In the darkness of a world close to death a single light flickers. A world choked in the killing vines of the near triumphant Dark. A girl child is born free of malice, hatred, and rage. Born without a corrupted heart. A unique child, the final pulse of an all but hopeless world. Innocence and light radiate from her. A single candle shining bright, in the world's endless night.

Eva, was like any other alley scrap, dressed in dirt covered tatters, her lungs choked by smoke and the ever-present ash of the world's burning as the last nations raged and crumbled. Her honey brown hair was matted and grimy, her green eyes bloodshot and darkly ringed. She was a beautiful girl underneath it all, though not remarkably different.

Except that she drew the eye, and the heart, and the last vestige of the soul, a broken man carried with him. She pulled that toward her, as if a light shone from within. Drawing to her those lost moonless moths back from the edge of the abyss. Back to the light.

That night it drew two cut-purses with loathsome desires. In the deepening dark of night, she hurried home, feet finding purchase on the concrete wall she ran atop. Her pursuers following her at street level like hungry beasts. They hunted at the same time but not together, competing to draw closer to her as she fled as fast as she could.