[b]Abandoned Apartment Building, Southwest Missouri[/b]

Most of the supplies Valentina had scrounged up here and there were moved into the vents of her new sleep spot, everything except the one thing that was huge. Looking left and right and keeping her revolver, which wasn't even fully loaded, Valentina snuck across the street and into the thick bushes of a park. The air was cold; it was early morning. Spending her entire existence trying to eke out a low-profiled, meagre existence was exhausting. No matter how young and energetic she was, she would feel sleepy not long after the sun was down. The various aches and bruises were easy motivations to sleep. Between nightmares and the risen dead outside waiting for her, there was simply nothing that could motivate her to sleep.

Switching on Vertov's tactical flashlight, Valentina began navigating between the stems of the bushes. There were various potholes threatening to sprain her ankle, which she avoided just barely. It was a forest within a forest. Then she saw it, slightly dull from dirt. It was something bigger and much heavier than even Lieutenant Hugh's rifle. Heaving it out of the biggest pothole where it was stashed with both her hands, Valentina nearly fell over, but after positioning herself better, managed to stand the humongous gun on its butt. Looking at it again, the girl was still in awe of its size. It wasn't much shorter than her - had she been a few years younger, she would have been dwarfed by it. It was far too big for her to be used, and far too complex. However, she had naively decided to keep it for when she grew up.

After spending some time sitting in the cosy confines of the bushes, an activity which she enjoyed even better than her memories of playgrounds, Valentina tore through the bushes and back out into the street, hugging her giant gun. Looking left and right again, not for incoming cars but the reawakened, she believed herself to be alone and started jogging towards the 'entrance' to her new sleep spot. Weaving past abandoned cars and trash, however, something snagged her foot and sent her tumbling. In her fall, she could feel something sharp, perhaps the jagged edge of a car wreck, slicing through her cheek, and immediately, worrying numbness where she was hurt.

"Ow!" Crying in pain, she hastily groped for her tactical light and waved it about, only to find herself surrounded by the reanimated and panicking. To her, they might as well have appeared out of nowhere, though in truth she had spent long enough a time dawdling in the bushes for several to wander by. Pulling out her revolver even as she could feel hands on her ankles, anticipating unpleasantly something to bite down soon, her hands shaking in pain and shock, she pointed it at the monster which had snagged her, set the hammer and pulled the trigger - where the conscious failed, her reflexes, 'trained' by trial and error, took over. Then, turning, she fired her revolver a few more times, until she had but one left. Out of four Mr. Biteys, three fell, but it had carved a way out for her.

Without wasting time, without even holstering flashlight nor revolver, Valentina hugged her giant gun again and made a dash for it, encountering more on the way, but dodging them with practiced skill. A fast biter, however, gave chase unrelentingly, forcing Valentina into a panicked sprint. Panting hard, she flew right into the ventilation shafts and disappeared from the streets.

Inside in the vents, she lay to rest, but as she calmed down, the adrenaline in her blood faded away. Her cut cheek no longer felt numb, but instead felt like the last time when her face was cut... Trying not to think, Valentina began pushing the huge gun in the direction she wanted to go.

By the time she was done, she was sweating and aching all over again, and extra dirty - ever since losing her last bathtub at the national guards camp, it could only be between dirty, extra dirty or downright filthy. There was no longer such a thing as being clean anymore.

The work she had to put into the giant gun had distracted her from her new wound (if her various bruises weren't counted), but with everything put in order, the throbbing pain had returned again with renewed strength. While she couldn't see the wound, her imagination filled the gap. The girl could imagine a giant, gaping chasm down her face, and she could feel it lying down next to her frown scar. Valentina couldn't help but to feel miserable over the prospect of having another scar on her face - ironically, it was her old frown scar that stopped it from crippling her emotionally.

Valentina remembered her parents' assurances - that no matter what she would always be beautiful. When they were gone, and when Lieutenant Hugh followed them, she found it harder and harder to believe it. In fact, in the pit of her stomach, she could feel an uncomfortable but empowering feeling, a strong feeling welling up that made her mad, but no matter what she could not think of the words to express it.

Sitting behind the dressing table again, the girl sighed at the prospect of looking at her face and went ahead. Assessing her own wound was an ardous process owing to her scars, but it was made bearable only by the cracked oval mirror, which had turned the reflection of her face into a defective jigsaw puzzle.

Catching a glimpse of her left cheek, where she could feel the wound acutely, Valentina realised that it was very close to her frown scar, and so could not avoid looking at it. While she had learnt that the new wound was not as bad as it felt, the sight of her old frown scar disturbed her. It was far more damaging than her new wound ever could be, for it reminded the traumatised little girl of what had caused it...

[b]Muddy Lawn Outside Suburban Home, Southwest Missouri, 13 April 2017[/b]

A smelly, rough ogre-like man threw Valentina to the muddy ground. She gasped in fear and pain as she hit the floot. Her hands and feet were bound. Her parents were forced to kneel before her by other bad men. As it turns out, the ogre was the leader of a bandit group that attacked the girl's family, and he wasn't very happy with the outcome of their latest raid. Valentina's Daddy had single-handedly taken out a whole squad of his bandits, and he was going to make him pay for them, every single one of them.

Pulling Valentina by her shirt, the bandit leader pulled the little girl to her knees before grabbing a huge clump of her blonde hair, pulled it hard, making poor Valentina scream.

"Don't you hurt her, you piece of-!" Before the father could finish his sentence, one of the bandit leader's lackeys threw a fully wounded punch. It threw the strong but helpless man off his knees, but that was soon corrected by the bandits standing beside him.

The bandit leader pulled out a mean looking knife that was bigger than any that Valentina had seen before, and jabbed it at the girl's cheek, threatening to cut her, but instead of doing that, he pressed his face against the hair of the little girl, taking in her scent, rubbing his own unwashed cheek against hers as he planted kisses down the the cheek and neck of the little girl. Valentina cried as the rough and broken skin of the ogre's skin rubbed against her silky face. "I'll kill you, you dog!" The father howled uselessly as the mother was wailing without stopping.

"If it hadn't occurred to you yet, you fuck, you can't do shit to me!" The bandit leader. He pressed the sharp tip of his huge combat knife against Valentina's left cheek to make his point. A trickle of bright red blood came out, "I want you to beg! Beg for her life!"

Looking down, as if to consider his options, the father then threw the bandit leader a defiant look, deciding that Valentina could not afford to lose any confidence in him, that he couldn't afford to let her see him in a compromising state. For his bravery, the bandit leader placed the barbed tip of his combat knife in the left tip of Valentina's tips, and yanked his blade left, carving a downward line. Valentina screamed, and screamed, with each little inch of her cheek violated, she screamed like never before as blood was spurting out, dripping from the downward line carved into her left cheek. Her parents screamed with her, incoherent, unintelligable, like animals to be slaughtered for meat.

"Ooh! Look how unhappy you've made your daughter now!" The Bandit Leader said sarcastically, and his lackeys laughed without remorse nor mercy, "Beg, you stupid! Or you'd make her more unhappy!" The ogre placed his now bloodied knife on the other tip of Valentina's lips. Valentina shivered in pain, tears mingling with copious amounts of blood. "If you won't make her happy, then I will, and I know exactly what would put a smile on any gal's face..." The dreaded knife went lower, seemingly getting caught on Valentina's buttons, the ones just below her neck. With an artful swing, several buttons fell off, revealing more of Valentina's pale, untouched flesh. Then something worse happened.

Her father begged.