Believe

"Ellie, Ellie, stupid and smelly! Eats a lot of jelly, lives in a deli!"

The taunts from her peers slid off Ellie's back like water off a duck; the child simply blocked them out and went back to drawing on the notepad she constantly carried with her. Kids had teased her from an early age, and frankly she had gotten used to it.

Instead, she quietly sketched a picture of a car, one she imagined to be a bright red in color, driving down the highway just below her house.

As she began to put a bit more detail into the car, her eyebrows knit together as she realized the large scrapes and dents her pencil was mindlessly placing into the vehicle.

Teddy, a boy in her class and leader of the bullies, tugged on her hair with an unbridled force, causing her head to fall back.

The pencil scratched through the middle of the paper, turning the car into nothing more than a disaster, and Ellie, surprised by the action, squawked. Tears filled tears filled her eyes as she clutched the back of her tender head.

Teddy laughed and carried on with his rhymes. "Crybaby, crybaby!"

"Theodore, that's enough!" Ellie heard from behind her. She rubbed the back of her head and wiped at the tears that spilled from her emerald eyes. She heard an apology from the little boy's mouth before he ran away, and felt a warm hand encase her shoulder.

Ellie craned her neck to see her teacher, Mrs. Blynn, smiling down onto her. "Don't listen to them, Elin. You're smart and beautiful, aren't you?"

Mrs. Blynn was Ellie's favorite teacher. She was nice, pretty, and really smart.

Ellie nodded, sniffing back a round of tears. "Sure, Mrs. Blynn."

Mrs. Blynn took Ellie's hand in her own, causing Ellie gasp and pull away, the contact more than unwanted. "Elin? Are you alright?"

Suddenly, everything around Ellie turned black, and almost like tunnel vision Mrs. Blynn was the focus of her mind. Ellie's breathing labored and her eyes closed, tears leaking from behind the clinched lids.

Mrs. Blynn was beside of a dark road, lined with trees as far as the eye could see. Headlights sped past her crumpled, red car on the side of the highway. Ellie, in the middle of the playground, reach blindly for her teacher, her small hand tenderly caressing her face as she whispered what she saw, while in the vision she was peaking over the door, through the window, at her lifeless teacher.

"Don't go out for groceries next month," Ellie whispered, her voice tight. "Don't go alone. Please, make your husband go with you."

Mrs. Blynn pulled Ellie's hand away from her face, her eyes narrowed at the child standing before her. "Elin, what are you talking about?"

"If you go alone you'll die."

Mrs. Blynn swallowed nervously and nodded. "It's okay, Elin. Nothing's going to happen to me, okay?"

Elin nodded and turned to her notepad, her eyes sadly staring down onto the car.

A few weeks later Ellie's class was called into the auditorium only to be informed that Mrs. Sasha Blynn had been killed in an automobile collision.

"There are grief counselors available if anyone needs to talk," the principal addressed the students, his framed eyes boring into Ellie's own. "Do not be afraid to ask."



Years came and passed just like they always did, and slowly the young girl morphed into a woman once more. The developmental stage had always found Ellie faster than it did most girls her age. She watched day by day as her body transformed into one more suited for a woman, wider hips and a fuller chest, and even a slightly more angular face.

Her red hair had kept is sheen over the years, thankfully enough, and had grown to sit on the middle of her back. Her eyes, the green they'd always came to be, sparkled when tickled by the sun. Her alabaster skin blemished like an ordinary human, much to her distant mother's dismay, but quickly resumed it's silky Asgaridan finish.

She was pretty, that was a given from the blood that ran through her veins, but more than that she was smart.

Elin Mills had always excelled at whatever task might come her way. During all of her years of roaming the earth she had conquered many professions: twice a nurse, a few times teaching, and even a maid, in her lowest life. But come what may, she always prevailed. She had drawn the longest of the straws, so to speak, in almost every life.

This time it was different. There were no jobs for the clinically insane.

Ellie sat quietly in the pale, white room, her face buried in the palms of her hands. Sobs and cries tore from her chest, almost as if to rip themselves free.

A team of nurses and doctors rushed into her room, hopeful to calm the erratic young woman. To make her see that they were only trying to help.

"Elin," a doctor's voice called to her, "Elin, it's okay. We're here to help you."

Ellie jumped back further onto the bed, drawing her arms and legs as close to her as possible. "Don't touch me! Please!"

"Elin, you need to calm down."

Ellie shook her head frantically, pressing herself against the wall. "Don't touch me. I'll be good, I swear!"

The doctors sighed and dove toward her, holding her onto the bed as a nurse administered a shot of something to make her sleep. Ellie felt her eyes blur together, while her arms and legs numbed instantly. Slowly, her eyelids fell together, shielding her from the world around her.

The doctor, a dark haired man with a yellowed smile, gave a curt nod to the only male nurse in the room and quietly slipped out through door.

Once outside he watched from the two-way mirror as Agent Sandar took care of the nurses before pulling Elin Mills into his arms, and then jumping from the second story window.