White noise.

That was really the only thing that could describe the buzzing in her head as sheer will saw to her worn Chuck Taylors continuing to crunch gravel and ice beneath every step. The sharp buzzing and ringing was in response to what was no doubt a head injury, though the pain had faded away and the shock was also coming to an end. There really wasn't much thought to the fact that it would hurt to breathe, or that her lip was split and the frozen air licking the injured flesh burned a bit before it surely froze. It was unfortunate that her pack - and all her worldly belongings - were gone, but it also meant she could move faster. Where the Veil was telling her to go was still a mystery, but it was at the back of her mind now.

Well, she should have been able to move faster. It was due to the twisted ankle and knee attached to one long, lean leg that her pace was slowed. That same one that limped, but it didn't matter - the resistance and drag of the snow wasn't felt, not yet. All that Lylith Vasser could think about was getting away from... well, where had that maniac thrown her out of the truck? She had been walking long enough that her clothes felt soaked with sanguine and now clung, iced over, to her skin - surely only lending to the fact that she looked crazed to be making her way down this strange, wintery rural road. There had been no vehicles that had passed her as she went, leaving it more eerie than it perhaps needed to be. There was only the trees here, the howling of the wind a haunting reminder that the elements could very well take her once the sun disappeared.

The blonde was small against the white landscape - not just petite, but too thin in a way that proved she likely skipped plenty of meals. Though her hair had been braided, it looked wild, and there was drying red in it now, tainting the pale strands. It was not quite white, but a very pale blonde that was almost silvery that so many others had tried to achieve artificially. Her ratty hoodie was in tatters from being torn and cut apart - black against the pale backdrop, her old jeans smeared with blood... *her* blood. If there was anything beneath it, it wasn't visible. It wouldn't be, not when an insane human had damn near been the thing to take her out - her bra, her shirt, even her coat had been left behind in a mad dash to get free. In its place was rope hanging from both wrists, unraveling as slow as molasses and leaving fibers embedded into her wounds.

It was that strange fugue that had seen to the waif moving farther into a place that should have alarmed her. There was nothing here, and it was colder than she was dressed for, and wasn't likely to survive on her own long.

Not that Lyli particularly cared about it.

Pausing at the feel of agony shooting through her limb, the first moment of clarity came right before she realized there was something far too loud coming closer. It took longer than she would have admitted to for her to figure out it was a engine... but why was any person out here in the middle of nowhere? No one surely lived out here, and she hadn't even seen a road sign for... was it miles now? Longer?

Pausing as her breath caused a silver halo around her face, the waif was wracked with shivers and shock as she finally stopped for a moment, her gray eyes twisting to the tree line on one side of the two lane road. Under normal circumstances, she could have run into it to disappear from view, but the way that she had fallen from her attacker's cab had made it harder to move her limb than normal. Now was not the time to flee, but what if it was another human trying to torture her again?

"Fuck," was hissed into the air, even as her tiny frame tried to gather the strength it might need to get away from any threat that came her way. Hobbling for a moment, just a moment, a snap decision was made that took her from the shoulder into the snow that came high enough on her spindly legs that there would be little hope of escaping frostbite if she stayed out here dressed like this... but, in her broken mind and concussed state, it made sense to do it. Maybe there would be some abandoned building or a hunting camp somewhere nearby that would let her survive the night this far away from society.

Maybe.

Gritting her teeth with huffs that turned the air white before her, Lyli made it maybe ten feet into the deep snow on the bank before her malnourished body begged her to stop. It was the pain in her leg that stopped her, bending at the knee to take the pressure off of the limb. Every inhale hurt, making it all but impossible to focus on the vehicle coming her way. Instead, all that Lyli could manage to do was stand and shiver... and wait.

... as officers continue to investigate the grisly murders happening through the city. Just last night, there were two more bodies found in Central Park. Police are asking for help from the public --

With a groan, and all the noise of the world fading in and out as well as her consciousness, the thin woman in the bed finally cracked open a set of gray eyes. The television, despite its low volume,

There have been no leads. Chief Bellamy has not released a statement.

Coming up next, we discuss the ongoings of the next mayoral election.

