Hadrian yawned. His camp had sent out a group of people for the monthly 8 hour hunt, and he had managed to sneak out the gates after them. Unfortunately, having to stay silent for so long to not get caught was extremely boring.

His only way of seeing were the hunter's torches, and as he scrambled through the undergrowth after them, he kept kneeling onto hidden shards of glass or nettles. He was rather beginning to regret this now.

But it was their fault he was like this! Their fault for not letting him go out on the hunt. "Too young", they called him. He was 14! Definately old enough! And even if he was a bit too young, he was already one of the best weapon users in the camp, so they could have totally benefited!

'Oh well, let them die if they want to' he mentally griped, finally deciding to break off from the group. 'I ain't helping if they get attacked by wolves or something'

The moons light was his only way of seeing, and he used his stone sword as a sort of walking stick to not fall over. He kept bumping into trees and was beginning to develop a rather nasty headache.

Walking for hours and unknowing of the way back to camp, he began to shiver, unable to wrap his arms around himself because of his harsh grip on his sword. He knew it had to be past midnight now.

Spotting a faint light, he ran towards it, hoping for some form of shelter, but was disspointed to see a run down house with a single broken half-working lamp at the front. The roof was caving in and the walls were utterly cracked and spattered with holes.

Sighing but still accepting it as respite from the cold and spatters of rain that was beginning to fall, he stepped inside, dodging the door that had been half broken off of it's hinges and was hanging diagonally inside.

While it was marginally warmer inside, he was struck by an unsettling feeling. The floor tiles were practically shattered, most missing, and there was a strange liquid over the remains of the floor. The wallpaper was rotting and curling off at the edges, and the windows were covered in spiderwebs and were cracked to smithereens.

Then he heard a faint noise.

Something muffled, it almost sounded animalistic.

Holding his sword up offensively in front of him, he stepped into the next room to see..

A figure, curled up on the floor. Back to the wall, their head was between their tucked up knees and their hands were gripping the sides of their head with rather extreme force, and they were making that noise from their mouth, it sounded like a muffled wailing.

Seeing a redstone torch close to him, Hadrian picked it up and shone it over the figure, who just then looked up to meet his eyes.

The child was clearly female, and possibly around his age. She was extremely thin, her bones poking against her flesh grotesquely, and her eyes were bagged showing a clear lack of any kind of rest. Her eyes were a bright red, startlingly so, and her hair was a light brown, with streaks of light blue. She was wearing a simple white top and brown shorts, but both were filthy with mud and dried blood.

She let out a whimper at the sight of him and her hands went to cover her head, a keening noise coming from her mouth.

Eyes softening, Hadrian put down his sword and crept over to her, getting down on his knees to look less threatening.

"Hey... Hey, it's ok. I'm not here to hurt you" he said softly. Being comforting wasn't his forte and he felt rather awkward doing it, but he felt obliged to do so.

The girl kept her hands above her head, clearly as a defensive tactic, and she stared at him with wide eyes.

He slowly reached out and touched her arm, and she flinched back, shuffling a bit, but kept staring, not reverting back to her ball. He very slowly lowered her arm, and bit back the bile that rose up from holding it. It was so insanely thin, it was like moving a skeleton. Not to mention that it was covered in deep gashes, some looking self inflicted and others looking like results of some form of sick torture.

The girl looked at him with wide, curious eyes. The red seemed to be brighter now, and he could see fangs poking out from the sides of her mouth.

What the hell was this girl?

Biting back cruel estimations that wanted to spring from his mouth, he moved even closer and tried to bring her other arm down. It seemed to be bent slightly oddly, and she exhaled sharply when he touched it. It was likely damaged somewhere. But it wasn't like he could help with that, so he just lowered with with even more gentleness.

"Hey. I'm Hadrian. What's your name?" he whispered. The girl hesitated before shaking his head. He blinked. "You don't have one?" She shook her head then pointed at him. "You don't like yours... You want me to name you?" he guessed, and she nodded. He gulped. "U-uh. I dunno. I'll go through some and you nod if you like one, ok? And shake your head if you don't like it"

He felt very odd at being in the situation he was now in, it was all so ridiculous. But she nodded, and he sighed and decided to start.

