Areum's POV:

Punching out my right arm connected with my opponent’s temple. He tried to land a hit on my side but I was too quick for him. And that’s saying a lot, after all he is my trainer. Also my mentor and ‘father’.

“Trying to give me a dizzy spell Areum?” he jeered at me. All he got in return was another blow to the temple but by a kick this time.

“Splints, I know you love me and all, but you need to try giving me less openings,” I mocked back. Though it did take me a while to say this through hits and breaths. He hissed in response. He wasn’t really giving me any openings, I was creating them on my own.

Coming to the end of our spar, Master Splinter – as he likes to be called due to his ‘fascination’ but I call it an addiction of the Ninja Turtles – said something that gave me quite an eye opener. “Your graduation is next week. Congratulations Areum.”

Graduation? Already? I swear I just began this rigorous training just last week. I exaggerated that a lot, I actually started many years ago. In fact I started just as Master Splints found me. Wiping up my sweat with a fluffy white towel, I began to recall all of my memories. Only that ones I could remember clearly.

It started out with the happy days I spent with my biological parents, a happy and loving couple with their adorable daughter, me. I think I was around seven years old when that happy family started to break apart. My mom had cancer and if it wasn’t for me, she could still be alive today. Apparently, as the story goes according to my biological father, my mom was diagnosed with a serious type of cancer while she was pregnant with me and her life could be prolonged if she received medical attention immediately, but that would only result in the loss of me. Weighing out the options, my mom decided to just go along with the pregnancy and ignore her own health. Even if she had a few years with me, she would be ok. What she didn’t know was what would happen when she left.

As a little tot, I couldn’t really tell the difference in the way I was treated by my parents. They would always treat me as their precious little child, my mom would especially pamper me in any way she could. But when it came to my dad’s turn it seemed like he was a bit cold towards me. Yet I couldn’t tell at that time, I thought I was being disciplined for my actions. Which is why I hated to be with him and always reached for my mom. But because she knew she would leave one day she kept trying to push me to be with him. It worked for a little while until I had to be with him always as she was admitted to the hospital.

When I was around six years old, I lived with my grandparents for a year as my dad would always be at the hospital with my mom as she fell sicker. Eventually as the months passed my mom passed away. After the funeral, my grandparents felt that I would need to live with my dad again to try and comfort him, after all I am his and my mom’s child. Also they were getting quite old as well. They handed me off to him without knowing how messed up he became. I was seven when he gave me my first real beating.

It never happened before. My parents never hit me at all. I wasn’t even a handful of a child either, I always listened to them. And yes, my dad became one of those cliché messed up parents, coming home drunk and beating me, abusing me and the all that jazz. But I hurt too! I couldn’t see the women who gave birth to me ever again. Even through all that I tried my best to console him, as much as a seven year old kid could do. He’d always push me away because I reminded him of her. He’d beat me because I looked like her. I was the constant reminder that in order to give a life, another had to be taken.

Then I turned eight. I didn’t remind him my birthday was coming up as it was the worst day of his life, and I feared he might even just kill me on the day itself. So I quietly let it pass. A week later of avoiding him as much as I could, I ran away from home. I always wanted an escape and I just took it when I saw the opportunity. At first I felt the thrill of running through the streets on that cool summer night. I remember thinking that if Kevin from Home Alone could roam around the city as he pleased, I could too. With a backpack just fit for my size stuffed with snacks and juice, a bear my mom gifted me before she died, and extra underwear – mom always said it’s safe to have extra underwear – I ran wherever my feet could take me. Not knowing where to go, that’s when the fear settled in.

I’m not sure how it happened or where I ended up, but somehow I tripped and fell in front of a stranger. He helped me to my feet and checked if I was ok, then he asked where I lived and a phone number if I knew it. When I didn’t answer him but only with tears streaming down my face, he voiced that he would take me to the police station so they could take me home. That’s when I started to protest and try to break free from him. He didn’t understand what was going on when I managed to slip out of his hand, but he got a pretty good idea when he caught me under a street lamp and I cried out in pain. His eyes found my bruises.

Gently he led me over to the curbside where we both sat down. He asked me if I ran away from home, I answered yes. He asked me if I ever wanted to go back home, I answered no. When he asked why, I began telling him my story but I never finished it because I fell asleep against his side. The next morning I woke up in a warm bed with my bear right next to me. Other than that, I was alone. I noticed that my bruised cover body not only felt sore like it usually did but also stung a little and I wore a clean shirt that was way too big for me. My bag was sitting on a chair in the corner of the room. Confused, I exited the room and came across the kitchen where the man was cooking. He took notice of me right away and ushered me to the washroom to clean me up and redress my bruises as he did last night. Right after that we sat down watching morning cartoons and eating breakfast.

It was when an episode of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles ended he began to address our situation. He asked me again if I ever wanted to go home – which I replied no again – and he told me he would do as I wished, but only if I joined him. I asked him what he meant by that. He said if he could put it into simple terms that I could understand as an eight year old it was be for him to train me to fight and be strong. He said I had potential as he never thought a child like me would be smart enough to pack along extra underwear, which he so happily laughed off. When I agreed, he told me to call him Master Splinter. Then it was my turn to laugh. That whole day he kept asking my name but I would never tell him as I didn’t like how it sounded anymore. It reminded me of too much. So I told him I had no name. He decided to give me his family name of Park and named me Areum.

Later as I grew up, Master Splinter began introducing me little by little of the Agency he worked at and that I was a special recruit for a project they were starting up. I had nothing against it at all and continued on with my training with him. Once I knew what I was getting into, it was easy to understand how the world and my dad came to know that I was ‘dead’ at eight years old. The Agency, on behalf of Master Splinter, staged a perfect death of me with no traces, but I knew they had to pull some strings on order to do that. Not to mention the blood samples they had to take from me. But that’s what I get when I enlisted into the Shadows. The Agency that works in secret in the sector of justice. We exist, but not much knows of us. Only a select few that gives us the jobs that keeps us running knows. But that’s on the inside. On the outside we seem like a high standard police station to the public just so the others involved with the cases can’t blow our cover.

From the young age of eight, all the way to the age of twenty-one, Master Splinter says I’m going to graduate from my rank of a trainee to the rank of an elite. There’s the ranking system that everyone normally has to go through in order to graduate into a higher rank. Because I was specially trained by one of the most respected man under the Director, I was trained in all the fields that makes up an elite agent. I also had field experience under my belt too as I was allowed to assist some teams in their cases.

With a grin on my face realizing that no more do I have to isolate myself from the other agents – but I always broke that rule and socialized with them. I only stayed away from the other project members – no more training session with the Splints, and there was officially no more traces of the life I left behind when I was eight. This is my new life and I will go through with it until the end. I picked up all my stuff and headed towards the showers in the change room. Master Splinter managed to slip a few words to me before I disappeared. It put me in an even better mood than I was before.

“There will be a formal ceremony of the graduation of the project group,” he called out. “But also a grand party will follow right after.” I could hear the smirk forming on his face.

Graduation just so happens to fall on my twenty-second birthday.

Author's Note:

How's that for a first chapter? I decided to give light to Areum's past just so you know where the character is coming from. I hope you enjoyed the Home Alone and Ninja Turtles references. This is after all just the beginning, so there's not really much action to expect pretty soon. Maybe in Chapter 3 things begin to get bumpy? Who knows, you'll just have to wait an see for yourself.

I know I'll be pretty much talking to myself for a while until the story attracts more attention.

- ChocolateRose