Chapter One :
Falling Apart
Once upon a time, not so long ago, there was a girl. A girl who used to believe in fairy tales, prince charming on his white horse, damsels in distress, fairies and all that stuff.
Yes she used to believe in all of that. She lived in her little magic world before her heart was shattered in a billion of pieces.
Now princes were replaced by awfully selfish jerks, white horses had run away, damsels in distress were some desperate women miserably believing in just a cliché, and fairies were revealed to simply be very annoying flies. Yes you could tell that she was quite a disillusioned girl.
And even if that story did start with "once upon a time" like in all fairy tales, believe me, this in no way looking like one. I'm not a princess. And you're certainly wondering why I am telling you that because I am supposed to be the narrator and keep for me any comment on the story and my life. But here's the deal: it's not a fairy tale. It's my story.
So, I was telling you that I'm not a princess, obviously. Princesses are beautiful, gracious, nice and if you're referring to a real princess, they have royal blood, they are respected, loved, famous and put on a pedestal since they're born. I'm not. But you'll discover it soon enough.
This is were the story begins, well the interesting part, it would be rather annoying to tell you my whole life since my birth.
It was a normal day, you know the routine : waking up at 7 a.m, happily preparing myself for school singing my favorite song. Like always, I was late and I had to run to the bus stop. I ran with all my lungs, the rythmed music escaping the headphones encouraging me in my sprint. Suddenly, the music stopped. I interrupted my running to look at the screen of my Ipod. No battery. Great! That was going to be a long day. I quickly started running again in one last hope to catch my bus. The cool wind was slapping my face as I made one last stride watching the bus leaving. "No! No!" I said running as fast as I could towards the bus making big signs with my hands. I bowed my head in defeat and thrusted my hands in my coat's pockets when I heard screech. I raised my head to see that the bus had stopped. I quickly walked toward it and got in. Maybe this day was not going to be that bad.
"Thank you very much!" I said to the driver smiling cheekily.
"You're welcome. I suppose you overslept again?" he said teasingly.
"Kind of" I answered blushing. Another thing about me: I blush whenever I talk to someone I don't know, when I'm embarrassed or when someone is teasing me. I can't help it if I'm shy. I'm not the fearless, self-confident kind of girl. So, feeling I was blushing, I walked to a sit without a word. Since none of my friends take this bus I had to wait silently AND without music. This is truly annoying. I finally arrived at school and went to my locker to put some things in it. I then talked with my friends to the next class. MATHS. Monday, what a bad day. After one hour of class that seem to last centuries, we went to English class.
Twenty minutes after the class had started, a woman entered and said "Excuse me, Eden Nayeli ?". I raised my hand saying "I'm here".
"Can you please take your bag and follow me?" she nicely asked.
"Okay" I said, putting all my things in my bag. "Okay, I'm really wondering what's going on" I though, leaving the class.
The woman looked desperately at me and after a sigh said: "Your mother was in a car crash this morning, she pauses, I open my mouth to say something but I can't, it feel like the time has stopped. She died instantly"she announced. My heart is suddenly pounding so much that I feel like it'll burst out of my chest, my stomach hurts from a vain effort to contain my tears. I break down in tears feeling totally miserable, alone and depressed. The woman try to comfort me and to soothe me but it makes me cry harder. She embraces me but I fight against her grip and run away. I'm running out of the school not knowing where I am going or from what I am running away. Completely out of breath, I stop and sit down to realize I'm in the forest that anyone fear. Really stupid isn't it? People from my town are so superstitious and naive. Oh so naive! Fairy tales and legends have always been an important part of our culture. They even believe an horrible beast live in the forest and that it is in reality a man cursed by a witch for his arrogance. This is unbelievable. How people with a right mind can possibly believe that? This is insane! Even in schools studies of fairy tales are in the program! I came to a conclusion : people who live here are crazy. Well, except me.
So, basically, I should totally freak out like every person in this town would be. But, once again, I am NOT a damsel in distress. I stand up, one hundred per cent calm and disappear in the dark forest. After a few minutes, I hear a loud rumble. I raise my head to see a very dark sky and huge clouds right above the forest.
"Great! This is really great ! ", I thought, searching for a shelter. Nothing but trees. I should have guess. Feeling totally depressed. I sat down and started to cry, realizing what was happening. My mother had died. I felt completely lost, I didn't know where to go an I had no idea how long I was in that forest. "What I'm going to do?" was the last thought I had before I heard dried leaves creak. "Hello?" I asked, now sure I wasn't alone."Is there someone?", I said turning my head in all directions searching for any sign of life. I then saw a shadow running and heard the noise of feet crushing dead leaves. I decided to follow "it", determined to discover who it was. " Wait! I need your help! Don't be afraid, I won't hurt you!", I cried out. These words visibly made their effect because I caught sight of the shadow, which stopped a few meters away. It looked like it was man (at least his back looked like that), a very tall man dressed in a really long dark blue cloak, his head hidden in a hood. I approached him hesitantly but encouraged myself to talk to him, he certainly was the only person who could help me. "Hello?", I said questioningly not knowing if it was a good idea after all. You see, he was rather intimidating from closely. He seemed not only very tall but also muscular seeing the volume of his cloak. And it wasn't very reassuring, believe me. So, after my rather shy approach I saw his head moving a bit as if he wanted to turned around but stopped himself from doing this. I take it as an answer and carried on : " I'm sorry if I disturbed you but, I was looking for a shelter before the …", a great rumble echoed in the forest and rain began to pour down, " … storm starts", I said with a desperate sigh. " Could you help me find somewhere to go? Before it worsens..." I asked. He still didn't move, the rain wetting his cloak, completely. I took a step closer and touched his arm, "Please?". He removed quickly his arm and walked away with big strides. " Wait! Please, help me!" I said, running after him, trying to catch up on him. I ran for minutes, but it was pouring down, I had a HUGE headache that the raindrops seemed to amplify. Water flowed on the ground, making mud where my feet could hardly move. With one last call to the man, I fell on the ground and all went black.
Hello, readers !
So, this was the first chapter of my story. I apologize if there are mistakes, English isn't my native language, so if you have any questions you can tell me. I hope you enjoy reading this, and if you have an advice or a suggestion, I will be glad to take this into account. I put a lot of efforts doing this, so I really hope it will interest some people. Please tell me : should I continue or not?
Love,
Miss Papillon
