Murder. Kill. Slaughter. Destroy. Decimate.

The amulet swings slowly, a deadly arc of poison, as White sits silently on her bed. She tries not to listen, but she might as well have been trying to drown out her own thoughts.

Burn. Cut. Mutilate. Torture.

White knows that the words she hears need to be ignored. Nothing good ever comes of listening to them. She needs to ignore them.

Death. Dead. Die. Dying. Murder. 

Murderer.

Murderer. The word slices through her defenses, and she looks up to find her bedroom bathed in red, the remnants of her parents' bodies scattered around her, like forgotten toys.

White promptly leans forward and vomits.

She stares in horror at the blood pooled beneath her feet, on her feet, on her legs, all the way up to her arms, and no doubt splattered across her face--she can feel her hair plastered against her face in sticky clumps.

Nausea rises inside her again but she fights it down, swallowing the bile in her throat as she struggles to her feet on numb and shaking legs. Her eyes go to the amulet where it hangs in front of the window, still swinging in its slow arc, and she walks over to it, feet slipping in the blood.

Fight.

 White snatches the amulet away from the window. Her hand shakes as she holds it--so delicate looking with it's thin copper strands woven over a blood-red stone, but White knows the amulet is impossible to destroy. She watched her father try to do so once when she was little, watched until he gave up and swore before realizing she was in hearing range.

Fight.

Fight. Yes. That's what White plans to do, what she needs to do. Of that, she is positive, but...what is she fighting?

She grips her head tightly, the amulet in her palm pressed against her temple. Her mind feels muddled, filled with the amulet's voice, as she stumbles towards the door. Her foot catches on something and she falls to the bloody floor, clutching the amulet tighter in her hand to keep from losing her grip--the copper wires dig into her flesh.

She lifts herself up onto her knees and turns to see what she tripped on. She promptly wishes she hadn't when she sees her mother's dismembered arm, the end hacked and raw as her wedding band glistens dully on her finger.

White thinks she might throw up again, but she fights it down and crawls to the door, not trusting her legs to support her until she is away from what's left of her family--far, far away.

Murderer.

She freezes as the word cuts through her again.

Murderer. Yes. White knows that's what she is; she knows that she's the one who killed her family and left their parts scattered about the blood-soaked room; she knows this, but she can't seem to remember why she would do something so horrible, and as the shock wears away, she feels far too detached to be normal.

The amulet's laughter is vindictive and mocking; White hates it.

She carefully gets back to her feet, clinging to the wall next to the door as she reaches for the handle. She grips it tightly and eases the door open when the amulet tells her it's safe. She doesn't like to listen to what it says, but she knows that it will protect her for its own purposes, as it always protects its bearer.

The hallway is empty and silent--clear passage for White to escape, run, run far away.

Don't run. Fight.

White grinds her teeth together and tugs at a sticky tangle of hair glued to her cheek, peeling it away. Her skin feels crusty with dried blood, and she scratches at it absentmindedly as she continues to walk down the hall, which seems to stretch endlessly before her, bordered by white walls and doors with half-peeled paint. Behind those doors are other families just like hers. Unlike hers, however, they are whole, safe from the urging of the amulet still clutched so tightly in her hand that her blood joins that of her parents' when the thin, indestructible wires cut into her palm.

She hates those families for their security.

Kill. Kill them. Kill them all.

White shakes her head; she knows that doing something like that would likely get her caught, and she can't afford that. She has to...has to...

She claws at her head in fury.

Finally, she reaches the end of the hall. She lifts the heavy latch and pushes against the thick wooden door--it resists for a moment and then opens, groaning with age. The light of Lovan's artificial sun streams inside, forcing White to squint against the glare.

And then she's running, running down broken cobbled streets, past the ramshackle buildings of the Lower Court. She doesn't know where she's going but away is good enough for now.