The sounds of battle around me sliced through the night as ash and fire flared around me. I stood there trapped in this same spot watching as people were slaughtered. Some dragged away by the hairs of their heads with shrieks and pleas for mercy. The arid night was always the same. I watched people, the very same people be decimated and no matter how much I scream, or struggle I cannot move from this spot to which I am rooted. The men clad in heavy iron armor pay me no mind, pay no heed to my screams. They do not care for my tears nor my curses to try and gain their attention. They just keep on murdering and pillaging these people...my people. Then I feel it ripple across my skin as it always does. It starts small and then grows until I am consumed by pain and light. Still no one hears my screams.

With a jolt I sit up covered in sweat from the nightmare. My throat feels both dry and overused as ash floats down around me and in my hair. Some clings to my skin thanks to the sweat. This was my morning, my every morning, everyday without fail. I went to bed, had the nightmare and woke up covered in sweat and soot.

Wallowing never fixed anything so I threw back my covers and stripped the bed, putting the covers in the wash bin for the wash at a later time. Remaking the bed would wait until later. The ash however would not. I cleaned it up and looked at the clock to check I was making good time, and with my luck it wasn't. Instead of having a time it just had a blackened blank front. Another clock bites the dust, which officially made this the 5th one this month. Electronics and my sleeping were a bad combination. So while every other teenager could sleep with their phone near them, I had to charge mine clear in another room. It's always been like that. Weird things always happened to things around us when we got too emotional so...we'd grown up not allowing too much to get to us. An art that had become a necessity when I'd enrolled in highschool against the advice of my mother. Fortunately, it was the final week of school, and I had survived a year of public education. It was my foolishness really. Being 15 and a Senior made things very awkward for everyone involved. Not to mention, we did not socialize with the rest of Havensbrooke. So, to everyone we were the greatest mystery of our medium sized upper crust town. Between being asked if I was a witch, vampire, or cheater constantly it wasn't a fun experience. My own fault really, I had a strange amalgamation of accents between my mother's pronounced recession accent and an northeastern American accent, and it did not help my attempt to blend in. Neither did my looks, with seafoam coloured eyes that had soft flecks of gold and curly monster of burnt sienna hair, and soft brown skin, I was striking at 5'6. I walked to the washroom and got cleaned up and ready for the day. I chose a modest yellow blouse that brought out the golden flecks in my eyes. My curves had come in as had my breasts. If it wasn't for the soft youth of my face I could pass for a normal high schooler but, since even my mom maintained her soft youth after two children, that seemed extremely unlikely.

Grabbing my sachal I headed down the stairs to the dinning room where breakfast was laid out and my mother and younger sister were already eating.

"Good morning my dear Helixii. Same night I suppose? Usual for breakfast?" My mother asked

"Morning Mom, Cella, and yeah same thing. Do you mind getting the soot, I have no clue how late I am running today." I reached my seat, settling in for a quick fast, and unceremoniously stuffing my face. Mom always pulled out all the stops when it came to meals. Something my sister's best friend seemed to always talk about when she was here.

"Morning Hexi. I grabbed your phone since I figured you'd be running late. Did you finish your speech?" Meracella asked as she tilted her head to the side softly.

At a whopping twelve years old Meracella felt older to anyone who talked to her for more than a minute. Granted, they said the same about myself, so I guess it was simply a family trait. The great difference was where she could disarm a person with her kind and gentle nature, and heart shaped face, whereas my gaze seemed to unsettle people more than anything else. We shared our hair colour from our mother as well as our skin tone, however, Mercacella took after mother's face shape and her hazel gaze flecked with gold. I apparently looked more like my father with high cheekbones, pursed lips, and piercing gaze. I was going to need to learn some sort of martial art to keep her safe when she got older, especially if she ended up being anywhere near as beautiful as our mother. There was the reason we don't socialize often, if ever, no matter how long we'd lived here, mother did not look like she had aged a single second let alone day, which was not something that went unnoticed in our Maine town. There were all sorts of questions, where she came from, how she got the money to keep the house, how exotic she looked, it went on and on, The questions and comments about her beauty and her oddity of living where we did. Which in essence, meant we avoided answering them because there would be a trap of more questions behind that.

