That night, Felicity dreamt that she was walking through a dimly lit hallway of the orphanage. Various portraits of children and the Berkowitz couple hung from the walls, only they had been turned upside-down. The further she crept down the length of the hallway, the more distorted the faces on the portraits became.

A faint smell of smoke bled into Felicity’s nose from a cracked door at the end of the hall. The scent struck through the cool air like hot iron, beckoning Felicity to gander through the cracked door. Her blue eyes gleamed in the darkness as they devoured any vestige of light they could grab, seeking a vision to burn into her mind.

Just a few feet away, the Berkowitz couple slept soundly in a modest, full-sized bed. With their backs facing towards each other, the couple laid with a large space between them while tightly hugging their opposing sides of the bed.

At the foot of the bed, a dark billowy shape stood over the unsuspecting couple, creating the image of an imposing shadow. As Felicity continued to peer in through the cracked bedroom door, the strange shape turned to acknowledge her, holding up the vague outline of an index finger to its face.

Silence.

Felicity woke with a start as the hurried clacks of heels carried themselves from the end of the hallway to the young girl’s bedroom door. The door’s hinges whined in agony as Mrs. Berkowitz burst into the room to wake the young girl. In the process of doing so, the woman flung open the curtains to see that the window had been cracked open all night.

“You idiot child, do you know how expensive it is to keep this building warm through the fall and winter?” the beaky woman squawked as she ripped the sheets off of Felicity. The young girl sat up slowly and yawned while she wiped the sleep from her eyes, blissfully ignorant to the coming storm.

“I want you downstairs in one minute to do your chores. If you neglect them again, there will be no dinner for you!” Mrs. Berkowitz exclaimed as she turned on heel to leave the room. Before she could leave though, a gleam of sunlight caught her eye and caused her to stop in her tracks.

The early morning sun was dancing across the edge of an empty ceramic plate that was covered with saran wrap and a small note. As she started to realize what the plate was, the woman’s ears turned red-hot with anger.

Mrs. Berkowitz turned to face Felicity as the rage swelled inside of her chest, bubbling out through her throat in the sound of a rumbling growl, “You spoiled little brat! Do you know how long I toiled over the oven to make that food for my husband?”

Felicity’s eyes widened in horror at the awareness of the grave offense she had committed against the seething woman. No matter how much the young girl tried to stay out of sight and out of mind, there was always some impending event that would lead the woman to lash out at her again. This was beyond young Felicity’s control now, or at least it always had been.

“He…he said I could eat his food. He doesn’t agree with the way in which you treat me,” Felicity sputtered as her limbs began to shake.

Mrs. Berkowitz approached the young girl and ripped her from the sheets of her bed, “I suppose cutting your atrocious hair wasn’t enough. You’ve also got a nasty mouth on your face that doesn’t know when to quit. You will learn your place girl!”

“No. No, please,” pleaded the young girl as she tried to distance herself from the vengeful wench.

The woman used her fury-driven strength to drag Felicity down to the kitchen below. The other children were already outside playing and Mr. Berkowitz was away at work. No one was around to help the young girl or hear her desperate cries.

As her dirt-covered feet were dragged across the entryway of the kitchen onto the cold tile floor, panic began to stretch through Felicity’s body and squeeze her thumping heart. This was the woman’s beating ground, and hardly anything pleasant happened here.

Mrs. Berkowitz muttered under her breath as she scoured the kitchen cabinets and pantry in search of a fitting device for punishment. The woman frantically threw pots and pans onto the kitchen floor until the glare of a small glass bottle caught her eye. She grinned maniacally as she retrieved the small glass bottle and turned towards young Felicity.

Felicity scanned the clear, liquid contents of the bottle in confusion until she saw a small label with black ink scrawled on it, revealing the name Vitriol. In the woman’s hand was a small vial carrying liquid ounces of hate that would change Felicity’s life forever.

The young girl’s knees buckled with fear as she turned hurriedly to leave the kitchen. In her state of panic, Felicity tripped over a wooden chair resting beside the kitchen table, causing her to crash forcefully against the cold, tile floor. Using her small, thin arms, Felicity tried to pull herself away as Mrs. Berkowitz grabbed the girl’s ankle and pulled her closer.

“You look like a thirsty little demon, girl! Why don’t you quench your thirst with some of this?”

A loud, bloodcurdling shriek pierced through the air as it emanated from the building of the orphanage, causing a flock of birds to flitter from a nearby tree. Outside, the children continued to kick around a rubber ball, carrying on without a single care in the world.

