Porcelain
The wind whistled harshly through the brittle branches of the oak forest. The mast had gathered on the floor of the forest and squirrels were preparing for the storm about to erupt. The wind had whipped the lake into a frenzy as it lept about, snarling. The clouds hung heavily over the town, never moving despite the callous wind. Trying to hold onto their hats and coats, people struggled through the streets bordering the forest and the lake.
A lone house sat on the corner of a small subdivision on the outskirts of the busy town. The old wooden steps creaked as the rocking chairs swung violently upon the porch. The house was not a particularly large home but rather small and comfortable. The furniture that sprawled across the living room was well worn but taken good care of and a fresh fire was crackling to ward off the outside chill. A girl reading a book lounged on one of the upholstered armchairs right in front of the flames. Her black rimmed glasses glinted in the soft light, perched on her nose in front of her deep amber eyes.
The girl finished her book and set it aside on the burnished coffee table, the deep red coloring of the hardback glowing in the delicate light. Making her way up the carpeted stairs, she walked into her room. The room was neat; a stack of clothes sat on a chair in the corner, waiting to be put away. A mahogany chest of drawers was simple but elegant, matching the double bed that rested at an angle, next to the door. The cream colored drapes hung heavily, contrasting with the forest green of the walls.
The girl flounced into bed, wrapping the down comforter around her like a soft cocoon. Breathing in the scent of the night, she felt something scratch at her mind, like the sharp caress of a cat's tongue across a hand. It was a familiar feeling, it had been happening ever since she had turned thirteen, about twice a month. Four years later she had become accustomed to the unusual sensations swirling around, trying to escape. To prevent the sensations from forcing themselves out she gently opened her mind and allowed everything to come forth. The technique was not to let everything pour out at once so she could make sense of it.
The sensations pulsed at her, pleading, cajoling her to allow them to surface. Slowly imagining her body to be heavy, she allowed a tiny pinprick to pierce the walls of control in her mind. The images came quickly, but instead of the controlled flow they thrashed viciously about. A girl in a white dress slid into a lake or pool of some sort, laughing giddily as she held her Victorian-looking doll out in front of her; a light flashed into the vision, blinding; a man with an arrow aimed and fired into woods, the arrow speeding off into the abyss of darkness; a portrait moved frantically, eyes shifting and widening as a shelf of stacked vinyl records was splashed with crimson, screams and pleas of a child splitting the air.
The girl came out of the visions with a strangled cry, running to the bathroom as she violently vomited into the toilet. The cool tile of the bathroom floor felt good against her still form as she tried to relax the spasms going through her. She quickly began to shiver but felt too weak and unstable to return to her room.
The girl's visions always came true, that's what the frightening part was. How could something so horrific occur in their small town, or even at all? Thoughts raced around, none of them cohering into any answers to the impending problems. Nothing could prevent what was destined to happen, but why?
Days passed and the thoughts of blood-stained records cut through the monotony of school life. Soon classes blurred until the day was no more than sleep, a dazed confusion sporadically broken by shouts of classmates, and a trip home to be followed by more sleep. Grades soon began to slip and the once vivacious straight-A pupil became a low-D, sullen delinquent.
The girl walked through the rooms, a swan with no beak among the gorgeous creatures gliding around her, a broken person among the oblivious whole. The visions consumed her every waking moment and haunted her in dreams.
Food became less appealing as the days went on; bright lights brought flashbacks of the shining glow piercing in her vision. The laughing of children on the playground made her shudder. Slowly losing weight she became a ghost of what she once was. The visions had taken over her mind, and that mind wasn't strong enough to withstand it. Like a clairvoyant who had seen too many of the human horrors, she was shattered, a blithering mess. It was only a matter of time before everyone figured she was just insane.
Waiting for the moment to pass when the child was murdered, forever to cry to the vinyl records, became a tumultuous road winding through bouts of hysteria to utter numbness. The girl receded into herself and was caught on the idea that she could stop it, but knew she couldn't. Her grandmother was the only other seer she had ever known for the Gift ran maternally every other generation. The elderly woman told her of a story that beseeched and chided the girl never to try and change the visions for to change them would mean the balance of the universe was off. If the balance became unbalanced, then to regain equilibrium something worse than what appeared in the visions would have to occur. Her grandmother tragically disappeared one day when the girl was 14; rumors had it the Devil had finally come to collect her soul.
The abhorrence of the visions gnawed at her mind and affected her violently. The girl began to have hallucinations but hid them while around others to the best of her ability. The constant agony of waiting soon deteriorated her body and destroyed her mind to the point that functioning was not an option anymore.
Her funeral was a small one, few attended and the few that did attend were deeply grieved. The sermon was short, filled with tears, and soon forgotten by the world.
Five months later there was a report of a little girl gone missing. Search parties combed the woods near the lake, bright lights searching until they found the sash of a white dress. Everything led to a house with the TV on mute, playing a Wild West cartoon and Scooby Doo reruns. All alone in the scarlet soaked room was a shelf with spattered vinyl records and a now-ruby porcelain faced doll.