"Yes, well, it is your final week of school, then we can be done with the experiment. Though I am willing to admit that getting to watch my daughter give the valedictorian speech is somewhat satisfying. The boy who came in second has one wicked woman for a mother, you should see the glares she gives me at the school functions. You would think we were some sort of problematic family in town." There was humor in mother's tone but also a hint of ire. Poor Mrs. Gathon had no idea what she had stirred in my mother, but it was going to be fun to watch. She continued, "Though, we do have a more pressing matter of your birthday celebration coming up in just two days. Though I know you always insist on something very lowkey, however, this year I insist otherwise. It is your sweet sixteen, when parents in this nation spoil their children as best they can. So, there will be gowns, jewelry, and people. To that end I have prepared some invitations for you to hand out to your friends at school, or at least those you find tolerable. Your sister has volunteered to help me invite children of appropriate ages and their families so that we can all have a grand time."

My gaze settled on the offending invitations that were now being held out to my person at this point. With a shake of my head I shoved them into the satchel as I pushed away from the table and headed towards the door.

"Later Mom, Cella." I called as I headed out.

I walked to the car and rode to school. It took all of 15 minutes to make it to school in a normal 25 minute drive into town. Neither myself nor the driver wanted to be near each other in my mood. My moods were something our small staff had become accustomed to at this point. There wasn't a rush to get to school, there was a rush to get this done. The plan was to try and pawn these invitations off on as many people as possible as randomly as possible, and pray she didn't print enough for the entire student body. The thing about my mom is that her 'asks' weren't requests, they were requirements. If I fought her on handing out these damnable invitations, she'd show up and start handing them out en masse. It also meant that if she was going to be getting social for my birthday party, she'd hear the gossip about her daughter handing out invitations to their home. Something we, the Ambers, never did. Suffice to say, by the time the driver had dropped me off at the front door there was a crowd gathering and I was going to have to wade through a sea of fake smiles and compliments to get to my first class of the day. Yesterday, I was the moody kid that lived in the 'witch' house. Today everyone wanted to be my friend so that they and their families could see that same 'witch' house.

I took a deep breath as I schooled both my facial features and my emotions to a stubborn neutrality. I had broken enough electronic things in my youth to try and not let it happen this time. I kept my knapsack on my shoulder and prepared to wade through the crowd as they pushed into me with false smiles and equally as false appraisals of me and my family. All the same, I had a job to do and I might as well get on with it. By the time I made it to my home room I had handed out not even a quarter of the invitations mother had sent with me. Meaning, my worst fear was the reality, she intended to invite the whole student body. Briefly my mind slipped from its neutrality and the death cough of someone's phone was audible nearby. This was par for the course, when my emotions shifted too much something electrical normally dies. Granted from all my research this phenomenon isn't precisely normal. However it definitely seems to be something to do with my family.

I let out a breath that I hadn't realized I was holding when I finally made it to my home room and took my seat. As one might expect I was besieged by those who had still yet to ensure an invitation and those who hoped to acquire an extra for gods knew who else. When the dust finally settled and everyone in the room had exchanged their false, and some sincere pleasantries to receive their golden tickets. I found that I was rather pleasantly surprised. There was a clear expectation on my end that these people just wanted to be a bunch of lookie loos to see what happened at the Witches' Manor House. What I did not expect was that there were a few who genuinely were curious about me as a person rather than just seeing my home and family. Some might call it an invasion of privacy but, let's be honest shall we, if a person could get an instant glean of a person's mind at the very first moment of meeting, they would most likely take it. Thus, I should not be blamed for taking that very same advantage and you will find no apologies for it at all on my end.

As class started finally, I shoved the book of names and numbers that had been given me into my satchel and set to pay attention, though it did not really matter at this point. The grades were in and thus, we were just here mostly for show and to practice the dull routine that was the graduation march whilst saying our final goodbyes to our underclassmen and friends. It took some effort but I managed through the day with more notes and signatures in my yearbook and notebook than I would have expected, or initially wanted. Begrudgingly, I found that my jaw hurt from the amount of smiling I had done through the day. There was simply no denying it, Mother was correct in her judgement, and I was woman enough to admit my defeat.