Cinder's Story: a Lunar Chronicles Fanfic

Chapter One: Kill Your Family

Cinder yanked her foot out of its socket.

You might be wondering why she did that. Was she crazy? Suicidal? Dreaming?

The truth of the matter was far more realistic; she was a cyborg.

Having finally and forcefully removed the offending appendage, she leaned on the booth window. Business had been slow that day, and her reputation had long since dismissed the need to advertise. To pass the time, she considered playing one of the video games remaining in her antiquated collection, using her iris-implanted interface and emulators built into her head.

That was when she noticed the children playing "Kill Your Family".

Killing all your family,

The plague has taken Stanley,

Rusting, Rusting,

And now we're dead!

Cinder sighed at the morbid dystopian clichés her generation was forced to deal with. "Must be the darn economy," she thought out loud.

Her vocal thoughts were interrupted by a shout from the bakery next door- the one with the, "We don't serve filthy Rust-buckets!" sign hanging from the window.

"Sunto!" Said the woman at the doorstep. "How many times have I told you not to play anywhere near that freak next door, you foolish child! She's a dirty, inhuman, stupid piece of junk from a scrapyard!"

She took notice of Cinder watching her.

"Oh, hello, Cinder! How very nice it is to see you on such a lovely day. How's business?"

"Smooth." Cinder meant it in more ways than one.

"Very good." Said the woman. "You take care, now!"

The owner of the bakery broke her façade long enough to drag her son back inside.

Cinder didn't blame her for being over-protective.

Years ago, a plague called the Rust was forcing the brain to produce too much iron, and causing certain unwanted bacteria in the stomach to spread a sickly orange tint across the skin- the first sign of infection- on people's limbs, faces, and lymph nodes. The effects were so extreme as to give people a rusted metal look to them, right before they died. Since cyborgs are partly made of metal, some rumor broke out that they carried some kind of disease, and they had been hated by the public ever since.

Suddenly, the full force of an android collided with Cinder's head, popping it into a one-eighty angle.

"Whoops!" Said her newest client- a young, handsome man who looked like a celebrity behind the long folds of a conspicuously fashionable trench-coat. Of course, it was hard for Cinder to tell at this point, what with her head now being backwards.

"I'm so sorry!" Said the man, "I thought you were dead!"