Six years earlier...

Maybe it was the whispers in her head. Or maybe it was the buildup in her stomach whenever she got overwhelmed. But Aceline knew she was different.

At 8 months old she was adopted into a nice family. A young muggle couple, who were not able to have children, had come into the orphanage looking to adopt.

It was a process, but they were determined to bring home the beautiful little baby girl that had the whole staff wrapped around her chubby little finger.

The new family of three were happy for almost eight years.

Aceline grew into a beautiful little girl. She didn't talk much, but when she did talk everyone fell silent to hear her voice. It was a sound that demanded your attention.

She was smart. She was top of her class.

She knew things about people that sometimes they didn't even know about themselves.

She was a diamond in the rough. A shining beacon that enraptured people. Something about her light filled eyes led people to her.

She was bold. She would often get into situations that didn't involve her and speak her mind. And people would listen.

But she was just a girl. And she felt like something was missing.

Aceline did not like to fail. So when she couldn't get something right she became frustrated.

When she became frustrated or angry she could feel something bubbling to the surface. But before it could boil over, it would fade away as if it were never there. This feeling made her sad. And she didn't understand it.

How could she be sad about loosing something she never had?

She would hear things. Whispers...

Telling her about people and places. Random things she didn't need to know and things that didn't make any sense.

She listened to the whispers, but did not whisper back. She knew it wasn't considered normal to other people.

So she ignored the whispers and murmurs of the unknown voices.

That is, until they weren't whispers anymore. They were loud drums beating in her ears. Too jumbled to understand and to loud to focus on.

She was doing homework at the kitchen table when it happened.

There was a knock on the door. Her mother went to open it, but paused and looked through the peep hole.

She couldn't hear anything anymore besides the blaring beat in her head.

The door was suddenly slammed open. Her mother was hit by the door and flew into the wall before slumping to the ground unconscious.

The man who came through the door was dressed in a black cloth with a white bony mask covering his face.

He wasn't scary. He looked ridiculous. But the voices that were screaming in her head took on a scared tune. Telling her that she should be afraid.

Her father ran into the room looking worried. He started to yell, but she could not hear.

Then the man pulled out a stick and pointed it at her father.

The voices were unbearable and panicked.

A green light came out of the stick and hit her father in the chest. He crumpled to the ground. His eyes were staring straight at her, but they were not his. They were not the joyful eyes that would tease her when she would fall asleep at the breakfast table. Or the squinted eyes that held suspicion when she would walk into the room with a smug smile.

No, they were empty and void of life. No longer were they eyes that would look at her with love.

It was then that the voices collided. So unbearably loud. Staring at her fathers blank stare was too much.

She held her head in her hands and screamed.

She screamed so loud the windows shattered and the picture frames that held happy memories exploded in a shower of glass.

The feeling she would often get in her stomach returned. Only this time it did not disappear. It exceeded its boiling point and bubbled over.

The last thing she saw before falling unconscious was the blast of light that surrounded her and knocked the strange man to the wall.

•¥•

She woke up to the sound of sirens.

She lifted her head and began to cry.

Everything was stained red. The awful purple wallpaper that her mother let her pick out when she was five was splattered with blood. The floors were now a pool of red.

Her mother was behind the open front door, but now had gashes all along her body and a kitchen knife in her chest.

Her father was lying in the hall entrance. His white shirt was now red.

She sobbed. When she went to cover her eyes she noticed her hands were also painted red.

When the police showed up at her house they found her in hysterics.

When they questioned the young girl, the eight year old had spouted nonsense about a man in a white mask killing her father with a stick that made flashes of green light.

To the policemen it was quite obvious the couple had not been killed by light. They were murdered in a brutal way. The call that they had received had mentioned a young girl yelling at her parents and then screams being heard. And the bloody handprint on the knife matched her own.

They had to go by the evidence. Even though none believed such a young girl could do something so cruel.

Four days later Aceline Andrade was admitted into Preston Hills Sanatorium for the Mentally Ill.

She didn't belong there. She knew she didn't. She was not insane. She knows the truth and it would take more that a bloody handprint to change her mind.