Happy Birthday

Garish paper streamers clashed with faded wallpaper. A banner, written in childish scrawl and woefully misspelled, hung over the fireplace. In the middle of the room resided a broken table – and at the head, a small, black-eyed girl with curly golden hair and porcelain skin. A disastrously wrapped present laid in her lap, fingers curled around it possessively.

A rusty rendition of Happy Birthday fell from the girl’s lips, her voice rusty with ages of disuse. The shadows lurking in the corners of the room joined in, and if one listened, he would hear the whispers of destruction.