Kelly felt a wave of resentment rise in her chest, slow and heavy.
Just a few weeks ago, she'd been... normal. A girl who loved music, obsessed over celebrity crushes, and worried about finishing assignments before class. Her biggest daily struggle was surviving the chaos her two best friends called "fun" without punching them in the face.
Sure, during the war era, she'd been... something else.
"Ordinary" didn't quite cover a combat genius with blood on her hands.
But even then, she'd just been trying to survive. And somewhere deep down, she still believed she was that same girl—sweet, mostly harmless, the type who minded her business and stayed out of trouble.
So how had she ended up here?
The place looked like a graveyard.
Black soil stretched beneath her feet, dry and cracked, littered with dying plants. Their brittle leaves trembled in the faint wind before breaking apart and drifting into the air like ash.
