The Offering

Prologue

Ever since I can remember I have been able to sense things beyond what we see in reality. There is no defining, life changing moment etched into my memory which details my first encounter. It simply is the way it always was. I am for all intents and purposes...a fucking weirdo, one might say.

My name is Alice Thompson and today is my eighteenth birthday though no birthday has ever meant less to me than this one. I'm not celebrating a milestone, I'm mourning the loss of what I've left behind. Dramatic I'm sure you think, but I'll explain more about that a little later. First of all I should explain some more about my little 'quirks'.

Though I can't exactly remember my earliest years of existence I am confident that for every single one of the 6570 days that I have been on this earth I have existed on a completely different plane to those amongst me. I was a little girl no more than 4 or 5 years old when I recall first realising that I saw the world differently to others. When those first looks of bewilderment and concern were exchanged amongst adults when I attempted to explain that I didn't just see people, I saw their colours.

Before I hit puberty at the tender age of 12 years old there were lots of colours: green, pink, yellow, blue, orange. Radiating light animating from the core of every person I crossed paths with, more times than not it was an overwhelming experience which caused me to seek a more solitary existence. I later learned via extensive googling that Psychics labelled the colours I saw as 'auras'. At least I think that's what they were even if the Wikipedia description wasn't identical.

All I knew for sure was that with each person I met I would see this part of them first and foremost. Before cruel eyes or a nice smile, before fiery red hair or a towering stature. Their presence was something I could even see from afar, varying in size, intensity and colour from person to person. Most people I concluded were a combination of colour, a metaphorical onion of layered light with their strongest colour on the outside. Though at times when a person was experiencing an all consuming emotion then this was all I'd see.

I had little understanding of exactly how to interpret these colours other than the immediate emotional response they affected me with. A gut instinct if you will that affected me more and more the older I got. And yet as I aged I found despite my intensified feelings, I physically saw less colour. Instead I just sensed these auras or energies, whatever you wish to call them; until at the age of 16 the visions of light disappeared all together. As if I'd passed the test and no longer needed the cheat sheet.

The energies became more selective too, choosing without request whose aura to affect me with. I have no control over when I sense these energies. Sometimes they come like a first impression, others times like a wicked kind of Deja vu. But every single time they crawl under my skin and root themselves there so intensely that I feel like my own soul moves out temporarily to make room. And that a little less comes back each time.

I don't pretend to fully understand what I am but I believe that I may be a 'sensitive'. That is what good old google tells me supposedly on behalf of the psychic community. I feel more deeply than most others, I feel more than I would ever wish to feel. I have spent most of my teenage years trying to ignore this part of myself, trying to put it down to an over active imagination. To block the sensations out, to pretend I am just a normal teenage girl. Exhausting myself by fighting every natural instinct I possess. Perhaps if I hadn't I could have helped her before it was too late.

Perhaps if I'd focused my efforts on accepting this strange curse instead of denying it then my ability to read and sometimes even interpret the feelings and motivations of others could have saved her. Then again perhaps not because despite this inherent ability of mine I was not able to foresee the murder of my best friend. My person. My sister from another mister. My strength.

Her name was Clara, everything I am she was so much more. Not limited to the undeniable fact that she was excruciatingly beautiful, she was also fiercely loyal, stomach achingly funny and far smarter than she would admit. Whilst Clara didn't have my strange ass psychic sense, what she did have was an ability far beyond my own. The ability to impress upon every soul she touched. To leave behind a part of herself that meant if you ever had the privilege of meeting her, you'd be changed forever because of it.

Clara was not the type of girl you could ever forget. I should have hated her, every girl should, many did. Too much of everything to be fair to the rest of us mere human's who shared the same air. Yet I have loved her like a sister since I was four years old. Since the day she moved next door and became my neighbour. I attached myself to her immediately, her aura had led me to her like a shining beacon of hope through the darkness. I'd refused to let her go ever since that day I knocked on her front door with a basket of 'welcome cookies' my Mom had pretended to bake but had in actual fact bought from the local store. And Clara had taken me under her wing like a broken chick desperate for guidance.

She was the only friend I ever wanted, the only friend I ever needed. But three weeks ago somebody took her away from me. Since that day I haven't left my room. I have waited for her, begged her to come back to me. To let me help her, to let me make some sense of what happened in a world that no longer makes any sense to me at all.

Nothing. How can I feel so empty and yet so full of every emotion all at the same time?

At first all I felt was overwhelming disbelief which sadly lasted only a couple of days, what followed was the reality of a pain I had never experienced before. The pain that results from a person being told that a body has been discovered. A dead body belonging to a person they loved more than they knew possible. That pain lasted for weeks, weeks of tears and fighting to catch my own breath. Feeling as though somebody had punched me in the stomach over and over, struggling to breathe without her.

Now, all I feel is a welcomed state of anger. Deep, burning rage. A rage even more consuming than darkness, a rage that propels me to hurt. I want to hurt the person who took Clara away. I want to wrap my fingers around their throat and squeeze as hard as I can while I watch the life in their eyes fade away. And when I do I won't feel an ounce of remorse because I will have justice for what they have done. In time Clara will have her justice as will the world who can only mourn the loss of such a phenomenal light extinguished way before her time.

But before I can make them pay. I have to find out who killed.

*I hope you will continue reading. Please star or even comment if you enjoyed reading so far or would like to offer some constructive advice. Either way appreciated. Thanks.