* * * * *

“It was absolutely horrific doctor,” Mrs. Berkowitz sobbed into the chest of her husband, “I walked into the kitchen right as the girl was standing on a chair and reaching for some supplies stowed away in a high cabinet. The vial tipped as her finger nudged it, splashing sulfuric acid down her face.”

Mr. Berkowitz stroked his wife’s back in sympathy as another man leaned down to inspect Felicity’s chemical burn. The young girl’s eyes were an ice-cold blue, glassy and void of any emotion. Burns covered the bottom of her face, contorting the lips around her mouth and leaving her gums and teeth visible.

“It’s no doubt that this young girl has had quite a shock, I’ll wrap this up as best as I can and provide some medication. We’ll need to monitor it for the time being, but I’m afraid that her face will be quite scarred,” the doctor said as he cleansed the young girl’s wound and wrapped it in gauze.

After dressing the girl’s wounds, the doctor placed a hand on Felicity’s shoulder and smiled warmly from behind a thick, handlebar mustache. For a moment, the young girl’s eyes looked deeply into the Doctor’s gaze as he winked at her.

“I will be back, soon.”

After a few days of medically induced sleep, Felicity awoke in her room to the smell of a light smoke. The scent leaked through the crack under her bedroom door and pulled at her nose, causing her to stir in her bed. It was late in the evening, and the pale moon casted shadows throughout the expanse of her room as she pulled back her worn bed sheets.

Felicity stood, entranced by the smoke’s sensation and followed it quietly through the house as everyone slept. The young girl’s feet carried her silently like a phantom down into the basement where a small window had been left ajar. There in the darkness, a cat with hungry, yellow eyes sat upon the mass of cloths that had been left in the corner.

A low growl escaped from the cat’s throat as Felicity crept closer, her blue eyes peering like glassy orbs into the night from behind the gauze wrapped around her head. Lying on the ground at the scraggly, stray cat’s paws was the mangled corpse of her friend Mr. Crackers.

A pang pierced through Felicity’s heart as she lurched towards the cat, causing it to hiss and climb some nearby boxes to escape the open window. The girl knelt down and picked up Mr. Crackers as the fracture in her heart began to grow. Unable to move the scabbed flesh around her face without causing any pain, Felicity swallowed the knot in her throat as a single tear escaped her glassy eye.

The smell of smoke intensified as Felicity stroked her pet rat. The rat’s hair, which had once been soft and brown, was now matted with blood. Horrified by the image of his limp corpse, the girl looked around the basement for a box of some sort, as Mr. Crackers would need a proper burial. In the other corner of the room, next to an iron furnace, a box of matches sat beside an old, tin canister.

As Felicity reached out to retrieve the box of matches, she noticed a single word spelt out in thick block letters across the old, tin canister.

The letters read ‘Kerosene.’

Under her skin, Felicity felt a presence crawl. A vision flickered through her mind, and in that moment, something cracked.

* * * * *

Sirens wailed in the distance as a thick, black smoke carried into the sunrise. Long tongues of flame lapped at a tired, old building hungrily as they engorged themselves on everything in sight. A haunting flash of heat and ember leaked into the surrounding air, burning through the cool, autumn air.

Children choked as they rushed outside into the street to call for help, tears streaming through the ash on their cheeks. Nearby neighbors still clothed in their pajamas and robes gathered in awe around the burning building as they tried to calm the panic-stricken children. A scene of complete chaos was unfolding.

The wail of the sirens in the distance grew closer as a child gestured spastically towards the orphanage, “The Berkowitz…they’re still inside!”

The neighbors gasped in horror as they looked on at the raging fire. Various parts of the roof had already begun to collapse, and nothing living seemed to be stirring within the building’s remnants.

Across the street, a young girl with gauze wrapped around her face stood while her ashen nightgown billowed menacingly in the breeze. Her eyes smiled as the vision of the fire glared in them like hot beams of gold against her blue irises.

An arm suddenly reached out to the girl’s shoulder, obliging her to face the familiar presence.

“I think it’s time to go home, my little mouse,” the presence said as the stray gray hairs in his handlebar mustache gleamed in the firelight. The doctor’s cheeks bulged like two red apples as his mouth spread into a warm, hearty grin.

The girl nodded happily in response and took hold of the doctor’s hand. The two then walked away through the smog as flickering red and blue lights arrived at the scene of the blazing orphanage.