Quorra Giovanna Nero

Eventually I drifted off to sleep but I awoke to that stinging feeling of another hard slap. The sun was shining through the cracks between the wooden panels of the barn walls. It was morning already and I was still there? I looked up angrily at my attacker who peered down with just as much anger.

"Get up." He sternly spoke and lifted me from the ground. He carried me to the barn door.

He pressed me against the outside wall of the barn, and I could feel the splintering wood poking through the remains of my gown, digging into my flesh.

"It is morning and guess who did not show up?" Pausing as if I would actually answer he pressed me harder to the painful wall. "That's right. You know what I told him? I said 'let's make a bargain. Your money for the girl." he smirked at me and I got chills.  "Do you know what I said I would do to you if he did not show up with something of value to me by the time the roosters began to crow?"

Even though it was spine-numbing to look him in the eye, I was too terrified to not keep eye contact.

Leaning close, he whispered, "...I said I would do this."

The next thing I felt was the sharpest pain in my life. It traveled from just under my left breast to my navel. Gasping in horror I made the realization he had pulled out a knife or something equally as sharp and used it on me.
I sank to the ground in the most incredible pain. My vision blurred and all I could see was red everywhere. Then I felt him press the knife into my side, I fell flat to the ground and that is where everything went black.
I felt a warmth and saw a soft light. Then birds and rustling leaves hit my ears with their gentle, muffled sound.

My, what a dream, I thought as I groaned. I felt like I had slept the wrong way? Why was my bed so hard and... grainy?
Suddenly my eyes popped open to the sound of a bird flying directly overhead.
I was outside and-- I gasped as all the previous moments came flooding back to me up until I blacked out.

After calming down from the shock of everything that had happened, I tried to sit up. Perhaps his slashing just was not deep enough or he did not cut me in any vital, life-threatening places? But, oh the knife felt so deep into me, surely he had punctured something!
As my torso rose from the ground, I braced myself for terrible pain. To my surprise, I didn't just not feel terrible pain, but I didn't feel ANY pain. Looking around me, I was drenched in a pool of blood. I didn't know I had all this blood inside of me!

It was as if it were all make up and none of this was real. I felt no pain, no ache, no anything. My arm bumped something protruding from my side-- the knife. At this time in the world, medicine was a new and mysterious thing and it was a constant battle between home remedies, ancient traditions, and newly discovered techniques and technologies.
Thinking back to the medical books Signor Molinelli [adopted father] kept, I was at a loss. Did it state that when stabbed, one should never remove the foreign object or always remove it?

I settled for the latter and began to slowly pull the knife from my side. Bracing for great pain, again I was hit with a numbness and could feel nothing. What was happening? Perhaps he had struck apart of my nervous system-- but isn't that in the brain? Oh was I certainly confused.

I figured I might as well try and stand up, so that's what I did. Raising up, parts of my dress was caked to the ground with my blood and the pre-warn fabric easily ripped apart. Finally standing, I steadied myself and my eyes grew wide. I did not understand how I was so brutally treated yet still alive? No one can survive losing all this blood can they?
After a few silent moments of pondering, I thought it best I should try and seek help from a professional. I began to slowly walk with cation, until I realized I could walk just fine, no problem! As if nothing had ever happened to me. I kept walking, searching for the pathway out of these woods. Everything looked... almost lifeless. Dead. Yet I felt alive still. How was this? Stopping to rest (just in case), I hunched beside a large pond. I was slightly fearful to see my face, but being the stubborn fool I am, I looked anyway.

That started it all.

I peered into the still, shallow waters but what stared back at me was almost corpse-like. Darkness around my eyes, my cheekbones seem to sink inward and my front-side teeth seem to have grown pointed and snaggled. I looked like, well, a monster. 

There was an anger welling up inside me like I had never known. An anger that manifested outside of me as my body became dark and smoke engulfed me. An unearthly glow reflected back at me in the water as my eyes transformed and turned completely white. I could only think of one thing. My lover.  Suddenly I begin to see trees passing by as if I was on a horse. Like a beacon of hatred, I thought about him so hard, I suddenly looked up and there he was before me. I had changed locations. I had somehow traveled to where he was, riding his horse off of the island. He stopped, his eyes larger than mine had been when he struck me down. Without a word, I let the vengence take over me and I allowed myself to be consumed by the smoky shadows around me. Sending them forth, they devoured the man whole, leaving only the confused horse in his wake. 

Returning back to myself (my new self), I sunk to the gravel below and cried. I felt a deep despair. A hatred toward myself. I had just killed my lover. I was no longer the happy girl I had been.

I couldn't go back to face any one. I felt ashamed, guilty, wronged, unloved and... dirty.
Terrified I decided it was better if I just left. Everyone would be safer that way, so I did. I ran away. And I kept running away. 

I was careful not to stay in one place for too long because I did not want to build up relationships. Also the longer I stayed, the more noticeable it was that I simply did not age. Years went by. Decades even, yet I remained the same. I did grow, but slowly. VERY slowly.
I began to wear dark make up to cover the darkness around my eyes that would not go away. Slowly as the times changed so did I. My wardrobe became more shadow-like as I wanted to blend in more than stand out.
I continued to move from place to place through Italy and most of Europe, sometimes with gypsies or any other wandering travelers, but I grew to greatly enjoy my alone time.