Mona was a girl from a rich household. Her older sister Melanie was a prodigiously talented artist whose paintings could be found in prestigious museums all over the world, and who was known to the critics as one of the greatest in her generation. The haughty, self-obsessed genius recieved most of her parent's love and attention, leaving Mona with a painful inferiority complex. She was beautiful, smart, athletic, and had a great group of friends, but she always felt like there was something wrong with her.

Mona couldn't do anything right. She couldn't draw, sing, paint, sculpt, cook, clean... she couldn't even do little chores around the house like folding clothes or mopping the floor. Sometimes she would try really hard at something only to mess up completely and end up ruining everything. Sometimes she felt like she was cursed. She never told anyone how she felt because she knew they'd just laugh at her and call her spoiled. Her life was an endless series of false starts, failed attempts, painful lessons, and humiliating mistakes.

Then, one day, something amazing happened. Mona and her friends were volunteering at the local homeless shelter, doing things like making sandwiches and unpacking boxes, when the woman who ran the place told them about the Chosen Ones. They were a secret society of psychics who used their powers to protect the world from evil and spread spirituality to all of humanity. Mona knew right away that she wanted to become a Chosen One, too.

Mona's best friend Missy was a little more skeptical than she was. She kept saying that the Chosen Ones were bad news and that she should stay far, far away from them. But Mona refused to listen. She wanted to be special like her sister. And she was willing to do anything it took to make it happen. She persevered, and the Chosen Ones finally accepted her and her friends Casey, Leon, and Ace into the group.

Her very first day as a real Chosen One, Mona received a special power from Wiseman, the great spirit. It was an amazing gift that allowed her to see the true form of people's souls and identify their talents, motivations, flaws, and anything else that made them human. But using it was kind of uncomfortable and scary. Her soul looked like a weird little monkey with big eyes that seemed terrified. Her friend's souls were equally weak and pathetic. And her new trainer's soul... Ghost Knife's soul... looked like a monstrous swan made of rusted metal with a bloody sword for a beak.

Mona hated her new power. Her heart felt cold and heavy every time she tried to use it. The things she saw in other people were ugly, horrifying, and terrible. Her visions made her want to crawl into a hole and die. They were just awful. The worst part of it all was that she could see how useful her power was, how much potential she had as a Chosen One if only she could learn how to control it properly. But she was too scared to try.

The thing about Mona was, she was too proud to ever admit she needed help with anything. That's why she was so mediocre at everything she tried and always messed up. But Ghost Knife wasn't going to let her get away with being a failure. His mission was to make her the strongest Chosen One she possibly could be, whether she liked it or not.

The day after he met her, Ghost Knife took Mona to a filthy homeless camp that reeked like rotting human waste. It was a repulsive maze of tents and cardboard shelters populated by dirty, half-naked drug addicts. They sat on the damp earth smoking cheap cigarettes made from scraps of old newspaper and passed strange looks back and forth like silent, frightened wolves.

"Use Soul Vision on everyone here and calmly tell me what it shows you," Ghost Knife told her in a cold tone. "But try not to react to what you see. Don't make a scene."

Mona's hands shook. She had never been so terrified in her entire life. The stench was making it hard to breathe.

"Go ahead. Start with that man over there."
"It looks like... a giant tapeworm covered in needles."

A headless suit of armor wielding an axe. Two giant spiders made of bone mashed together, crawling through a puddle of black waste. A broken robot with its chest torn open, chunky black filth pouring out of its guts. A woman's bloated, wrinkled, lifeless corpse. Mona gasped. Tears rolled down her eyes and she covered her face with her shaking arms.

"What about those kids over there in the mud?"
"Nnngh..."

"Look at them and tell me what you see."
"They don't have psychic powers, so their souls are inanimate objects. The girl's soul is... it's a rotten pumpkin leaking black slime. The boy's soul is... it's an umbrella with a big hole punched through it."

She couldn't stop crying. She didn't understand why she was even doing this. And Ghost Knife just kept going, pushing her further and further, demanding she use ‘Soul Vision’ and quizzing her on what she saw like a horrible demon trying to extract a confession from a sinner.

"And that man over there?"
"I don't want to do this..."

"Just do it. Tell me."
"That... that man's soul... it's... it's a metal box filled with-"

Mona choked on the words and couldn't finish. Ghost Knife chuckled and gave her an odd, smug grin.

"Don't stare at them too long. Just act natural. You're doing great. Let's keep going."

Mona was convinced the homeless camp was the most miserable, hopeless place on the entire planet. The ground was a sea of old blankets, trash, cigarette butts, and sticky red mud. The air was acrid black smoke. The people were hateful, evil slugs with empty faces that crawled endlessly through a foul underworld of misery, hunger, and death. They wore filthy rags and ate garbage and injected themselves with drugs and killed each other and laughed while they died.

At some point, Mona became dull to the suffering. She stopped thinking about what her visions meant or what was really happening or who these people were. They were just a series of ugly images and nasty smells to be recognized and ignored and forgotten as quickly as possible.

She understood ‘Soul Vision’ now. It was a mechanism for self-harm, a Mona-sized torture device, a grinding and gnashing thing that bombarded her with images and sensations and emotions of pain. But if she could endure the pain long enough, if she could fight through it...

...maybe she could be special like Melanie.