I was running. I was running through the woods, the woods where I grew up.
I remember the woods so well, but as a small child I thought of them more like a magical forest. Every day I would go out into the woods. Some people found it strange that I would rather go out into the cold, dark woods rather than stay in the warm and play with my friends. To be honest, I didn't have any friends that weren't in the woods. So I would just run out to the woods anyway.
I went to there every day, well, almost every day. One day it was snowing. My parents told me to go outside and play with "friends", so I started trekking my way through the snow towards the woods, that's where all my real friends where, but to my surprise when I was about halfway there I felt as if someone had picked me up and started walking away with me in the opposite direction! When I tried to turn around I found that this was true! And even worse, the person carrying me was my father. This whole problem would never have happened if I had been a bit bigger, but I was only four.
When do get to come to the woods, I find that my friends are waiting for me at the entrance. My friends are fairies. No really, they are. My friends are fairies. There not exactly the adorable little fairies that fly around looking pretty, these are real fairies.
"Our Queen has returned!" they shout, "We rejoice at your arrival!"
When I was four I didn't really understand what all those words meant but I still let them dress me in a long golden gown and a crown covered in flowers. Then I would play games in the woods like hide and seek and it, as we played the wood transformed around us.
I was now standing in the middle of a beautiful little village, the houses where not small, I could fit in them, but they were never very tall, so that the fairies could hide in the trees. The trees provided not only shelter, but they acted as a form of protection. The fairies were forever under threat; the fairies that I was with now were the only ones in the woods.
We often played until after lunch, which my mother was not impressed.
"You'll starve," she would say. I wouldn't starve. My friends fed me, and when I was older they also taught me how to hunt. This is not all they taught me, I soon learnt how to find water, how to start a fire and how to fight.
By the time I was eight I knew how to survive in the woods by myself. But unfortunately my parents made me go to school. As you may have guessed I hated school, and school hated me.
People teased me because I always talked about the fairies and how we played in the woods together, they started to call me names like 'fairy girl'. At break times I would just go off on my own, sometimes I pretend the fairies are there with me, but this makes it look as if I am talking to myself and that only makes the teasing worse.
I went to the woods every day after school. We did not play hide and seek and other childish games anymore, we went out hunting. I loved learning how to kill. It probably isn't the usual hobby for a nine year old girl, but I loved it.
The fairies were always so nice to me. They treated me like queen! But one day the fairies weren't there. So I laughed, as if it was a joke. I walked deeper into the woods. We did this every day, so I shouldn't be scared, but... but this time it was different. I started running.
I was running. I was running through the woods, the woods where I grew up.
Where were the fairies? I was at the village now, no houses, but there was a clearing. I shouted to them. No reply. I thought back to the first time I met the fairies. I can't remember. I can't remember going to the woods when I was four. I can't remember what the fairies looked like. Fairies? What was I saying? There are no such things as fairies.
Then I ran back home. To where my friends are, where my family is and where life is.
