The Paradise: (A Closers Online/Goddess of Victory NIKKE Crossover)

[Stimpak Medic]

Prologue: Lost It All

Death. All she knew was death. Surrounded by death on all sides, yet untouched herself by that same death, a young girl could do nothing but watch everyone die around her.

Her brother. Her father. Her uncle. Her mother. Her friends.

The disease and death took everyone from her on the tiny island she lived on. No older than twelve, her reality was nothing but death, disease, and poison. The dimensional monsters were the only thing that allowed her to live.

Scavenging for dimensional monster parts with the only one she could rely on. The only one she could trust, Haneul. That was what allowed her to put food and medicine on the plates and tables of the other children of the island.

Haneul. The Volunteer who would bring medicine, clothes, and food to the island regularly.

Yet now, all she held in her thin arms was a corpse. The woman's black hair and lifeless eyes cold and unseeing. Her pale skin even paler and utterly devoid of the warmth she used to show her.

Clad in naught but her poor brown cloth makeshift clothes, the young girl carried the woman's body with her towards the cemetery. Even Haneul fell to the disease and poison in the air that blanketed this island of trash.

Tears silently flowed from her purple eyes, their pinkish hue reflecting the late evening light from the setting sun over the waters of South Korea.

"Even you died.. in the end" the small girl's soft voice could barely be heard over the sound of the wind blowing through the massive heaps of metal and refuse all around her. The very air was thick with purple smog, and just breathing was hard for a human, yet it did not claim her like it claimed all those around her.

Her white hair was long and disheveled, and her pale skin was marred with dirt and grime. She was to an outsider, quite pathetic to see. One would not be considered improper for assuming she was an orphan or homeless child. Her skinny body reflected her lack of proper nutrition or diet in general.

What the volunteers brought was scarce, and there were many mouths to feed.

As the small girl carried the woman in her arms, the corpse offering no resistance to her shifting and shaking as she cried, the young girl finally made it to the graveyard. Dozens and dozens of small wooden makeshift crosses marking the shallow graves of the other children she had once called friends littered the grassy field that had now become a large barrow.

A shovel sat resting against a small wooden fence nearby, and she placed the woman down at the edge of the barrow, and took the shovel in her hands.

For such a young girl to bury her best friend, it must have been quite upsetting and traumatic, but she had long lost count of the friends she had buried, and the relationships that had been cut short by this horrible disease.

Crunch.

The dirt and rocks were broken apart as the hard layer of solid soil cracked beneath her small shovel.

Crunch.

She stopped and wiped away her tears, as she could not see where she was digging the grave.

Her long white hair shifted across her face, temporarily blinding her, and she leaved against the shovel.

"I'm sorry Haneul. We couldn't make it to the future together." she murmured, picking up the shovel and digging again. Slowly and with much effort, she dug the shallow grave in the poisoned dirt for in which her best friend would ultimately find her final resting place. In the very island she had found her friend on.

Her vision slowly fogged over, and she was in the past, sitting on the beach on her knees, looking at something nearby. Haneul was filming her on a video camera she had recently found amongst the trash and garbage piles. They would save these moments forever on this old camera for many years to come.

"Mirae, what are you looking at?" Haneul's energetic young woman's voice came through on the recording, as she looked over to where Mirae was looking silently.

"The fish..." Mirae trailed off.

Lying in a shallow puddle of toxic purple sludge was a dead fish. It was as large as a big carrot, and lay limply on it's side. Unmoving and unfeeling.

"I tried to pick it up, it looked hurt and was flopping." She said, her big purple eyes wide and scared.

She continued after taking a sharp breath.

"But when I touched it, it died. Why do i keep killing everything I touch?" The young girl known now as Mirae asked, tears welling up in her eyes. Her tiny chest began heaving as she began balling.

"It's okay Mirae. Your ability is scary, but you can control it. I'll help you make it through this." Haneul said, placing down the camera, and walking over to the small girl, pulling her into a close hug while stroking her hair to calm her down.

The girl hugged her back, holding the woman close, as if she let her go once, she would fly away.

Eventually her sobbing diminished to soft sniffles, and she let go of the woman.

"Look at me Mirae. Don't tell anyone you have this ability. Bad people will try to take advantage of you and use you for unsavory things. Promise me you won't tell anybody about your ability." Haneul said, looking the young girl in the eyes.

"I promise" The girl sniffled, nodding her head.

"Good. We can make it through this. You just have to trust me, okay?" Haneul asked, giving the girl a pat on the head.

"Okay, I trust you." the young Mirae said, nodding quickly.

At that moment, the memory faded, and Mirae returned to the graveyard.

She let out a soft sigh, and finished digging the grave. Slowly dragging the woman's corpse, the young Mirae lowered the corpse into the hole and placed her down into the dirt.

A coffin was completely out of the question, and she could barely find enough planks just to make the small cross headstone.

"I'll miss you Haneul." She whispered before beginning to fill the grave with dirt.

There would be no seeing her again.

Later that night, as Mirae looked after the other children at the camp, she was faced with a horrible situation.

Dimensional monsters attacked the camp, and there were no adults there to save them.

Red portals of sinister energy opened up all around the camp, and humanoid creatures of all black sleek armored carapaces with long scythe like appendages instead of arms flooded the camp, slaughtering the children.

Blood watered the ground that night, and Mirae was the only survivor on either side of the attack. Awakening fully to her powers in her rage, she found that the shadows responded to her command, and they were very much deadly.

However, in her fear and rage, chasing a monster that attacked her, she had jumped through a portal opened by an escaping monster, only to find herself on an entirely new world altogether. Slaying the monster with shadows that tore and ripped it apart after falling through, the portal closed behind her.

Getting up as the corpse was swallowed by shadow and devoured within it, she looked around blankly as her world spun.

Wherever this was, it wasn't trash island.