Death Starts It All

Chapter 1

Alora (April, present day)

Freedom.

It's the one word that always comes to my mind when I'm performing. As I fly through the air being held up by the twin silks hanging from the top of the circus tent, I feel liberated. I feel as if I can do anything, be anything.

God I love being a circus performer.

Most people are shocked when they find out that after college I ended up joining the circus. I guess they expect someone with a college degree to do something "meaningful" with their lives, but being a performer is meaningful to me. I get to make people feel something with my performances, whether it's awe, joy, or even sorrow and fear.

Another thing that tends to shock people about the fact that I'm a circus performer is my appearance. They expect us all to have tattoos and Piercings everywhere. And while I do have a bunch of tats, all of them are usually hidden underneath my clothes. I also don't look like what you expect a performer to look like due to the fact that I look like the stereotypical good all-American girl-next-door.

First off, I'm tiny, about 5'1", which isn't uncommon for circus performers except that instead of having the body of a prepubescent boy I've got a fairly good sized ass and a medium sized bust.

I've also got this giant mass of curly, sunshine blonde hair on top of my head. Hair that likes to piss me off because it has a mind of it's own. The little bastard can become so big that it seems like I've got a drag queen's wig on.

But while I may hate my hair, I love my eyes; they are by far my favorite feature. They're a deep sapphire blue, shaped kind of like a cat's, and the best part is that I've mastered how to express emotion out of them. Which just so happens to be the perfect asset for when I'm performing because they help me convey the feeling of the piece to the audience.

And to top of the rest of my girl-next-door appearance, I have such pale skin that I burn if I even think about the sun. I have this roundish face that makes me look younger than I actually am and when I'm not performing I wear rectangular, black-rimmed glasses. All in all, I look like the cute, sweet, innocent, good girl, that's never done anything bad in her life.

Hah, if only people knew. Because there's one thing that people would never guess about. Not only am I a circus performer.

I'm also a thief.

That's right, this little good girl has a naughty side.

In fact the entire circus is a crew. They're the ones who trained me in not only the different circus acts, such as trapeze, high wire, aerial silks, knife throwing, and sword tricks, but also in the different thievery techniques, such as lock picking, pick pocketing, safe cracking, and how to get past security lasers. Luckily we only steal from those who deserve it, kind of like Robin Hood, only without the whole giving to the poor thing.

So I guess nothing like Robin Hood. Oh well.

Anyways, back to the feeling of freedom from performing. Right now I'm performing my aerial silks routine. This is one of my favorite pieces because it's the one I perform when I want to awe the crowd. The entire time I perform it I can feel the audiences eyes glued to me waiting to see what trick I'll do next.

Right now I'm about to do my final move, a barrel roll. I'm at the top of the silks with them wrapped around my legs and waist. I suddenly let myself go, quickly coming down the silks, still wrapped up within the silks. I can feel the audience holding their breaths as I come closer and closer to the ground when I suddenly stop myself about a foot above the ground. I hang there for a second feeling the audience's reaction of relief, then I put my feet on the ground, stand up gracefully, untangle myself from the silks, and bow. There is a huge round of applause as I leave the ring for the next performance.