There were only seven incidents in which Poppy had ever been approached, for as long as she could possibly remember. 5 of them were direct attacks, so it was no wonder that hearing people shocked her, and all that mental conditioning briefly went out of the window. She saw the corpse. She saw the syringe, full and bright red, she heard the gasp and the footsteps and just as tears started to fall down her face, the fever dream swept her off her feet. Now she was crying and she didn't know why. Oh, right! The people.

"Hey little miss...I saw you earlier, while I was in the shop over there. The name's Dan."

[i]Uh oh. Oh no. Uhm, uhm...[/i] not even Poppy's mind could form a proper reaction to someone talking to her. Probably an angel, but...he didn't have a shiny in his tummy. So -not- an angel. She didn't turn around, she couldn't turn around and face him, not yet.

"What're you doing there? Anything fun?"

She could feel him getting closer. She looked around for Daddy, for Rosie, but there wasn't anyone out there who could help her now. Well, no-one but 'Stickie' in her left ankle sock.

The next few moments went by in a bit of a blur.

Poppy went from her crouching position and [i]leapt[/i] over the body - yes, a body, recently dead. He looked like a tramp, or something akin to a drug addict, syringe still painfully clutched in his hand and bandages covered his malformed face. His arms, covered in blisters and sores, and a pool of blood slipping around his form like a grotesque halo. From his chest, a 15 inch long steel rivet has him well and truly deceased. But the depth in which the rivet went through....no, there was no way a child could've done that. Someone attacked this man with a very large industrial rivet gun.

But this...this was no child. Her bright white dress and cute little shoes are splattered with red now, from kneeling in the dead man's congealed blood. Her skin, a pallid and deathly pale and her eyes...bright yellow, like two flames, emitting a soft candlelight glow which only emphasizes the pale features. Her brown hair is neatly tied back, and it's clear that someone took great care in making her look unnaturally perfect. In one hand, what appears to be a large syringe - the needle is about as long as her arm, sharp and still slippery with blood - and it leads into what appears to be some sort of hamster bottle-type chamber, with a tap on the end for goodness knows what. It's full of liquid that's too bright to be blood, but where else could it have come from? In her other hand, more recently, a box cutter from her left ankle sock. This was stained with blood too and with a clicking noise, she revealed the rusty blade and pointed it threateningly, protecting her syringe.

And yet, and yet...she [i]is[/i] a child. She really is, behind her monstrous appearance she's openly crying with fear, shaking from head to toe...she's a child, but terrible things have happened to her to make her into whatever she is. And now she's all alone in the alleyway, with a group of strangers closing in on her.

Her voice sounded echoing, like several little girls in fear all at one time, all of them saying the same thing at the exact same moment. [i]"N-now...don't try anything funny, okay?....'Cause if you do, I'm gonna get Rosie. And Rosie made the angel sleep, see that? Rosie made the angel sleep and she's somewhere close, and if she hears me yell...then you're all in trouble!"[/i]