[color=FFC0CB][center][h2]Little Miss Princess[/h2][/center]

[i]Crack.[/i]

There was a regular at Catharsis. None of the other patrons knew her real name. So they called her Little Miss Princess.

Not because of how she dressed. 
Not because of how she acted.
But it was because of the doll.

She was never without it: a small doll in a princess dress, painted eyes and a plastic smile. Princess Gina, she called it.

“You must really love that doll,” someone mentioned once, watching her cradle it.

[i]Snap.[/i]

She bent the arms backward, twisting them at angles they were never meant to reach until the joints gave way with a sound like breaking twigs.

[i]Crunch.[/i]

The head caved under her palm until the plastic split and the painted face cracked down the middle.

[i]Thud.[/i]

She dropped it. Her heel came down.
Again.
Again.

She picked up what was left. Twisted an arm until it tore free from the socket. Ripped a leg off at the hip. Pulled the head clean away from the body.

Then she hurled the pieces into the air. They clattered against the mountain of discarded dolls, the only solid thing in her Catharsis.

Every time she visited, she broke the doll in a thousand and one ways.

From somewhere in the dark came a whisper. “Who’s Gina?”

Little Miss Princess didn’t turn toward the voice. “A con artist.”

Another visit, another voice. “Why you doing that?”

This time, her gaze shifted past the mountain.

“Because I don’t forgive her.”

[i]Crack. Snap. Crunch.[/i]

Once more, after who knows how many visits, she tossed the broken pieces onto the pile.

Turning, she faced the wisp she knew as the Keeper.

“Another Princess Gina.”

As always, the wisp materialized another doll, set it within reach, and left her alone.

She never noticed the fragmented wisp that entered Catharsis. Or even the silver one that blazed across the void like a shooting star.

[i]Crack.[/i][/color]