A/N: Not entirely sure this is the right place for this one, but bear with me! Also, I loved how this turned out. Writing a young Sybill Trelawney is quite fun. Oh, and the nickname Sybbie belongs to the creators of Downtown Abbey, of course!
Title: A shot in the dark
Summary: Sybbie's Mummy is in a coma, and she wishes she would wake up. But for some reason, They seem to think Sybbie will be able to predict when Mummy will.
Word count: 1,183
Characters: Sybill T., OC
Genres: Family, Angst
Warnings: Character death
Mummy is in a 'coma'. Sybbie doesn't really understand what that means. They told her Mummy is sleeping all the time, that she needs to heal, that her body doesn't want to wake up. Mummy's been in the coma for two months, now. Sybbie still remembers the day Mummy didn't come home from the shopping, and only came back a week later, eyes closed and chest lifting and falling only slightly.
Mummy is in her bedroom. Sybbie goes to see her everyday. She wishes Mummy would wake up, everyone around her seems so sad. Everyday, she sees them fold more and more into themselves. Sybbie asks Mummy to wake up everyday, but Mummy never does. It's like she can't hear her. They said she probably couldn't.
One day, it's been three months now, since Mummy fell asleep, it's her seventh birthday. Sybbie knows because she has a little calendar hanging in her room, and Mummy circled the day with a heart, when she gave it to her last year, telling her there would be another calendar on her next birthday.
Sybbie hopes Mummy will wake up for her birthday, it would be even better than having another calendar. But still, Mummy doesn't. She doesn't even get the calendar she was a little bit hoping for.
What she gets instead is a cup of tea. Sybbie doesn't really like tea, it's too bitter. She'd rather have a milkshake, but they make her drink it anyway. It's too hot and it burns her throat. Sybbie wants to cry, but the stern look they give her makes her swallow them back. When she's finished, they order her to look at the leaves at the bottom. Sybbie looks down at them, but doesn't see anything, it's just a blob of green muck, nothing else.
They seem disappointed. She can hear them mutter.
"-she's already seven, should be able to-"
"-tea leaves, not the best-"
"-last of the kin of Cassandra Trelawney, surely-"
Sybbie feels so sad after that she doesn't even go to see Mummy. Maybe Mummy will be disappointed just like them. Instead she lies in her bed and cries herself to sleep.
The next day, they don't give her tea. This time it's an odd translucent ball, with swirls of smoke in the middle. Sybbie is quite fascinated, and she stares at it for a long time. Unfortunately, she's not left long to her musings, as one of them immediately demands what she can see. She can't see anything.
"Why do you want me to see something?" Sybbie asks.
"Stop asking questions and concentrate," they reply.
"But-", Sybbie tries.
Still no explanation. Sybbie tries to see something in the ball in front of her. It's just swirls of smoke, nothing more. But they look so anxious for her to see something she makes something up. Three flowers, growing out of the ground. There isn't anything there, of course, but they look relieved, and Sybbie is allowed to have a slice of cake for dinner.
During the next three days, Sybbie doesn't have to do any weird thing any more, they leave her alone. She tries to go and see Mummy, but there are always a lot of people there. It's strange, because usually there is no one in Mummy's room. Sybbie barely gets a peep at Mummy, let alone being able to talk to her. She looks exactly the same, eyes closed, chest lifting and falling soflty. Maybe she is a little more white. They usher Sybbie out of the room quickly.
However, when the three days are over, and Mummy still hasn't woken up, they make her do things again. This time, they are disappointed, like Sybbie has failed, though what test, she does not know. They make her try the strangest things. Over the next couple of weeks, Sybbie has to look at Mummy's hand, write about her dreams in a journal and even look at a bunch of sticks on the kitchen table. Sybbie knows Mummy would be very unhappy if there were sticks on the table. They make her do it again and again, and every time Sybbie feels like they are too angry at her, or to anxious, she makes something up about what she can see.
And yet, they always come back more disappointed, and Mummy still doesn't wake up.
Sybbie understands over the course of the next couple of months what it happening. Bits of conversation from here and there tell her she is supposed to see when Mummy will wake up. The people who sometimes take care of Mummy have told them that Mummy will only wake up when Sybbie says she will. They are trying to make her see. She doesn't understand why they didn't tell her this. Maybe it would've helped her to know. She could have seen something. Except Sybbie feels as though she can't see anything. She feels so insecure.
Then, the dreams start to plague her. The nightmares actually, and every time she has to write them down in the journal they make her keep, she wants to cry, and sometimes she does. But they get even angrier if she cries, because the tears make big blue stains on the paper. In every dream, she sees Mummy, and she's on her bed but then she gets up and looks Sybbie in the eye. But her eyes aren't the big blue ones Sybbie remembers, but only white, and it terrifies her. Then Mummy says You don't want to save me. That's the worst part. Because Sybbie desperately wants to save Mummy, but she just can't. Sometimes, she's so scared of the nightmare-Mummy she doesn't even go to see the real one.
The strange practices continue, and Sybbie keeps making up her predictions, more and more elaborate, getting caught up in her lies, much to their disappointment. Until one day.
One day. It's been almost a year since Mummy fell into the coma. Sybbie is staring deep into the ball, the crystal ball, with all of them watching her when suddenly an image burns into her head, into her eyeballs. Of an arrow, shooting up into the night sky and falling back down to earth before lodging itself firmly into a flower, which dies instantly. A shot in the dark. Sybbie is filled with excitement. This has never happened to her before. She immediately tells them.
She thinks they will be happy, but more disappointment is on their faces.
"It's just a bunch of hocus-pocus," one of them says, sighing. "She's useless."
"You ought to be ashamed of yourself," another one says to her, "making up all these false predictions."
Sybbie tries to tell them it's true, for once, that all the others were lies, but they dismiss her prediction. Sybbie feels that for once, she actually knows what she's doing. And she's scared too, because for once, she knows what she has seen means. But they don't listen.
The next morning, Mummy leaves the coma. But she doesn't wake up. She has fallen asleep for forever. And Sybbie knew is was going to happen.
FOR ILVERMORNY SCHOOL OF WITCHCRAFT AND WIZARDRY
House: Wampus
October assignment: Potions #1: Write about someone in a coma
Bonus prompts: 1) [action] crying
FOR HOGWARTS SCHOOL OF WITCHCRAFT AND WIZARDRY
House: Ravenclaw
Assignment #6: Mythology Task #1 Write about a legend, prediction or prohpecy
Talent show: Judge Trelwaney
Writing club:
Elizabeth's Empire: 19) Parent/Child
Marvel Appreciation: 20) Black Panther 3) Losing a parent
Lyric Alley: 17) You don't want to save me
Seasonal challenges:
Games: 9) Family
Ravenclaws: 19) Sybill Trelawney
Autumn funfair:
Halloween sing-a-long: 20) A shot in the dark
Kiss, Marry, Kill: Kill 8) Angst
Drive in Halloween Movies: 8) "It's just a bunch of hocus pocus."
Pumpkin carving: Pumpkin 3) kin
Hot air balloon: 15) Angst
Wine tasting: Dealcoholised wine: 6) Family
Horror hunt: 2) Sybill Trelawney
Fortune telling: Head line: 1) You ought to be ashamed of yourself
Trick or Treating: House Potter: 3) Angst
Apple bobbing: Apple 10 – Insecure
