Sometimes, Crystal saw things.

She knew that nobody else saw them. Everyone else would ignore them. They were hers, her alone.

There was really only one she saw always. She called it that. The Always. The Always was a tall and dark figure. It wore some sort of robe, and you could never see into the hood. But there were others she sometimes saw-usually it was a white rabbit. The color of writhing maggots and long-dead flesh. Once she saw a bird with a woman’s head. She found out later it was a harpy.

They would just sit there, watching her. Bad things would happen while they where there. Someone had gotten a heart attack when she touched them-people had broken bones, fallen down stairs, started bleeding, passed out.

They never hurt her. But she had to wear turtlenecks and long pants to hide the scars.

It was the only way to make them leave. She never knew, what it was, but when she bled, it made them leave. Except for the one time the harpy came. She had been bruised, then. It was hard to create bruises; Crystal didn’t bruise easily. She had an old and smooth stone that she had used. The easiest place was where her bones jutted out-elbows, shoulders-knees, hips. They would become purple and blue and brown, and sometimes a sick yellow-green. If she hit hard enough, there would be red spots, too, as though there was bleeding just below the skin.
Those took the longest to fade. She was nervous when she did this-afraid that someone would hear and walk in to find her. Find her with a stone in her hand and a rising bruise. She hated that. Hated the tense feeling, the anxiety. But that was only once. Once was enough.
The rabbit was different. It came a few times. The rabbit was dangerous, she knew. Not to be hated like the harpy. Not familiar like the Always. To be feared and avoided. Never to be thought of. The last time it came, she bled too much. The slashes were too long, and she passed out.

She shouldn’t have woken up, and that scared her. Scared her almost more than the rabbit did. Because she shouldn’t have woken up. She knew that if you passed out from blood loss, you shouldn’t wake up. If you didn’t stop the bleeding, you would never wake up. Just keep bleeding, bleeding till there was no blood left, and the heart slowed, the heart stopped.

She wasn’t supposed to wake up.

The Always was back today. She was in math class when it came, onto the teacher’s desk, watching her. Crystal looked at the girl sitting next to her and knew that something would happen to her. She closed her eyes, wordlessly begging forgiveness. To anyone, anything, that was listening.
The teacher said something. Crystal, lost in her own trap of a mind, ignored it.
The girl reached over, touched her arm. You got called on, she said. C’mon, wake up, she said.
Ten minutes later, the girl crumpled to the floor. Her ears and nose were bleeding.
Crystal went home. The Always was still there, watching her. Always watching.
She had to get rid of it, before something worse happened. But she didn’t know how.
She went to her room and got the razor she had hidden behind her books. She stripped off her shirt.
The bruises from the Harpy were still fading. Green and yellow and blue and red, sang the little voice n her mind.
You are green and red and blue and black. Green and red and blue and black. You are green with sickness red with blood blue with tears and black with death. Green and red and blue and black.

She gritted her teeth and drew the razor down her arm, starting at the edge of the bruise. The pain was bittersweet-hot and fiery, itchy, and somehow satisfying. Sometimes she thought she would do this, even if they didn’t come.

The Always was still there. She took the razor again, drew it down her other arm, her stomach, her neck, her chest. She had to be careful with her neck-low enough to be hidden by the turtleneck, shallow enough to not inflict permanent damage. Long angry red lines now marked the pale skin-warring with faint white lines, memories of other times.

She tried her lower arms-that was another area to be careful around. That was where it had happened, that time she passed out. Finally she cut her ankle, below the bone that jutted out so sharply on the ankle. She would have to be careful, or it would stain her socks.

Her clothing was often bloodstained, so she wore black. Black hid stains, and her mother wouldn’t ask about her daughter’s silence unless forced. Crystal and her mother had an unspoken agreement-Mother would not ask about scars and blood, and Crystal would not ask where the money came form, or who the men who sometimes came into the house were.

Crystal went to bed, and remembered the one time any of them had touched her. It had been night. She was on the roof again. She went up there a lot, not thinking, not moving. Just being. She thought it was the best place in the world. A cool breeze would drift from the suburban streets, and the heat soaked into the roof from the sun earlier that day would still be nestled in the tiles.

She had been staring out over the sparsely scattered trees. The always had appeared on the roof, suddenly, unexpectedly. That was unusual. Usually, she could tell when he was coming.
He had walked across the roof to her, robe still in defiance of the moving air. She stood, ready to fetch a knife. Before her mother came home, and something could happen to her. But The Always had bent down, and kissed her. It tasted like blood and fire. He left, but she stood, tasting copper on her lips.
The copper remained on her lips for almost a month, and while it did, she coughed up blood.
She still dreamed about it at night. Sometimes she wondered if The Always was real, if it had ever happened. But somehow, she knew it had.
Crystal slept.
When she woke, The Always was waiting. She looked at him. He looked back, eyeless gaze smooth and unemotional. Then he turned, and left. That had never happened before. But then he came back. And this time, the rabbit and the harpy were with him. They stood around her. She stared around at them, confused but only half-afraid. They stared, and the room seemed to spin and darken around her. The Always came forward one last time, and took her in his arms.

And then there was nothing.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sometimes, Lauren saw things.

She knew that nobody else saw them. Everyone else would ignore them. They were hers, her alone.

There were really only two she saw always. She called them that. The Always. The first Always was a tall and dark figure. It wore some sort of robe, and you could never see into the hood. The second was a girl, winged and dressed in black.

They were always together.