Author's Note: yet another TCP from the man now known at his University as "Prince Of Darkness." This one's pretty dark: I'd give it an R for...well, that's the only warning I'm giving. Feedback and flames to the usual address please!)

***

I haven't got a name yet.

I will do soon.

"Lily Elizabeth Greenley."

It's a nice name, isn't it? Sounds gentle, innocent...girly.

My dad chooses it for me.

How do I know?

Well, I can see the future.

I'm a mutant, you see.

None of the rest of my family are: I can already see the arguments they have over whose "fault" I am.

I'm just a one-in-a-million chance.

And accident of Nature.

How far can I see into the future?

Pretty far, to be honest.

I can see myself getting a job.

I can see myself graduating from college.

I can see myself meeting my first girlfriend, and finally realising what I am.

I can see myself graduating from Black Lake High School.

I can even see my first pair of contact lenses: nice violet ones.

Just about everything, for the next twenty, thirty years or so.

I can't see stuff that doesn't affect me, of course.

No lottery numbers, no football scores, none of the good stuff people will always ask me to try and tell them.

But I can see stuff that affects me.

I can see myself being shunned because of my skin colour.

I can see myself being attacked because of my eventual sexuality.

And it scares me.

Scares me to death.

But I know that in the end, I don't die until a long, long time from now. Can you get your head round that?

Every day of my life, I know exactly when I'm going to die.

It means I can do all sorts of things and not worry about dying from them though.

Things like "fight back against the scumbag who tries to rape me in that alleyway the day after I move to New York."

Things like "rescue that girl who nearly drowns my first day at summer camp."

I can do all sorts of things, and not change my future at all.

How I die is pretty sad, actually.

My apartment block burns down while I'm asleep.

Scary, huh? I'm never gonna be able to sleep that night, and the tiredness of trying to avoid it is what will cause my death.

But that's a long time in the future.

For now, I can just float here, safe in the knowledge I get born without a hitch.

Or at least, I would, but I can't, because of one thing I can see about the future.

You know I said my daddy chooses my name?

Well, that's because, a week after I'm born, my mommy blows her head off with a shotgun.

She can't cope with the looks her chalk-white-skinned, coal-black-haired daughter gets from the nurses.

She can't cope with the stares her daughter's yellow-irised eyes with their hourglass-shaped pupils get from the rest of her family.

She can't cope with having a daughter who isn't "perfect."

And I can't do a damn thing about it.

I can't tell daddy to lock the gun cupboard, or to even leave his gun unloaded when it's there.

Because I'm only seven days old when it happens.

FIN