Leonora Carter was running.

From who, she did not know.

All she knew was that someone was persuing her, chasing her down endless streets and alleyways, not wanting to leave her alone. The only thing that consoled her was that she was good runner- at least it would not be easy for them to get her.

A few minutes earlier, she had been running errands for Jan, the old man who lived next to them. He was nice, but had arthritis and relied solely on her to help him with different things, whether that be sorting boxes or food-testing (he was really paranoid). Just as she had been sorting boxes, Leo had heard a sudden thud behind her, and a shuffling of footsteps. They had called her name. Once. Twice. On the third time, she had began to run.

And they had run after her.

As Leo ran, small shops and various building passed by. As quickly as she could, she analysed whether they would be safe to hide inside. To her disappointment and frustration, all of them had people inside, who probably would not appreciate a crazy twelve-year-old running inside.

She stopped at a dark and deserted alleyway, pausing to catch her breath. Her heart thudding, she checked to see if they were still there. After a few moments, she gave a sigh of relief- they were gone, and the only people around were a young couple going for a walk.

Remembering where she was supposed to be, Leo started to walk back to the shop where she had been sorting the boxes; this time, she decided it was best to use a different route, one that she rarely used unless there was an emergency. She was fairly certain she was the only one who knew about it, so whoever was chasing her would hopefully give up.

As Leo walked, she could not help but wonder who the person was. She was more or less new to the area, so not many people knew her. She did not know why, but something had made her think they were neither human nor animal- some otherworldly creature of some sort. After a while of pondering this theory, she came to the conclusion that she was just overreacting: her ADHD made her brain go into overdrive, leaving her with a million nonsensical possibilities.

For some odd reason, she sensed someone was around. It had been an odd ability of hers to be able to tell if someone wa around, and what they were thinking or feeling. It was just a thing she ha been able to do since she could remember. The person was currently.... angry, maybe a bit upset. She wondered why. The only bad thing was that she didn't know where they were, and didn't want to turn around in case they were waiting for her to do so.

Suddenly, Leo heard a shuffle and a cough behind her. The voice sounded slightly off, as if the speaker had not spoken to anyone in a while. Ignoring her previous thoughts, she spun around quickly in alarm, hoping the person had not found her. 

"Uh, Hello? Anyone there?"

She knew enough about these kind of situations to know that it was the world's stupidest thing to say when you heard an unfamiliar noise, but it was the only thing she could think of to say. It wasn't everyday that you found two people- or maybe one person- stalking you.

Naturally, there was no reply, but Leo could hear the pattering footsteps of someone running away. She looked around, searching for whoever had been behind her a moment ago but the only thing she managed to catch a glimpse of was the brief figure of a boy running into the trees. 

Well, at least they were gone. "Wierdo." Leo muttered under her breath.

She did not want to sound mean, but if the person was still there she wanted him to know she did not like being stalked. 

Then again, who did?

Still feeling creeped out, she began the long and slow walk back to the boxes that she had abandoned.

☆☆☆

After hours of endless cleaning, delivering and sorting, Leo was ready to fall asleep as she dragged herself back home. It was nearly evening now- the street lights had just been put on and the sun was beginning to set, casting rays of orange and pink across the cloudless sky. The only people around were her and a man walking his dog.

Absent-mindedly, Leo fingered the horse necklace that hung limply around her neck, a constant reminder of her missing brother. He had disappeared a few years ago without a trace, and authorities had deemed him dead. For some reason, the night before he went missing, he gave Leo the necklace, and told her never to lose it. Apparently, their dad had originally given hima wolf one, and because Leo had been too young, he had given her brother her necklace to keep safe; it was some sort of family heirloom that they got when they reached ten years of age.

That was the only thing either of them knew about their dad, apart from the fact that, as soon as her brother had been born, their dad had run off and only came back a load of years later so that she would be born.

 He never came back after that.

Out of nowhere, Leo was harshly jolted out of her thoughts by a wierd flash of refulgent light darting in front of her. She blinked to see it clearer, but it vanished as suddenly as it had appeared.

For a few moments, she stood there, shocked. What was that? A trick of the light, or was it more? Leo looked around, feeling slightly annoyed. 

What was wrong with this place?

First there was someone chasing her. Then someone was stalk her. There was a wierd flash of light that could not have been a trick. Something was going on.

Leo paused. What was the date again? Well, it was summer anyway- that ruled out April Fool's Day. Speaking of April Fool's Day, she remembered one time at her primary school when her teacher was mad after she and a friend put pemon juice in his coffee. And then there was that other time...

Where was she again?

Oh right. Trying to figure what was going on. After a moment, Leo gave up thinking- her stupid ADHD kept getting in the way of her thought process. Despite that, she smirked- thinking was overrated anyway.

Smiling, she let the wind blow into her face as she sprinted all the way home.

When she got there, she opened the battered door with her spare keys and crashed on the threadbare sofa, taking comfort in its scratched edges and surface. Her mom had always joked that it had been through the wars, and if she was honest, that made complete sense.

It made complete sense about their whole house.

Ever since her dad had run off ane her brother har disappeared, her and her mom had barely been able to afford anything; she did not have a proper job because employers did not want people who had a missing child and husband, as well as no experience. Her mom had to make do being a cleaner in a hospital and Leo did odd jobs around the town to earn around ten pounds a week in total.

Leo got up walked around to check if her mom was home. A few minutes later, she plonked herself back onto the sofa; she had just realised her mom was coming home late tonight because she was trying out a new job interview.

She sighed, annoyed with herself. She was always forgetting things people told her. Her record of memory was a mere one hour, her lowest being ten seconds. At least she could remember things she had seen- she was not completely hopeless, to most people's shock.

Boredly, she began to manipulate the water vapor in the air, causing it to form different objects. As well as being able to sense people's feelings and presence, she could manipulate water into doing whatever she wanted it to do. She could not explain why or how it happened, so she trier to keep it a secret- anyone she told would probably send her straight to a mental asylum.

Not exactly where she wanted to be for the next few years.

She messed around with the water until she got hoelessly bored, which was around twelve minutes later. She let it form back into vapour and leaned back, closing her eyes slightly. If it was not the summer holidays, she would be trying (in vain) to do her homework, but now that school was off, she felt more bored than ever.

After a few minutes of contemplating life, Leo got up and walked to her room to get her notebook. She found it on her bed, which sat in the corner of her compact but comfortable room. Smiling, Leo sat down on the edge of her bed and opened the book to a blank page.

Despite hating reading and writing, she had always liked any form of art, whether that be painting or charcoal-drawing. She found it was an effective way to distract her mind from thinking too fast, and it helped that she was a good artist anyway.

Just as she was about to bring pencil to paper, the was a loud bang and a figure appeared in front of her, dressed in a black cloak that covered his face, but not his blood-red eyes, that seemed to glow like fire in the darkness of his hood.

Leo scrambled back in fear. "Wh-what?"

The figure smiled in reply.

"Hello, Leonora."