The Gifted

Chapter 8 - Laurie

I felt like a puppet on a string. The manifestation of someone's sick fantasy. I crouched on top of my toilet, listening to the relentless scratching and thudding from outside. There were more of them now. I could tell.

It had started late last night, with loud hammering on the front door. I think it must have been only one, but the thuds slowly became wilder and more erratic, until there was hardly any space between the the thumps and scrapes.

It wouldn't be long before the door gave. It was an old house, and not particularly robust. So I'd locked myself in the bathroom to bide my time. 

I glanced across the room, and caught sight of myself in the mirror. Wild hazel eyes stared back at me, half hidden by a mass of pale, tangled hair. I was still crouched on the toilet, my chest heaving up and down in frantic, patternless breaths.

I looked wild, feral. I stared, transfixed and slightly horrified. My reflection looked back at me, daring me to realise who I looked like, what I was reminding myself of. And then I got it. I looked like one of them. Savage, insane.

A sharp, loud crack-crunch snapped me out of my hypnotised state. A flurry of feet pounded down our empty hallway. It was too late to get away now. It wouldn't be long before they found me. It was time to end this.

Taking one more look at myself in the mirror, I leapt off the toilet. They were there now, even as I crept towards the door. I could hear them.

With a primal scream that I didn't know I held within myself, I flung open the door. Their hands reached out for me as soon as I emerged, still letting out the tail-end of my war cry. Fingernails found their grip on my face.

I laughed as I felt my skin beginning to tear. I laughed as it was peeled off, almost gently. I laughed as I met my death. And in my final moments, I threw out my arms and met my assailants, even as they tried to pull away.