MASSIVE SPOILERS FOR THE RP! IF YOU'RE RANDOMLY READING THE RP OR THE RP-FIC, AND DON'T WANT SPOILERS, DON'T READ!

Okay, I knew Cassie's chapter wasn't going to be all raibows and sunshine, but this came out a lot darker than I expected. Ah well, I'll just roll with it. Reviews, as always, are very much appreciated.

Cassandra

Mummy's Little Secret

The first thing I can remember is pain. My entire life, all I've ever known is hurt and loneliness and hunger. As a baby I used to lie in the old pizza box that served as a crib, my cries screeching through the night like a klaxon, a warning. Sooner or later they would stop. I just about stayed alive; the rare bursts of nourishment saw to that. I received nutrition every other day or so, on the few occasions when my mother did something other than sit on the old, battered sofa in a drunken stupor, cannabis smoke filling the room.

As I grew older I learnt not to cry. If I started to cry I got hit. By her, or by one of the many men she bought home on the occasions when she ran out of alcohol or cheap drugs and had to go to the pub to visit her supplier. On those rare moments of freedom, I used to run to the kitchen, standing on one of the few unbroken chairs and foraging through the cupboard and the fridge looking for something that wasn't mouldy. I was feeding myself at the age of barely two years old.

A little while after I turned three, mummy decided that I should start earning my keep. I didn't understand what was happening, why she left me with strange men, only that after she sent them away again, I hurt all over, in a strange way that felt wrong.

It was soon after this practise began that it spoke to me.

Cassandra.

It called my name, invading my dreams, filling my head with a combination of black smog and sickly green light.

Cassandra.

It whispered things, comforting things. It told me that it could take away the pain. It told me that it could make them stop. That it could make me powerful enough to take control of my own life. That all I had to do was say yes.

Cassandra.

So I did.

That night when my mother came for me, to take me to the highest bidder, I was ready. She didn't stand a chance.

And then...I forgot.

Life continued as normal. Except the men stopped coming. My mother just stayed in the apartment now, staring into nothingness. But then the visions started. Flickering around me at the edges of my sight, everywhere I looked. Every possible outcome of every situation. And in my dreams I still remembered that green glow.

I got my own food. I'd sneak out of the flat, go through bins, wait in the shadowy corners of fast food restaurants for people to leave unfinished food on the table.

It scared me, being out of the apartment alone; it was home, even if it was beginning to smell...strange. But what were especially bad were the images which would suddenly invade my mind. Terrible images, of people dying, screaming, crying, and other things I definitely didn't want to see. There were kids on the estate who found me scary and strange. They'd throw rocks at me; hurt me if they could catch me, yelling names and calling me things like 'Witch Child'.

Even then I couldn't escape the pain.

Then, a month before it happened, it came to me. And I remembered. The light spoke to me, filling my being. It told me what was going to happen; it told me what to do. That was how it worked. It was safer that way; it only let me remember when I needed it, or it needed me.

So I found the well in the woods and did as it instructed, helped it grow strong once more. I found the dark eyed girl and laid the foundations of the plan. I watched the boy with the blonde hair, ready the path for him to meet her. I followed the girl with the dark red hair, turning her loneliness to our own advantage. They didn't know. They never knew that we were using them, like pawns in a game of chess. I knew that I, myself was a chess piece too, but not a pawn; a queen. The darkness, the force which was channelled through me and into the world; that was the player. The one controlling us all. All we had to do was wait. Wait for a month until finally it was strong enough. And then, once again we would strike, just as we had when we'd stabbed my mother in the chest with a kitchen knife when I was three.