A shrill shriek filled the Gellner family home as the young Devorah Gellner woke up in her bed, her sheets and jammies drenched in blood. Her body was ridden with bleeding gashes and bruises from the all-too-real dream of fighting as Sailor Requiem in Elysion. She was there, defending the territory to the best of her ability, but she was no match for the swarm Negaverse agents that she found herself buried in. She found herself passing out by the end of the fight, unable able to stand from all the injuries she sustained once the initial adrenaline went away.

She wasn’t conscious enough to be sure who that caped crusader was, or what he wanted, but she knew he was someone not to be trusted. That much was crystal clear.

She was impressed, however, with her ability to hold her own for as long as she did – at one point taking on three Negaverse agents at once – but now it was time to pay the consequences, and they were far more severe than she anticipated. The consequences weren’t just the physical pain of her injuries, but the end results of her waking up in this situation.

Her father, Andrew, sprinted into Devi’s bedroom with a sense of great emergency. There were no chances to be taken in the house, it had not been long ago that General Tanzanite attacked the family, and Devi’s parents were still paying for that encounter. Her mother Raquel had only just come out of her state of unconsciousness two days before, and was ready to be checked out from the hospital within the day. Her father still maintained a greatly wounded shoulder from the large gaping hole that Tanzanite’s arm had pierced into his body.

“Devi, is everything—,” her father started as he flicked on her bedroom light in a panic. He froze in his tracks when he saw his daughter, seemingly sitting safely in bed, but covered in blood. “Oh God.”

“I’m fine,” she lied, doing her best to conceal her pain. She winced as a salty tear dripped down the cut on her cheek. “I don’t know what happened. Go back to sleep, I’ll clean myself up.”

“No,” he said, a hint of passion, fear, and anger in his voice. “No, don’t you tell me to go back to bed. You don’t wake up screaming, covered in blood, and tell me to not worry about it. I don’t know what is going on here, but I’m no idiot, Devi. Something is up, and it ends now.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I talked it over with your mother last night: we’re leaving the city. It’s too dangerous to stay here, its incredible that we made it this long. But after what happened to your mother and I, and now you waking up like this, I’ve had it. We’re gone. We’ll be moving down to Florida with your grandma until we can find a place of our own down there, but we are not staying in this God forsaken piece of s**t city any longer. Am I understood?”

“You can’t just do that!” the daughter fought back. “My life is here. You don’t understand, I can’t leave. Its too important that I stay!”

“God damn it Devi!” her father bellowed. “It’s that kind of talk that scares your mother and I so much! I don’t know what you’ve gotten yourself involved in, but you are done! Get ready to say good bye to your friends, we’re not staying. I’m sorry to be so tough, but this is the right decision. And there is not going to be any further discussion on it.”

“But dad—“

“Devi, damn it, NO!” he shouted. “Get ready to pack your things.”

The door slammed shut and Devi let her tears go as she cried herself to sleep, one of her last nights of sleep in her home.