She watched, without expression, the path of her destruction in a flash of fire as it hurtled across the sky. She got into her nondescript car and followed its progress. Only when it disappeared did she let out a satisfied, high-pitched shriek and thought back to where it all started.
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It all began eleven years ago, when she was just thirteen. She woke up in what looked like an abandoned warehouse with absolutely no recollection of the past or of how she got there. Her mind was empty, devoid of all meaning when a single image flooded her mind; a strange man running away from the very same warehouse. She was immediately overwhelmed by a rage, a thirst for revenge burning across her veins that she could not explain. As she attempted to figure out how she had ended up there, a series of seemingly unconnected images appeared out of nowhere in her mind. Suddenly, she was surrounded by phantasmagorical creatures that danced around her and beckoned to her in a friendly manner, but when she looked closely, they shocked her. Each creature brought back a particular image more forcefully to her mind; a man and a woman smiling tearfully and then looking back at something in fear, an abandoned shack in the middle of a forest, a flash of fire across the sky, a drive to what looked like this warehouse, a mirthless laugh in the dark, and the most forceful image of all: a wizened old lady. As she watched the phantasmagorical creatures, the tempo of their dance increased until they finally seemed to devour her and she fell unconscious.
When she awoke again, she was in an orphanage, where she then grew up. She still had no idea about her past; even the images and creatures from the warehouse were wiped clean from her mind. She was always different from other children; she kept to herself and followed all the rules and regulations. She was deeply mistrustful of the orphanage counsellor, Fernando, who often asked her probing questions about her past. For some inexplicable reason, he made her feel a desire for revenge, a corrosive hatred.
When she was old enough, she left the orphanage and moved into a cottage by the woods. She often took walks in the forest to clear her head and one day, preoccupied, she ventured deeper than usual. She came across a shack in a clearing and saw a wizened old lady standing outside it. As she went closer, the lady placed her palm on her nape and said, "Find him. Find him and I will tell you how to kill him." The images flashed across her mind again and she recognized the man running away from the warehouse. Fernando. The phantasmagorical creatures came back and this time, they danced in a particular order such that the images fell into a sequence and she remembered everything.
She had had a happy childhood, living with her parents. One day, her father had unwittingly witnessed Fernando commit a murder. He had chased after her family to silence them, taken them to the warehouse and killed her parents. He had then struck her on the head and left her for dead. When she was brought into his orphanage, he kept a close watch on her, letting her live only because she did not remember anything.
When she looked up, the shack, the lady and the creatures had disappeared. All she was left with was the familiar thirst for revenge, now with a reason.
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As she sped away in her nondescript car, she finally felt at peace.
And Fernando?
Oh, he had just been blasted to smithereens across the sky.
