Prologue

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The woods were a blur of blue and black as Giovanna ran, ran and ran through them. Each step in sync with the rapid thumping of her heart.
                     The pernicious darkness called out to her, soft and mischievous as ever. As if, it had not yet realised what it had brought upon it's carrier but this time she didn't stop to listen, she didn't hesitate to lash out. She had no interest in knowing it's bogus secrets.
            
She was naive to think that this would preserve her innocence, outrun Vermont, as if somehow denying the brutal truth of her reality, would perhaps make it unfurl into a dream and the horror just an odd nightmare.

But the debt was long overdue and she knew it too. That it would all come to this, one way or another. A fate she couldn't escape. Still she ran; away from life, innocence and herself. A coward in truth. A part of her grew sad; more forlorn than ever.

The dying echoes of her mother's screams imprinted inside of her head embleming the blood that was on her hands...a cruel chill took over her, the sting of her loss and the hideous void of oncoming death subsided. Temporarily. But that was enough. Devoid of life Giovanna surrendered to her darkness and ran away from the millennium old wrath.
She didn't stop she didn't look back, not even when she felt the Chasers close on her. Not when the first bullet buried itself in her arm.

Giovanna ran, not for her life, all thoughts of self-preservation and any semblance of control over her power had dissolved the moment her first alma enlace had been obliviated.

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