High school had been uneventful in the four years Ofelia had attended. She was barely passing due to her lack of attention and interest in classes and her overall unenthusiastic outlook towards her classmates had left her generally friendless. Whenever she did approach people to speak to them, or have then approach her, sometime she said or did would always turn them away and leave her running to see her brother as soon as classes were out. He'd been there in his Senior year when she was a freshman. When he graduated she was alone, and bitter. When he graduated, she didn't have anyone to tell her that the things outside in the shed were make believe, that she couldn't see or hear them as she walked past during the only class she willingly attended - gym.

The shed had been discovered on one of her first days at the new school during a rowdy game of kickball (and Ofelia showing everyone she did indeed have depth perception), the young teen being forced to get said object after she'd sent it flying. A few boys had come with her out of curiosity and they'd come across the shed. One of them wanted to explore, one of them wanted to know what it was. Ofelia could hear the voices coming from inside, the cackles that called out to them daring the children to enter. Ofelia wanted to get away from right then and there and she didn't care about the boys calling her a coward behind her back as she ran. She did have the ball so the game could continue but she wasn't going back to that shed any time soon. It reminded her entirely too much of the barn back at her Aunt's house, and she hated that barn.

"Hey Auntie, wha's dat over dere?" Ofelia had just arrived fresh faced, six years old, and claiming to have both of her eyes still in her skull. Her parents had sent her away after being unable to take in her lies and her brother, unwilling to leave his sister alone with a woman they'd only met one at Christmas several years back, went with her. Ofelia's interest in the whole new environment had settled on massive barn near the edge of the grounds, its dilapidated state a clear testament to the use (or disuse) of the structure. The younger Ofelia wanted to play in it so badly, so much to the point that she was more than willing to sneak out in the middle of the night to explore. It was large, spacious, and best of all - filled with the friends that only Ofelia could see. They were happy that she could see them and hear them, even if seeing them was only blurry at best and their voices loud and clear.

Ofelia could play games with them, like hide and seek, and when her brother got up she would him him join in. They could be monster hunters because the voices thought it was funny, even if it all turned out to be in her imagination. Ofelia's brother was a good kid, he'd let it go like that. Ofelia wasn't sure he really had commitment to the games in the same level as she did but at the very least playing along made her happy. The barn was a place of wonder and Ofelia spent so much of her youth in there.

"Ah'm sorry." She didn't want to have to explain to her brother why she had a black eye on the left side of her face and a busted lip, or why the eye she was told to treasure was missing. She didn't want to have to tell her brother that her classmates had shoved her into that shed after she'd made a mention she hated it, the sounds within it terrifying. She'd had an honest reason for punching that boy after he shoved her inside because he didn't know what was in there, what was behind the sounds she heard. He could laugh and hold the door closed all he wanted after she was trapped, but she wasn't going to stay in there. They'd had a fight, she'd broken his jaw and he'd crushed her eye. Ofelia'd been suspended for a few days and he'd been expelled, mostly because it had looked like aggression on his part, not hers.

Being inside that shed had been terrifying, even if it'd been only for a few minutes until she managed to kick out a window and crawl outside, ready to attack the boy in a blind fury over her capture and imprisonment. She didn't deserve that, no one deserved it. When she felt his jaw break beneath one of her punches, she felt relief. She'd made it out, and he knew where she stood. They all knew where she stood.

Alone.

"It hurts, it hurts! Augh, mah eye, mah eye!" Ofelia writhed in pain on the floor of the barn, hot blood spewing from her eye socket and her face like someone had shaken a soda bottle and let the contents explode everywhere. Her brother stood atop on the massive mounds of soiled and decaying hay, his face in a look of pure terror as he dropped the board he held in his hand. It had been her idea to try swinging the boards at each other as a game, a way of practicing to fight the imaginary monsters when they launched their attack.

She'd ducked instead of dodged and the board got her beneath her chin, sending the small six-year old off the hay and onto the ground where she landed on a pitchfork that had been used only moments ago as a fake spear. It was the last sight her left eye ever saw and the first time Ofelia started to think the voices she heard were a bad idea, that they games they suggested weren't meant to be fun.

Their cackles at her pain, their howling laughter at her brother's cold panic and his attempt to hide her body in the straw once she'd stopped moving, was more than enough to let her know. The things she had considered friends now terrified her. There would be no more games, no more trips to the barn. Ofelia was done with that world, but it wasn't done with her.

They were always there, and she knew it. Even when her brother said he outgrew them and go no longer hear them, she still could. She couldn't see their faces as before, perhaps it was only her left eye that allowed it before it was destroyed, but their voices were loud and clear.

Ofelia was terrified.

"Ah'm gonna burn it down." It was a declaration, not an idea. She'd already purchased what she needed as well as found a way to siphon out the gas from her aunt's car. The old biddy never left home anyway except to go into town for poker once in a while, and Ofelia was still gagging at the aftertaste of gasoline in her mouth. She'd swallowed a mouthful or two on accident, the contents broiling her stomach until she figured out she'd need to vomit it up. Lugging the gas can with her she paused at the foot of her aunt's barn, listening to the cackles that still issued from within. It had been twelve years since she last went inside on her own, willingly, and now she pushed herself inward and looked around.

There was a stain where she'd bleed in a puddle, the concrete discolored from years and lack of proper clean up. There was a trail leading to a much smaller mound of hay than she remembered, her brother having drug in her into it when he thought she was dead. It would do perfectly to burn this place down before she went on to the school and let that shed know she wasn't going to take it anymore either. She'd endure fours years of those whispering terrors and over a decade here. She was going to purge them all with fire, and Ofelia cackled to herself as the contents of the gas can leaked around her feet, soaking her shoes. She pulled them off and tossed them into the pile, her hands fishing into her pockets for a lighter.

Arson wasn't a game, but arson was the only way she could get rid of the voices. Killing it all with fire, burning away the bad memories. Her brother had taken her aunt somewhere, probably into town to get her hair done, and she was going to give them a surprise to come home to. The barn would be gone, and so would Ofelia. No more voices, no more abuse at school.

No more barn, no more shed.

The barn went up in flames as Ofelia started down the dirt road that lead to her high school. It was a dark night with only the moon out, but she knew the roads and she'd make it by dawn. Let the early birds come and see her present to them at the morning assembly, and then Ofelia would strike it off on her own.

The shed went up in flames just as easily as the barn had and Ofelia stood, barefoot, watching it all happen. No more voices, no more fear. No one else would get shoved inside and come out screaming, no one else would have to worry about the rumors and dark legends. Ofelia had saved them without them knowing and, even if they weren't thankful, she'd enjoyed doing it. The sun was peaking over her shoulder, the hot air of the day starting to leak in around her. Goosebump prickled the back of her neck, the fire roared and sunburned her face.

A hand came down on her shoulder and Ofelia looked, a smile on her face. She'd expected the police, someone to arrest her and take her away, but it was someone she'd never seen before, a figure in white telling her that the voices were gone and she'd done well, but it was not enough. If Ofelia wanted to help people, to find a new adventure, she'd need to actively hunt them down and not just do little things like destroy public property for her own benefit. Ofelia would have to become a hunter, which sounded amazing, but she'd need to go home first and let her family know, if she wanted. Ofelia declined, following behind.

She'd left her home behind in a place burning with fire and with the knowledge she'd done something amazing.

An adventure was starting and Ofelia was walking towards it, no shoes on her feet.