iv
Alexia-Walkin Black
Tick, tock.
I was eleven years old, and ten minutes away from death.
Tick, tock.
I flicked my marbles across the smooth wooden floor of my bedroom in Grimmauld Place. My head was brimming with thoughts; each one central to Phoebe's blue, blue eyes. I loved blue. One marble; small and green on the inside. The next marble; a little bigger than the first, with a red ribbon at its core. The third marble…
The third marble wasn't hard and heavy. It was soft, slightly squishy.
Tick, tock.
I laughed shrilly, a sound I didn't know I could make – five minutes.
Tick, tock.
I retrieved the matching marble to the third. Two marbles, white and streaked with red, but one side of each was slightly flat. Two bright, sapphire eyes, gazing up at me in horror.
A scream. Mother, her voice laced with pain. She'd discovered Phoebe.
Tick, tock. Three minutes to go.
The scream turned to shouts, blurred words and angry yells. Then my door flew open; Mother stood there in the entrance, her face streaked with tears and her mouth hanging open. She snatched the eyes out of my hand, and stared down at them in shock. "Alexia, what on earth have you done?" she cried out, her voice shaking. I smiled.
Tick, tock.
The next thing I knew, my mother was upon me, that piercing scream ripping from her throat again. She had grabbed a cushion from the bed, and within seconds, she was pressing it down on my face. I took one last gasp before my mouth and nostrils were filled with the musty cloth, slowly suffocating me.
But I didn't make any noise, and I didn't struggle. As Mother bitterly smothered the life out of me, I was happy. It was finally ending.
I was finally free.