If the stray had the energy, she might have huffed, but just breathing felt like absolute exhaustion. Slowly, her gaze shifted to look down at her thin arm. There was bandages and somewhere beneath them, a talented nurse had managed to get her IV in. The limb felt cold, like the rest of her, but at least she could feel her limbs. Moving them might have been a different beast entirely. No doubt, part of it was the morphine dripping into the vial before the line, keeping her quiet and tired.

Had they found out her name?

With a considerable amount of effort, she twisted her arm to see her patient wristband. The flesh was interrupted with the wrappings of bandages, her skin nearly as pale as the medical supplies.

DOE, JANE
D.O.B.: UNKNOWN

Good, they didn't know to give her the psychotic drugs that just made things so much worse.

A chuckle managed to roll from her lips, but it felt like someone had knocked the wind right out of her. It caused pain to shoot through broken ribs and fractured vertebrae. Briefly trying to arch her thin body in agony, it stretched bruises and stitches until there was enough pain to bring tears to her eyes. Blinking them away to focus, slow breaths caused the thin blankets to rise and fall, but even the brushing of the cotton hospital gown against her skin made the fine hairs all over her body stand up. Even the pale blonde strands on her head felt electrified at the overwhelming sensations of consciousness and agony.

Flattening her back against the bed, it was only then that she came to realize that her other arm had been fractured and was in a bulky cast. She was a mess of bruises and stitches, her bones compromised, but somehow... she was alive. Lylith wasn't even entirely sure how she had lived through the ordeal. At perhaps eighty pounds soaking wet, she had been a mess of skin and bones in third-hand clothing when she had ended up blacking out in an officer's lap, wrapped in a windshield.

All she had remembered was darkness and a horrible screech, and then silence like no one had heard silence.

Everything had gone black, and the psychic had been sure that she was dead. Apparently not.

It was dark, the hallway light being the main illumination, which meant it was late. Good. She could have a few hours alone to process what had happened - and it meant she wasn't likely to have a visitor. The room was empty, but there wasn't another bed - she was alone.

... why alone? Was the state paying for her to have a private room to recover in? They likely hadn't expected for the girl to even pull through.

Noise in the hallway, nursing staff passing through, briefly pulled her from her thoughts. Licking her lips, she found herself thirsty and craving a shower, and it was like she hadn't eaten in a lifetime.

What was going to happen now?

---

. Essentials .

• Age: Eighteen
• Height: 4'11"
• Weight: 89
• Build: Waifish
• Skin Tone: Pale
• Hair Color: Silvery blonde
• Eye Color: Gray
• Martial Status: Unmarried, unattached, no offspring

. Extensive .

• Spoken languages: English (fluent), Latin (proficient)
• Notable Skills: Survival, rune work, acting.
• Living Situation: Homeless and hopeless.

---

As a child, Lylith never knew why she could hear the whispers - just as much as she didn't know why she could see the hazy visions of souls stuck in Limbo. The failed result of a ritual between an occultist and one of his lovers, the girl had been given up from his home in London by the time she was a young child to his brother in America when she had not shown the promise of being tethered to demonic forces as they had hoped for.

Very quickly, odd things had begun to happen around the child; there was objects moved, growling out of thin air, and figures fading in and out of the edges of her uncle's vision. He had soon become unnerved enough that he had given her up into the foster system, where she spent the next fourteen years changing hands and slipping in and out of psych wards in thanks to her "strange" behavior and the mysterious circumstances of many of her caretakers either becoming injured or committing suicide. As she got older, things got worse; often, those that found her wanted her for more sinister purposes than a home. More than once, she had endured the unspeakable, though she had managed to avoid pregnancy by some miracle.

By the time Lyli aged out, she had no skills and no job, finding herself wandering and homeless. Worse yet, when the weather grew cold and she couldn't get south, she found that it was easier to give her body to those that wanted a punching bag or a semi-willing partner instead of freezing to death or suffering painful frostbite or hypothermia when the shelters were full. Hell, sometimes it also meant a hot meal when she finally had the desire to eat.

Her way of living helped to hide the precarious way that Lyli was forced to live: she could hear those that hadn't moved on, see the spectres that haunted the world and the demons had lurked to fetch souls from their world. Even after she had once carved runes into herself, trying to block it all out, little had changed her birthright.