This was not the first time she saw the end.

Blood rushed to her head as threads of gold weaved in between her fingers, lighting up the room like a warm sun shining through the window. It danced across her fingertips and circled around her head with a bright shimmer that was only reserved for the stars. It crackled like lightning and it sang like the sweetest song that had ever graced anyone’s ears.

But she was the only one who could hear it. And she was the only one who could feel how it burned.

Each time it brushed her skin she felt the ache, a scathing pain that coursed through her veins as if her blood had turned red hot. Her ears were pounding and she felt as though someone had shoved their hand through her chest and tore her heart out and left it blood-soaked on the floor.

Cassandra could just barely recall the first time she had looked into the future, though it was not long ago at all. It hadn’t hurt like this, but it had burned nonetheless. Now, violently aged by her mind, the curses that plagued her hadn’t lain dormant. What was a curse if it struck and then disappeared? There was no end to the torture, a consistent steady rise of suffering each time she reached into her head for a vision. But it wasn’t like she had any choice.

The future was written, as far as she could see. If she could go back and change it she would, but she knew it was impossible. Many people like to believe that they are in control of their destinies but they are simply puppets held by fate’s desire.

The prophecy wrapped around her fingers, turning her eyes golden as the light reflected back. It was so beautifully cruel.

She screamed as the vision materialized, searing through her mind the same way it always did.

Sometimes Cassandra sooner wished that she would go blind rather than see anything at all. To see the future was a horrible thing, to watch how people would kill one another. She would have preferred to see nothing than to know what man could do to each other.

But she had no choice but to watch as the vision showed her the village square, torn to rubble with bodies lying beneath the chaos. She saw her own neighbors collapsed on the ground, with strangers standing over them triumphantly. Bile rose in her throat, and she tried to close her eyes but she was never allowed to.

The great brick clock tower that stood in the center of the square seemed to be solid gold, the clock hands spinning around the face rapidly. The future seemed to have no concept of time no indication of how far away it may be. But it always made everything shine. It liked to mock her, pretend that the world that awaited them was golden like that wasn’t the most brutal lie she had ever seen.

No matter how many times she watched a scene, it was always sickening. That was the thing about prophecies: sometimes you knew them before you even saw them. A memory from a distant vision, a familiar corruption that long ago she had accepted was inescapable. A defeat that was already written in the cards.

Ripping away from the prophetic visions, the gold threads didn’t fade as they usually did. They wrapped around her wrists like chains and chased up her arms until she couldn’t see them anymore.

Heaving a sigh Cassandra marched into the village square, seeking out the mayor. She was only slightly conscious of the ending like it was a scene that played out before her before, and yet she was still living with autonomy. She presumed this was the first time she had really seen it in its completion.

But she still knew this would end badly. It was a desperate tingle in the pit of her stomach, telling her that nothing would be the way she wanted it to be. That was how the future had decided to play its hand.

She knocked on the door of their little town hall, its walls caving in and the wood falling from the exterior, but there was still a little gold-plated sign on the front of the door with Mayor Abbott’s name on it.

“Who is it?” A voice called from within as Cassandra pushed the door open.

“I need to speak with you. It’s about something I saw.”

Mayor Abbott sat inside at his desk, raising his eyebrows skeptically but beckoning her in any way. “Yes, yes. What is it?”

Cassandra explained her vision, operating without a thought in her mind, only words in her mouth. Mayor Abbott nodded absently.

“I believe the village is in danger,” Cassandra concluded, frowning when the mayor began to chuckle.

“You mean to imply that my town is going to be attacked by foreigners that you can’t even identify.”

“I am only telling you what I have seen,” she replied calmly.

“Seen where? In your imagination.”

Mayor Abbott never did listen to her. Nor did anyone else. She didn’t need to be looking into the future to realize that would never change. It’s something that she would always know.

“I’ve seen it with my eyes. And so shall you.”

She left, an intense feeling of rage burning in her chest but she didn’t say a word. This was how the future was written. Nothing she could do would change a thing. It was immobilizing but her body didn’t allow her to protest as it carried itself back to her home where she could hide away from the cruel world.

It was three years before the foreigners came and conquered the village. Cassandra could not recall a single second that had occurred in between. She had spent all the time waiting for the army, fearing them, so monotonous and repetitive that she simply forgot it all. One moment she had left the mayor’s office and the next she was hiding in her home as men marched into the village.

The hilts of their swords were painted golden and the lapels on their uniforms were a bright shade of silver. For all their treachery, they were beautiful. Not a hair or foot out of place, so pristine and focused.

Until they stained their swords with blood.

She held her knees to her chest, her back pressed against the wall beneath the only window in her home. That way no one would see her if they looked in.

Her fingers itched for something to do, reaching for her curtains and curling around the yellow tassels.

