A/N: I thought I stopped writing fanfiction. Seems, I didn't. I might continue this and update now and then. I'm doing a lot of stories (one collaboration piece here with Kara Papas and a lot of original works), so updating might not be regularly. Had to get this one out though. I know a lot of you don't fancy NatNao stories. The few who do and hence are open-minded enough for the Mai HiME fandom: I love you. This story will be told from Nao's POV because she damn rocks!

"Great heroes need great sorrows and burdens, or half their greatness goes unnoticed. It is all part of the fairy tale." — Peter S. Beagle

LOST IN PARADISE

CHAPTER 1 - BRIAR ROSE

There was a time in my life where I was sure that I finally found a purpose to live; something to hold on to. A time, where all the suffering and torment seemed to have reason or at least justification. I thought it was hope. But after all it wasn't anything but pure vengeance.
Vengeance was what kept me alive. Well, it made me at least feel anything at all. The day I discovered the power I held within me was the first day I've ever smiled again after Mama had fallen into a coma. That sounds almost too beautiful, doesn't it? Falling into something… I should better stick to the facts and rephrase it to: after she was beaten into a never-ending dreamless sleep. When I was younger, one of the nurses in the hospital tried to comfort me during the lonely nights next to the bed of Mama. I remember observing the medical ventilator that was forcing air in and out of her limp body. I squeezed her hand just like I did when I was toddler, and she was saying her goodnight to me before wishing me a joyful journey through paradise. That's what she had always told me; that no matter how awful a day had been we can enter our personal paradise through our dreams. At that time I was amazed what our minds are able to do. What they can create through moments of steady breathing and silence. But with the years I've lost that precious ability. Or maybe I have traded it for a little red star next to the moon, which came just as suddenly as my mother had left. Ever since, I've started using my powers to take revenge, I stopped sleeping the way I used to. The silence had become too loud. It deafened me. Every useless minute was ringing in my ears, and on my desperate way of filling the emptiness I started hating humans with all my heart. Despite filled me up to an extent were I felt like I was poisoned from deep within; as if a vicious stench was piercing through my heart, pinning my soul to the ground.

I'm sorry, Mama. But I forgot how to dream. I can't enter paradise without you, or maybe I'm not allowed to be there anymore. After all, I have sinned. I have taken revenge for something that could never be attained. It probably was nothing more than blind hatred, which I took out on random people who weren't at fault at all. Although, I still believe that all of them had deserved at least some kind of punishment in their own way. But they still weren't the ones that took you away from me. They weren't the ones who beat me out of paradise. Maybe there is a chance to get back, maybe there isn't. I'll never know for sure but still, I am the one who had locked the gate with my actions.

I need to escape. I need to get away from here. I need to find another way. There are too many memories bound to this city and its school. I don't wanna be here for the rest of my life. I'm sorry to leave you here all by yourself. But you won't be all alone. I've asked the nurse if she could do you the same favor she did to me during the lonely nights. I told her that she should read Grimms' fairy tales to you too. I'm sure you'll like them. I still never get tired of hearing these beautiful stories. I hope her voice will be just as soothing for you as it was for me through all those years. I told her not to forget to read 'Briar Rose' to you and she promised me, she will. It's still my favorite story and somehow I have to admit that I still believe that you are somewhere far away, living a happy life as a princess called Briar Rose. Hearing about the moment where the princess falls asleep and all of her surroundings following her even the flies on the walls, struck me like lighting. Everything caught in that one everlasting moment…This is what I felt. This is what I still feel and that's why I have to start moving.
I promise you I will come back someday, but for now it is farewell.

For now, I have to find the true meaning of my life.

For now, I have to find paradise again.

A/N: Reviews make authors happy.