Paranoia
"I cut myself, Mother," Sabrina intoned dully, standing in the doorway of the living room where her mother was dusting the furniture. Her mother started, both at the wound and the knife Sabrina held in her right hand. Normally her daughter elected to show off her mastery of psychic techniques by levitating objects with her mind, not actually holding them.
"Oh, no," her mother breathed. Quickly she dropped what she was doing and went to inspect the cut. "What happened?"
"I was chopping vegetables for a soup," Sabrina replied. Her face remained impassive as always, even when blood began to drip from her arm.
"Well, thankfully it isn't too deep," her mother said. "Put some peroxide on it, honey, that'll keep it from infection... I'll get some bandages." She went into the kitchen. "Now where could they be?"
She opened cupboard after cupboard, turning up nothing. After a minute she sighed in distress and said, "I have to go," then headed straight for the front door.
"Where are you going," Sabrina said, and then she caught sight of the look on her mother's face as she departed. It was a look of fear.
Sabrina's eyes widened. It was the same look that people she encountered on the street got just before they crossed over to the other side to avoid her, the same expression gracing the features of the playmates who had rejected her in school, not only because of her arrogance but also out of fear of her powers. She suddenly knew – or thought she did – that her mother was going to abandon her, just as everyone else had.
Never mind that her mother's fear was for her rather than of her, or that she was clearly only leaving to get bandages. Sabrina's ability to think or act reasonably was incapacitated as a nameless fury welled within her. Almost without realizing it, she rose her hand in a gesture of commanding.
They always run away from me... always leave me!
The words burned in her brain; the flames deepened in intensity.
"I won't let you leave me!"
There was a slight popping sound, and moments later her mother returned to her – except now she had taken on the form of a doll. Sabrina held the doll close to her, began stroking its soft, shimmering hairs.
"Now you can't leave," she murmured softly, feeling satisfied and yet not satisfied. "Now we'll be together forever."
Blood continued to drip to the floor, but she ignored it.