The thing with Lissy, was that she always had this look about her of someone ready for the worst. If the world as we know it were to end; if planes fell out of the sky and the internet imploded upon itself and all civilised society fell apart, she looked like the sort of person who would jump on an innocent investment banker like a ferrel cat and scratch his eyes out to get food, or weapons, or whatever it might take to survive an apocalypse. It was an extremely unnerving look and she always had it - when screaming, ranting and fighting, and when dragging a brush through her hair.

Lissy got a liking for brushing her own hair not long after she learned how to walk, and on the same day that she first ran properly - pelting chubby toddler limbs, excited eyes and well-groomed curls towards the murky fish pond of an elderly family friend.

She hit the water in an out sized cardigan she always wore like a fat man in a parachute, her bare feet slapped something alive around the face, perhaps the pond's resident gold fish. It was a huge thing the colour of a withered satsuma that was usually found closer to the water's surface, hovering and gasping for light. Today it stared at the invader and the way her arms hoisted above her head by the floating cardigan gave her the look of a defiant marionette hanging from it's strings. Melissa met the creature's gaze - they were nose to nose, like friends or lovers sharing the same air and when it seemed to exhale she breathed in the scummy water.

“Old people and children, we're not afraid of dying.” said the family friend shortly after the incident. He had pulled her out to the sound of his back popping and clicking like a half-hearted firework. Within a year or so he would look dreadful, like the sort of man to be terrified of staying alive. This was the last heroic thing he would ever do and he tried his very best not to panic throughout, despite being ever so concerned at the Mother's reaction. She was still and slow at the prospect of losing her only child, chewing off strips of her bottom lip and swallowing them visibly.