Sand and Blood

prologue

" [y/n] sweetheart... It's time to get up quickly while it's still warm."

With a gentle shake, the child slowly awakened. Her eyes adjusted to the light and smell of the sidewalk they had slept on. Her mother had taken her under the cover of a shop's roof, but they had to move quickly. The night before, the woman kept her eyes out, and finally the snow had stopped. They needed to get a move on before: 1. the shopkeeper comes; and 2. the snow starts again.

Only now did Mother notice the look on the child's face—a flushed nose and heavy eyebags. Her skin was icky and cold to the touch. It looks like the cold of winter has finally gotten her sick, despite her mother's hard work.

Mum genuinely wanted to cry. Dehydration was the only thing keeping the tears from streaming down her face. She quickly took [y/n] into her frail arms. She stood up and shuffled across the chilly concrete as she frantically searched the area. Finding somewhere warmer was all she hoped for. Her gaze fell on a closed-off alleyway that was situated between two take-out restaurants whose roofs overlapped. It produced the ideal setting for them to stay in. The alleyway was dimly lit, providing them with the privacy they needed. She felt a sense of relief as they slipped into the shadows, away from the bustling crowds of people on the main street.

After gently placing her daughter down, the woman rummaged through the fast food trash in hopes of finding food that was still warm. Yet once again, there was nothing there that was acceptable to her or her child. The woman's heart sank as she realised that they would have to spend another night hungry. She knew she had to find a way to provide for her child, even if it meant begging on the streets. But for now, she needed to try to keep her daughter warm somehow.

Said daughter was delirious; she had finally gained proper consciousness as she looked at her mama for comfort. She whines in pain, barely over a whisper. The woman quickly rushes to her side, stroking the girl's hair while she wraps her arms around her body.

"I'm right here, baby..."

In the girl's eyes, she saw a blurry sight of her mother's 'spirit'. Or at least thats what they called it. It was a beautiful spirit; mother called it her guardian. It was nothing but a glowing white blob; it couldn't be touched, but it radiated comfort. She often brought it out whenever [y/n] asked for it.

The mother sobbed to herself in private as the child observed the strange spirit. She had a sense of it. Winter's snow will eventually kill them if hunger doesn't. After all, her daughter was only wearing rags for pants.

[y/n] I saw it all happen in a blur; one second she was in her mother's arms, and the next the woman was screaming as she was being dragged from her. Two men towered over her, but the child was barely able to move. Even so, she tries to clutch onto Mum. Her fingers didn't dare to let go.

Eventually she blinked, and in an instant, Mum was gone. Her screaming was replaced with the loud noise of a bang, followed by the thud of her corpse. The shock of the sudden turn of events left her frozen in place, unable to comprehend what had just happened. She stood there, staring at the empty space where her mother once stood, as tears streamed down her face.

Then she yelled; a bloodcurdling scream left her throat as she threw her cold body to her mother. resting place.

But for some reason, the men would not let her. One grabbed her by the hair, yanking her away from the ground so they could get a better look at her face. His lips twitched into a grin once he saw her features. The fuckers were smiling at her and laughing at her while she grumbled. She wasn't going to take that; she wasn't going to let them do this.

"She's cute; the boss will be happy if we can get a couple bucks for—"

She reached forwards and scratched his face with her long fingernails, interrupting him mid-sentence. He stumbled back in disbelief, wondering how he could have been so completely wrong about her character. He grasped his bleeding cheek as he realised how deceptive appearances can be. The girl is quickly grabbed by his fighting partner, who then throws her to the ground while holding her arm.

"Fuck selling her!" "I'm going to blow this kid's brains out!"

He puts a familiar weapon to her head—the same barrel that killed her mother and shaped her face into nothing but a bleeding void.

A shotgun, a military grade one at that, and it was pointed directly behind her head.

The man from earlier was still holding her bleeding face, and he had no argument with killing her straight away. When he pulled the trigger, though, she pulled.

And then suddenly, her arm was shot off, or at least mostly. All that hung between her elbow and her forearm was a bit of surviving muscle. It didn't take long for the muscle to relax completely, leaving nothing but a bleeding stump on her elbow where her arm used to be.

With this intense pain, something happened.

She wanted them dead. She had never craved death so much in her entire life. Right now, she wanted a taste of their blood on her hands. You could say that on that day, [y/n] had died and been reborn. But when she escaped from the womb of rebirth, she carried someone else with her. Her soul was split into two, and along with her, Dark Beach was born.

Sweat, blood, and tears These two phrases suggest a deep and intense emotional experience, perhaps one of great struggle and sacrifice. The creation of Dark Beach may symbolise a darker aspect of the protagonist's psyche or a manifestation of their inner turmoil. The phrase was often said by people much older than our hero.

She was barely ten years old.

After being in that alleyway long enough for the three corpses to smell and rot, [y/n] had long given up on finding help. In her eyes, some people were just born to end up this way. She knew that, with the amount of blood spilling from where her arm used to be, she wasn't going anywhere. She has accepted it; she will die here. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, trying to find peace in her final moments. She thought of her loved ones and hoped they would remember her with fondness.

Nevertheless, as she began to nod off, footsteps echoed throughout the eerily quiet darkness that had become her resting area. She wished to pass away quietly while she bled out as her heart raced and she wondered who might be approaching her.

Out from the shadows came a man, and for the first time in a while,

Risotto looked into eyes as dull as his own.