She woke up in a pile of dirt and ashes, confused and unaware. She looked around at the destroyed city that used to be her home. A home she couldn’t even remember. Tears rolled down her face; the thought of the war was too scary to forget. The last memory she had was a vision of bombs and terror. She remembered holding a little boy in her arms, watching him take his last breath and hearing the faint sound of his last word. “Help,” his fading voice whispered in her head.

Dark thoughts ran through her head at a speed of 100 miles per hour. She scrabbled through the gravel to find something, anything she could hold on to. Something to reassure her that she wasn’t the last of her kind, the last human on earth.

She grabbed a hold of something, a small plastic baby doll. It was wearing a torn yellow dress and was missing it’s left eye. She brushed the dirt off the doll and stared at it for a while, completely in awe of it’s beautiful gown. During the years leading up to the war the girl had been poor, and living in squalor. She begged and prayed for food, for survival, but now she wished she had died.

She had forgotten about the beautiful colors of the lost world. She tried to recall something more before the moment slipped and her memories started to fade away further. All that was left in the empty terrain of her mind was the remembrance of a horrible war. The girl was made up of terrible stories, stories of sorrow and horror, but only some she still remembers. She was a wartime child; hope kept her alive and also kept her foolish. A better tomorrow never came. She had nothing to hold on to except hope- the false miracle- but not anymore.

She looked down at her filthy clothes. Her jeans were stained with dirt and her jacket was tainted with grease spots. Her hair was tangled and mused with grime, but at this time beauty was about as valuable as the dirt under her fingernails. She watched a tattered plastic bag float in the wind. The earth was now a wasteland, a minefield of radiation and debris.

She looked around at this destroyed and isolated place, and was reminded what humans really were, monsters. She quickly stood up, holding the doll tightly in her hands. She smiled at it as she remembered she had once done to someone she used to know.

A small breeze swept through the empty land, and a piercing silence fell over the desolate city. Suddenly, a shrieking noise pierced through the air.The girl dropped the doll from her tight grip and ran as fast as she could towards the destroyed building in front of her. A large bird appeared in the polluted sky above, it’s gray wings fully extended. It was a beautiful creature, but it’s eyes were evil. They were a haunting hue of crimson red that could make even the toughest soldier shiver. It was a killing bird, a magnificent but murderous animal. She tried to outrun it but unfortunately for her the bird was hungry and his dinner was in her shoes.

A loud gunshot went off, and a bullet cut through the screeching bird. It dropped from the dirt sky and landed on the ground. The girl turned around slowly, taking small and cautious steps towards the corpse of the bird. When she got closer to the dead animal she realized that it was not nature’s creature, but an animatronic creation. A tear of relief rolled down her hollowed cheek. It was a prayer answered, but another question asked. She stepped closer now with less caution and more curiosity.

She was more interested in the bird than the cause of it’s death, and didn’t even notice the shadow slipping back into the cracks of the destroyed buildings. It was her own vigilante A friend in a sea of enemies. A masked prince she had yet to meet. Someone good.

She ripped off all the fake skin from the metallic creature and discovered a camera in its eye. She examined the machinery, not with a look of fear, but with a bubbling rage. She spit on the camera and ripped it from the bird’s metal skull. She threw it on the ground and crushed it with her boot.

She knew then that she was not alone, and that survival wouldn’t be painless. She glanced at the broken camera and sizzling wires while her mind wandered off. A few moments later she walked away, not noticing what she had left behind. A few demolished city blocks behind her was the yellow doll she once held tight in her arms. It was lying on the ground covered in ashes. A quiet electronic buzz came from the doll's right eye. The deceiving doll hid another camera.

Somewhere else someone was watching. “She’s onto us,” a husky male voice said behind a watching screen “and he is helping her.” “17,” he said into a small radio “get ready to hunt Number 2, an animal needs to be killed and a princess needs to be dethroned.”

17 looked at the girl through the dirty window of a wrecked building, she was so close he could run up and slit her throat without a second thought. He whispered to himself, “ Tell the b*****d the games have only just begun.”