"Uh... Sofia" he tried. Shake. "Dharma" Shake. "Zaalia" Shake. He pouted. He barely knew any cool names. He tried the last one he knew. No one he knew had this name, and he personally thought it sounded really cool. "Uhh.. Mevia?" he tried as a last ditch attempt. The girl paused, deep in thought, before nodding. He slumped in releif.

"Can you talk?" he tried, and the girl blinked before opening her mouth. She made a few gurgling sounds, narrowing her eyes and furrowing her eyebrows, clearly frustrated at her inability. He raised his hands, and felt saddened at how she flinched when he did so. "Hey, there's no rush. I can teach you"

She shook her head, still clearly angry at herself. She tried again to speak, and an 'aaah' sound came out. The happy smile that she gave at that small acheivement made Hadrian's heart jump without his consent, and he tilted his head to hide the unbidden blush.

She tried again. "Hhh..." she breathed, and he nodded encouragingly. "Mehh... Mev.. Mev-a" she pouted, and Hadrian chuckled. "Mev-ia" she finally said, and gasped with a cute little smile. "Mevia. Mevia"

Hadrian snorted, before standing up.

"Can you stand?" he asked after a moment, and she shook her head. "Nnnnh" he sighed. "Do you want me to help you up?" she nodded appreciably. "Myyuh"

Putting his arms under her armpits, he hoisted her up, causing her to stumble into him, face landing on his chest. His face went rather red, but any weird thoughts were instantly erased by her jumping off of him in fear and going back into a defensive stance, hands covering her head from potential blows.

He swallowed and slowly pulled her forward, unhappy at her sudden unresponsivity. He awkwardly hugged her, and felt her slowly warm up to his touch, also wrapping her arms around him with a suprisingly strong grip.

"Cmon" he murmered "I know super good medics at my camp, we can get you all better" She gave him a suspicious once-over before slowly nodding.

He carefully picked back up his iron sword, and was worried at the way she was nervously eyeing it. Deciding to earn her trust, he fished a stone axe from his inventory and handed it to her. "Now you won't be defenseless. Please, i'm not trying to hurt you. If you think anything might, use this to defend yourself"

She blinked before nodding, the wary look she had been fixing him with fading as she swung the axe around with a childish glee.

"Cmon, Mev" he took her by the hand and pulled her out of the house. The moment they were outside, she began to shiver. Noticing this, he took off his jumper and put it over her. Sure, the cold and the light rain was reallllly uncomfortable, but she was in much worse state than he was. He had to get his priorities in order.

She beamed at him, and leaned against him. Once again gripping her hand, he pulled her through the darkness, stepping over shattered bottles and nettles and guiding her so that she didn't hurt herself. The silence was awkward but not suffocating.

Then, a growl.

Hadrian's face paled considerably at the sight of a small herd of zombies. Pulling Mevia behind him, he raised his sword.

'Ok, we are totally dead' He thought panicking. 'Sure I'm awesome at combat but... 6 zombies?'

Turns out, he didn't need to do much.

Mevia darted out behind him. He reached out after her with a small cry, but needn't have worried. She raised the axe above her head with a scream and tore apart a zombie, it's flying remains poofing into ash. She made quick work of the others, utterly butchering them with harsh, violent cuts, and for the last one she ripped out it's throat with her teeth before jamming her axe into the back of it's head.

She turned to him, hunched over, clutching an axe covered in blood. Blood ran down her face in drops, and off of her teeth. Her eyes seemed to be glowing.

Hadrian took a step back, then another, stunned.

Mevia seemed to snap out of it, and dropped the axe. She looked at her bloody hands in horror.

Snapping out of his reverie, Hadrian ran over to her and pulled her in for a hug.
"HOLY CRAP, YOU'RE AMAZING!" he yelled, and she stared at him in abject shock, lost for words. He laughed.

"You freakin' tore them to shreds! Blood everywhere, haha! You're just awesome, Mev. Cmon, let's go back to camp and show everyone!" running on adreneline, Hadrian straight up picked up the bewildered girl bridal style and dashed with her.

Mevia looked at him in the moonlight, and fell in love.