Fear was the first lesson.

Taken by mercs, she thought they would all be like Riddick. She thought they would have some sort of honor, twisted as it might be. She'd thought wrong, and realized it only when they grabbed at the front of her shirt and tore finger-holes in the meager fabric.

Between bouts of what they did to her she learned just how much the human body could survive, while the human spirit was chipped and battered into pieces.

It was Riddick she cursed and Riddick who saved her, silver eyes and chiseled body thick in her mind when things were at their worst. The twin thoughts always bound together, what would Riddick think of her if she gave up now and what the hell had Riddick been thinking leaving her on her own like that. There was no way the Imam could have convinced her to stay, she had been too young and too damn idol-struck to believe that she could learn how to be who she wanted to be anywhere but at Riddick's side. When she'd failed to find him she decided to follow in his footsteps and see if that would work.

First you gotta kill some people.

She'd killed her first merc at thirteen, first blood. First real blood, she'd managed to sharpen a gun part, she still wasn't sure what it was. When he'd come to unshackle her so she could shill for the mercs again she'd gotten him in the throat. Then she'd rolled the body over and examined him for what Riddick called the sweet spot.

They kept her chained up and got a lot more careful after that. It didn't help. She remembered how Riddick had gotten out of his chains and stretched and twisted her body until she could slip in and out as she pleased. Well, not totally in and out, but she had a lot more freedom of movement after that. They learned, one by one, what she could do with the legs they liked to touch. What could be hidden in the mouth they loved to play with, and the mouth-dart became her favorite weapon for a while. That one she'd made from a piece of a spoon bent sideways.

The law finally caught up with her after she'd learned how to fly a ship and where the sweet spots of the galaxy were. By that time she'd killed enough people to get her to a Super-Max prison, and she didn't even bother to deny it at that mock-up of a trial they put her through.

But they put her in Crematoria.

It was dark. Maybe not as dark as where they'd put Riddick. There were dogs, and she learned speed as well as stealth from them, her contortionist ability serving her well when she had to cling to the ceiling. There was no doctor there. No one who could polish her eyeballs to a clear silver shine. There was no Riddick, either. And now she needed to cling to a different wall, a different dream.

The first time the guards grabbed her, she decided to become someone else.

Real life people could disappoint you, could let you down, could lie to you. She made up a person, hard and cold. This person wasn't sent straight to Crematoria, she'd been in a couple lesser security prisons beforehand. She'd run with mercs, never as their shill or their whore but as an equal partner, all the time. She'd carried her own weight. She'd made her own rules.

She didn't have shiny silver eyes.

Her name was Kyra.

Go to the top! For you have reached the bottom.