Riley, the Albino.

The house was pail and weathered, a carcass of a home resting in the bog, yet Riley had no place left to go. The car that she had been living out of for the past few months had broken down, her food supplies had dried up two days ago, and a storm was rolling in.

Riley was a teenage runaway, not that anyone would notice her absence. Her father was probably the only nice man in her life, while the rest, from her mother to her classmates, were less affectionate. Her mother was a god-fearing woman who saw her daughter's appearance as a curse, a sign of demonic possession. While her classmates—well. Children had a tendency to be colder than most.

Riley looked down at her pale hands with sad red eyes as she remembered many of the hurtful things used to describe her appearance over the years. "Don't look at me, you monster!" her mother would shout, "I don't want whatever has possessed you! And don't stand in the dark! Your eyes glow, you know!"

"God, she looks like something straight out of a horror movie," the children would say, not caring a wit for the crying girl before them, "Hey, crawled out of any good wells lately? See you in seven days!" Riley is an albino with ashen black hair, a slender body, and dark red eyes. She wore a ragged black sweater that went down past her hips, a pair of dark gray pants, worn black boots, and her long-matted hair covered part of her face.

"A scary girl for a scary house," she thought meekly, turning her gaze back to the house, "I would fit right in." A small tear ran down Riley's cheek. "Why do I have to be so different?" she thought, "Why couldn't I have been normal like everyone else."

The sharp sound of thunder cracked behind her, urging the young woman to hurry to the door. As she passed by the front gate and made her way to the bone-white house, Riley could hear the wind and rain swirling in the trees behind her. By the time she reached the front porch, it had begun to pour. The wind was so fierce that the wooden tiles rattled against the walls. Riley took a moment to catch her breath. She hugged herself tightly in her damp sweater as the cold wind bit into her young body. It felt as if someone was stabbing her cheeks with rusty needles.

Suddenly, Riley noticed a light in one of the upstairs windows. "Did somebody live here?" she thought. The young teen took the large bronze door knocker, which easily dwarfed her slender fingers, and rang it several times. The loud bangs seemed to echo through the wind and rain.

"Hello?!" she called, "Can I come inside!…Please!?"

She rang the door a few more times when suddenly she noticed that the doorknob was turning. Realizing that a strange albino girl showing up in the middle of a storm, in the middle of nowhere, might be more than a little frightening, Riley hooked her sweater over her head to try to hide her face, though it did little to hide the glowing red eyes underneath.

Then, the door slowly opened with a loud and rusty creak.