I wanted to hate her. Not just hate her, but despise her. But the harder I tired, the less I could. I will never forget the sick pleasure I took the first time I laid eyes upon her scrambling through the rubble of Basilica. She was so covered in dirt and all the hallmarks of war that she barely looked human, but I knew exactly who she was! I didn’t need the deck of cards to tell me who I had found amongst the wreckage of my home But no sooner had I thought that, I found myself protecting her. And those sick pleasures I had taken, even if only brief, would soon haunt me, not just on that night but forever. I remember my sadistic satisfaction at seeing the state she was in, her skin coated in dirt and ash from just attempting to survive a warzone. Her clothes were so encrusted with grime and mud that I was pretty sure that the filth was the only thing holding them together. And her hair was so caked in grease that it almost glistened like silk, but just like everything else, we couldn’t save it. Before that night was over, she would lose them all and be reduced to little more than whatever we could find to clothe her in. She was reduced to little more than a silhouette of herself and worse still, those thoughts, those sick delights I had taken, suddenly warned me of just how easy it was to lose myself in the fog of war. Eventually I came to realise that I didn’t want to hate her, not really, not truthfully, deep down I just wanted the same thing that everyone else in Basilica wanted. Someone to blame. Someone that I could point my finger at and say “It's all your fault!” But she wasn’t to blame, she was just a kid trapped inside the same vicious game of survival that we all were playing. Before that night was over I would learn to live with reconciling with myself for ever daring to think those things about her and I would also come to owe her my life. Everyone had lost something in this war. Friends, loved ones, family, homes and even hopes. That night, even if only briefly, I lost my humanity. Where that night she lost everything. I knew who she was, everyone in Basilica knew who she was, public enemy number and the ace of spades. And her name is Virika Mae Fusamorei.