Everything happened just how she saw it. Buildings were torn apart and knocked over, and people were caught in the crossfire of the mysterious attacks. No one knew who the men were or why they had come. That was the mystery people should have been solving.

But when the men left, just as quickly as they had swept through the village, no one seemed to care why.

Instead, Mayor Abbott stood at her doorstep, banging on the door with great ferocity.

“Open the door, Cassandra! I need to speak with you!”

She had still been sitting underneath her window, paralyzed with fear.

The banging continued and she reluctantly pulled herself up from the floor. When she opened the door she could see that Mayor Abbott’s face was red and all of her neighbors had drifted outside into their yard to watch what was transpiring.

“How did you know this was going to happen?” He gestured grandly to the destruction that surrounded them. Cassandra’s street had been lucky, the men had left the houses untouched, but she could see other people in the distance who were not so lucky.

“What do you mean?” She asked delicately, though there was no questioning what he wanted to know.

“Three years ago you told me about an attack just like this. How did you predict it?”

“I watched it happen. In a vision. Precisely as I told you then.”

Mayor Abbott scoffed, looking away at the onlookers. He drew his eyebrows together. “I don’t believe you. Do you want to know what I think?”

Cassandra let out a sigh. She had seen this scene before. She knew precisely what he thought.

“I think you’re a witch and you summoned all those men here.”

She closed her eyes and pictured a world where people didn’t falsely accuse her of crimes. She thought about how lovely it would have been if people believed one another and no one ever felt this kind of shredding pain.

No prophecy she had ever watched showed a future like that.

“You know a few weeks ago she told me she saw my dog die,” offered one of the neighbors, moving closer to see what the commotion was about. “And he did, just last night.”

Witch hunts were happening everywhere. Cassandra had thought her town had risen above it but now she saw that wasn’t the case.

“I’m not a witch,” Cassandra insisted. “I’m a seer. The two things are completely different, one is controlled the other is hereditary. I didn’t—” She gave up trying to defend herself. She knew better than the people that it was hopeless.

Mayor Abbott grabbed her arm, and she didn’t fight it. His fingernails dug into her skin, his gold ring cold against her as he pulled her from the steps of her home.

“You’ve seen what all the other villages do with witches. Send them back to the hell they came from.”

“Shouldn’t you be trying to figure out where the men came from who destroyed half the village?” Cassandra pleaded, as futile as it was.

“We have. And now we’ll make sure she can’t kill anyone again.”

In the middle of the square, there was already a pyre where people gathered around in curiosity. Mayor Abbott was prepared to protect his village in the only way he knew how. To purge what he thought was the problem.

Other men stepped forward, helping the mayor to tie Cassandra’s wrists and set her atop the pile of wood. It all happened so quickly. Cassandra had heard in other villages that accused witches more often wasted away in a prison cell rather than an immediate death. She couldn’t decide which one would have been better.

“Do you have any last words? A final confession?”

“I will give you nothing,” Cassandra spit out hopelessly. “But I hope the men return. And I hope this time they leave no one in their wake.”

The people began to panic, believing she had uttered some final curse not realizing that she was the one cursed. A torch was touched to the wood beneath her in haste and she felt the flame lick her feet immediately.

If she had time to prepare she would have worn her blue silk dress. After all, silk was the most flammable of fabrics and this would have been over faster.

The heat that consumed her was overwhelming, red hot as it washed over her skin. The smoke was suffocating and she suddenly felt like she couldn’t breathe.

She looked around through the gray haze, seeing the faces of people that once long ago she had considered to be her friends. Now they cheered as she burned.

She saw the clocktower, though it looked so far away, and noticed a peculiar sight. The hand on the clock face spun around in circles as if time had ceased to remain.

Cassandra gasped as her clothes caught fire and the heat grew even more. Her skin must have been charred and sweat dripped down her face. The golden threaded prophecies that had circled around her wrists shot out from her hands and rested on her head like a crown.

If this was what dying felt like, Cassandra thought it funny. It was no worse than the pain she felt when she read her prophecies. Though it burned it felt numb all the same.

She looked at the clock tower one last time.

Then she closed her eyes.

The pain didn’t cease until she opened them again, sitting in the living room of her childhood home with her mother on the couch. Cassandra was only just a child, her hair pulled back in knots and a frown stretched across her face.

“Mama, it hurt. So bad.”

“Don’t be silly, Cassie. Prophecies don’t hurt.”

She would never believe her.

“And I saw terrible things. The people—they burned me. They called me a witch.”

“You must have understood them wrong,” her mother told her decisively. “Prophecies are never bad things, they only prepare you for a bright future. People love us because we help them.”

No one ever believed her.

This, indeed, was the first time she would see the end. Her end.

And it would not be the last.

For she may not have lived it yet, but it would be exactly the same. But nothing would be golden and nothing could be changed.