[SP] Bitter Sixteen

“Come on, honey. Just one more picture, then were done. Try to smile this time.”

I force a smile onto my face, hoping my mom doesn't notice how fake it is.

“Perfect!” she says, while taking at least three more pictures, before she finally puts the camera away. “You look so beautiful.”

“Thanks, Mom”, I mumble. She pulls me into a hug before I can say anything else

“You grew up so fast.” She sighs and brushes some stray hairs out of my face. Although she's smiling, I can see tears forming in her eyes. She quickly wipes them away. It almost makes me cry too.

“Now go enjoy your party. I'll be close by if you need anything.” She gently pushes me towards the big open space where the guests are gathered and goes to join them herself, expecting me to do the same. I stay in the same place, fidgeting nervously with the ruffles on my dress. It's a beautiful dress, pink-colored, floor-length, with all kinds of complicated decorations, perfectly tailored to fit me. I picked it out myself. On any other day, I would be happy to wear a dress like this. Even though this is the day it was specifically made for, it just doesn't feel appropriate today.

I look around the room, trying to figure out the best next move. It looks as nice as the dress. Everything is decorated in a pink and gold color scheme, with pink roses and balloons everywhere, including the big balloon arch that just served as the backdrop for my pictures. Above it is a banner that reads ‘ROSE 16’ in bold letters.

I don't want to be ungrateful. Almost everything about this party is as perfect as it can be. All my friends and family came, I got a lot of presents and the cake is my favorite kind. All of that should be enough to make me happy. But I'm not. I just don't really feel like having a party right now.

Most of the guests are gathered on one side of the room, where a table filled with food is stalled out, including the big birthday cake in the middle. According to the schedule, now is the time for guest to come in, catch up together and eat some snacks. In half an hour, my mom will give a speech, I'll have to cut the cake, and we'll do some group photo's. I'm obviously expected to be present for all of that. I briefly consider grabbing some cupcakes and hiding in the bathroom until it’s time to cut the cake, but I know that as soon as I get close to that table, I'll never get to leave. I'll have to hide in the bathroom without cupcakes.

Just as I try to leave, my friend Emma comes up to me, smiling wider than I thought was humanly possible. She's surprisingly fast, considering the heels she's wearing are taller than her dress is long.

“Rosie! What are you doing in this corner? Come on, you have to try those cupcakes. Did your mom make them? They're so good. I already ate three of them, I can't stop myself!” She grabs me by my wrist and almost drags me towards the table. There is nothing I can do to stop her without causing a scene, so I just let myself be taken. I'll have to accept that there's no way for me to escape, not only from Emma’s powerful grip on my arm, but also from this whole day in general.

My entire friend group is standing as close to the cupcakes as possible. Even though I have all greeted them when they came in, they act like they haven't seen me in years.

“Rosie!”

“Happy birthday, girl!”

“You look so pretty!”

“Have a cupcake!”

Within ten minutes, I've been hugged at least seven times and have been given two cupcakes (which are really good, though). I try to match their enthusiasm, since I don't want to let it show to them that I'm not as excited for my own birthday as they are. Luckily, fake excitement is easy to turn real when there are multiple girls telling you how pretty you are every minute. The cupcakes also help.

Half an hour passed faster than I expected it to. Time to cut the cake. My mom comes and guides me towards the middle of the table, where a huge tiered cake is waiting for me to cut into it. It almost looks like a wedding cake, just in the same pink and gold colors as everything else. I had told my mom I was fine with a smaller one, but she had insisted on this. I'm not really complaining about that.

My mom is holding a microphone, ready to begin her big speech. Everyone gathers around us, probably more interested in the cake than in my mom talking about my childhood for ten minutes.

“Hello, everyone. It's so nice to see you all here”, my mom says. Her voice echoes from the speakers in every corner of the room, while conversations from the guests die out. “As you all know, we're here today to celebrate my daughter Rose's sixteenth birthday. Unless you're just here for the cake, in which case, you'll only have to wait a little longer.” She pauses to leave space for everyone to awkwardly laugh before continuing. I'm already not really listening anymore. While I'm sure she prepared something heartfelt about how much she loves me, her speeches are always so long and boring. It’s even worse today, now that I’ve got other things to worry about. I try to still pay attention, so I can smile, nod and quietly laugh at the right times, but mostly so I won’t be surprised when she stops. Everything I hear are stories about things I did when I was younger. Just like I predicted. At least it’s easy to laugh on cue when I’ve heard these same stories a million times before.

