Lorelei, that was her name, a name inspiring fear and cruelty throughout the path of those who were unlucky enough to meet such a being. She was born in a small town not far from the ocean. Although it was surrounded by a dense forest that isolated it from the rest of the world, with only a single dirt path leading to the town, which was mostly used by merchants, it was still a nice place to live, as such people thought.
Truth be told, famine reigned over the town for over decades now. The town was not necessarily poor; rather, most of the families were actually well-off, but the demands for food were not met for reasons still unknown to this present day. It was like the kingdom had deemed them as worthless and unneeded for their own benefits, leaving them to die off on their own. Her family was also not spared. In the town, food was gold, and unfortunately for them, they were not rich enough to even afford simple necessities, let alone food. Her father had to steal from other dwellings just to provide enough for his wife. His body was already crippled and sick; he had lost an eye from being stabbed during one of his thefts. He already knew he had not long to live ''Might as well not waste the food on a dead man'', he said to himself while walking away from town after giving the food he stole to his pregnant wife kissing her on the forehead a final time before departing far enough to find a place in which he could fall in an eternal slumber, never to wake up again.
The newborn baby clung to her mother's soft hands with her tiny fingers. She suddenly stopped moving, as if something was being drained out of her, as if her very own life was being taken, despite the feeling, her mother still hugged her and smiled.
''Lorelei, that is her name.'' , she said to the woman who assisted her with giving birth.
Not even a second later, she dropped dead on the ground. This marked the beginning.
From this moment on, Lorelei was submitted to nature's only rule, survival. Rumours spread through the town, and soon enough, she had already been given a nickname, the fiend. She had no one to rely on, and anyone whom had been in contact with her soon ended up greeting heaven's gate.
Time passed, and she hardly grew up. She didn't have much food to eat. If she were lucky, she would be able to get a loaf of bread from the kind merchant around the street. If she weren't, she could spend days without having a single thing to eat. In town, there was a merchant who always came up to her and offered her food whenever he saw her. He had long light brown hair tied in a ponytail, and he was also wearing big circular glasses that he would always adjust on the top of his nose with a swift hand movement. He was also the one who gave her a stuffed animal as well as a book he would read out to her to teach her how to speak. On a fateful day, misfortune struck, the merchant accidentally held her hand, because he wanted to show her something he had brought for her from the capital. His body froze before he could even take another step, and he dropped to his knees. His glasses fell and shattered into pieces, just like how Lorelei's life has at this exact moment. Everyone saw the man's lifeless body, with the child desperately trying to wake him up, but he was gone, dead.
Since that incident, she was being treated even more harshly than she had ever been before. The stuffed animal that the merchant had given her was torn into pieces right in front of her eyes. She was then kicked onto the floor and beaten to a pulp until she could barely move. She stayed on that ground for the rest of the night until the first snowflake of winter slowly fell on her cheek. She hated winter. It was for her the worst moment of the year, the moment in which she was the most vulnerable to death.
The next morning, she saw other children playing with each other. From the little she learnt, she softly muttered.
''Mighy IgH Joyng YoU?''
She barely knew how to speak, nor did she know the meaning of the words she was uttering; all that guided her were instincts.
The children, as well as adults, treated Lorelei as her nickname implied, a monster. She was neglected and even hurt, but she did not understand the concept of being hated. She didn't know what she had done wrong every time the other kids would throw rocks at her and shove her head in the garbage taken outside the dwellings.
She was always covered with bruises, and during winter she would sneak into houses just so that she could feel the warmth of a fire. Every time she tried getting close to anybody, their parents would come rushing, throwing and beating the child half to death. Stomping her on the ground, treating her as the trash they deemed her to be.
All alone, she played make-believe with the toys she would make out of mud after the rain, and even then, others would still chase her down, such as a wild animal. She did not understand the concept of death. Whenever someone's lifeless body would be presented to her, she would still hold their hand, as if she were trying to bring them back to a life they had failed to keep within grasp.
One day, the town surrounded her, screaming and hurling insults at her.
''Go away! Go away! You vile demon! Go away! Go away!''
Lorelei could not understand what they were saying. All she could understand was that she was being pointed at towards the forest, so she ran there, far, very far. The forest was damp and dark; she was only a child, yet she was not fazed by it.
Lorelei was used to being alone; she was used to being scared. The trees seemed like giants towering above her head as she walked into the unknown. She was attacked multiple times by wild beasts, one even succeeding in biting off her arm. After a tenacious struggle with the beast, she managed to get hold of a pointy stick and stabbed the beast through the head with it. With the little strength she had left, she sat next to a tree.
The blood was gushing out of her dismembered arm. She didn't know what to do; all she felt was the pain, one of the first concepts she understood from birth, pain, she was familiar with it.
She used her other hand to try to stop the bleeding, but before she could even do so, a voice screamed.
''Stop! Don't touch it!''
She looked at the voice's origins. She saw a figure getting closer to her. When the figure got within range, she grabbed the stick, pointing it forward, but her vision blurred, and she eventually fell to the ground.