trying to get in like that," muttered someone below her.

Alynia jumped, slipping and losing her footing, left hanging there. She had to bite her tongue to stop herself from shouting out.

"Mind your own business," she replied, haughtily, before continuing scrambling up.

"Sure," came the answer.

After a while of work, Alynia dropped, sweating, into the courtyard, and approached the door.

Shit!

It was locked.

''How dumb must I be? Climb up here, almost killing myself, without thinking about the door. Idiot.''