It takes about fifteen minutes for her to approach an end. “And that's who we're celebrating today. This little girl - who's not so little anymore – who has done so many great things and will do so many more.” She turns to me with tears in her eyes again, but this time she doesn't wipe them away. “I'm so proud of you, Rosie. And I love you.” She puts down the mic and hugs me. Our audience claps.

“Thanks, Mom. Love you too,” I say, trying to ignore that everyone is watching us. I start to pull away again, to not make everyone wait even longer for cake, but before she lets go, my mom whispers in my ear: “Your father would be so proud.”

My vision goes blurry. The pink-colored room slowly gets replaced by shapes and objects that I can't quite see clearly. I blink a few times, trying to shake of the weird shapes and what I’m supposed to see, but my vision only becomes darker, until the real world has completely faded away. I can hear screams and crying and sirens in the distance. The shapes grow clearer. I can see buildings on fire, debris on the street, a general look of destruction everywhere I can see. A sense of dread overwhelms me.

I want it to stop.

Now.

“Honey, are you okay?” The words abruptly bring me back to the real world, one that's not on fire. Yet.

I'm sitting on the floor, with my mom holding me up so I don't fall over any further. She looks concerned, which is totally understandable, since I just passed out.

This is exactly what I'd been afraid of.

“Are you okay?” she repeats.

I nod. “Yeah, I'm fine”, I say, not very convincingly.

She smiles, also not very convincingly. “You should go sit down. I'll get you some water.” She helps me up and leads me to one of the chairs on the side of the room. Although my whole body is shaking, I manage to walk as steady as is possible in heels. The crowd parts for us like I have some kind of contagious disease. My mom sits me down on the chair and hurries off to get me something to drink. I let my head drop in my hands, trying very hard not to cry. Through my fingers I can see the guests awkwardly avoiding staring at me.

I calm down my racing mind with some steady breathing. I've known this would happen for a while now, but to actually experience it is even scarier than I had imagined. I am not looking forward to dealing with these visions for the rest of my life.

I learned about the visions a few weeks ago, when I'd found my dad's old journals in the attic. He'd died almost ten years ago, only a few days after my sixth birthday. Even though my mom was always willing to tell me anything about him when I asked, I just wanted to know a bit more. I was hoping for cute stories about dates he went on with my mom, or some anecdotes from my childhood that my mom hadn’t already told me. Instead, I got pages full of detailed descriptions of the visions that he had. Some good, some bad, some really bad. Most of them eventually came true. There's no reason to believe the others won't.

At first I thought he was just crazy, but I was still scared of what would happen if he wasn't. In his journals, he explained that the visions were something that everyone in his family had, and that they started on his sixteenth birthday and never stopped again, only getting more frequent with time. I was hoping that it was all fake, or, if it was real, that it would skip me, but now my worst fears have been confirmed.

What I just saw was something I recognized from his descriptions. He wrote about it often and vividly. He called it ‘The End of the World'. Despite the very basic title, that does describe it pretty accurately. It’s something that his family has been seeing for decades, if not centuries. Nobody knows when or how it will happen, just that it will happen eventually. The vision slowly drove him to insanity. Just like happened to the rest of his family. And just like will happen to me.

My mom comes back with a glass of water. I drink it slowly while she watches me carefully, probably to see if I'll pass out again. “Are you sure you're okay?” she asks. “I can bring you to the hospital, if you want. Do you know what happened?”

I just nod again. “I'm okay”, I say, only answering the first question. I know she doesn't know about the visions, and I will not tell her in front of all these guests. If I even tell her at all.

“Well, just take your time, okay? I'll be close by if you need anything.” She caresses my hair and kisses my forehead. She still looks concerned, but she walks away, probably to convince the guests nothing is wrong.

I finish the glass of water. The vision I just saw is already burned into my brain. Even all the descriptions I read didn’t prepare me for what it was like to actually see it. I still get up, fix my dress, and put on another fake smile. I can actually try to enjoy my party, now that the hard part is over.

 I know I will see that same vision a lot more times. I know that I can either let it drive me crazy or keep on living like nothing happened.

I don't plan on going crazy.