A small girl sat in the middle of a large playroom. The girl couldn't have been more than eight years old and she looked small for her age. Her hair was done up in two, neat pigtails. She looked as though she had been colouring in a tattered old colouring book, but her focus was elsewhere now. The hand in which she was holding a bright red crayon was trembling uncontrollably.
The floor creaked loudly in one of the corners of the room. The child tried to calm herself down with positive thoughts. Old houses creaked, right? There was no reason for her to be scared.
A Cabbage Patch doll fell from its perch upon a shelf on the wall in the corner. It landed hard on the floor where the creaking had been heard before. Small beads of sweat began forming along the little girl's hairline. Her grip tightened on her crayon, causing it to break in half. She looked at the broken crayon and placed it on the floor.
She considered running out of the room and going downstairs to where the babysitter was watching an episode of 'Joanie Loves Chachi' that she had recorded the night before. The thought was tempting, but she was a big girl now. She wasn't supposed to be scared of these kinds of things any more. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. Brushing the red crayon aside, she picked a blue crayon out of the box and resumed colouring.
The creak in the floor seemed to move closer to her. They almost sounded like footsteps, but the little girl was alone in the playroom. No one else was home yet besides the babysitter. She glanced over at the corner where the sounds had originated, then back at her colouring book. She thought she had been paying attention to what she was doing, but when she looked at her picture, she realized that she must not have been. There were random blue scribbles all over the place.
"A four year old could have coloured this page," she thought to herself. She pushed the book and the box of crayons aside and stood up. She began moving toward the door of the playroom, trying to be as nonchalant as possible. She wasn't running away, she thought, she was just going to get a glass of juice from the kitchen.
An ugly clown doll began laughing behind her. She continued walking, trying not to pay attention to the doll. She had always hated that clown. Children's toys are not supposed to be creepy, but that clown was definitely just that. She could hear a few small objects drop on the hardwood floor. She looked back to see what had fallen. The crayons that she was sure she had left neatly in the box were now scattered all over the floor.
She turned to run out of the playroom, but the door slammed in front of her. She grasped on to the doorknob and desperately tried to pry the door open. The clown doll began laughing again. The little girl's eyes began to sting as tears started to well up.
"Lucy!" she called. Maybe she could get the babysitter to come upstairs and let her out. The wind probably forced the door closed and this doorknob always sticks. She tried to fight back the tears and convince herself that she was being silly. It wasn't working and the incessant laughing from the creepy clown was not helping. She could hear the babysitter making her way upstairs. She really wished she would hurry.
Something grabbed the little girl by her pigtails and pulled her away from the door. She landed hard on the floor and was dragged to the center of the room. She screamed. She knew she wasn't imagining things anymore. She scrambled to her feet and made another escape attempt. She could hear the babysitter running up the stairs now. The little girl would be safe soon.
She was lifted into the air by an invisible force. She looked down at her feet, which were dangling just a few feet from the floor. The force that was holding her up soon sent her flying across the room. She hit the wall and slid to floor. She could feel a bruise beginning to form on her cheek, which had connected with the wall upon impact.
The force grabbed her by the neck of her shirt and pulled her back to her feet, hard enough to rip the neckline of her shirt. Once again, she was thrown against the wall, causing her to lose consciousness.
Phoebe sat up in bed. She was breathing heavily and was drenched in sweat. She was new to her power and this was the longest, most vivid premonition she had ever witnessed. However, it wasn't the nature of the premonition that bothered her the most; she was used to that. The part that bothered her the most was Lucy. Lucy had babysat her and her sisters ages ago when Grams had decided to get a part-time job, but nothing like her premonition had ever happened when she'd be in the playroom.
There was definitely something supernatural happening at Lucy's house now and Phoebe knew that she and her sisters would have to do something about it. After all, that's why she had the premonition in the first place, right?
She looked over at the clock beside her bed. The bright red numbers read 6:30. She decided she would break the news to her sisters in another hour or so when they got up to go to work. She closed her eyes and tried to get back to sleep. There was no point in getting up yet, especially if she could still cram in another hour of sleep.