It was the most exciting thing to happen all week. Kylie had spent weeks waiting for the grand opening of the Disney's Canada Experience to open. Ever since it had been announced, it seemed like the only good thing in her life. And once the store opened, she was going to spend all of her money on merch. She could hardly wait to get away from the horrible misery her life had become.
Her story was pretty similar to the story of thousands of young boys and girls in America; a tragedy. Born into the infamous 'Elm Street Projects', Kylie had seen enough human toxicity to last her an entire lifetime. From the day she had been born, Children's Services had been in and out of her life, as well as a slew of doctors, counselors, educators and therapists. They were all equally qualified and pointless at the same time.
Each and every member of these service providers had given her assignments, and questionaires, and a wide variety of medications and mediations, all to arrive at the same conclusion; Kylie was SUPER messed up.
Anxiety/depression. Anti-social tendencies. The list of 'goals' for social services was both sickening predictable and incredibly boring. Like most kids in the system, Kylie had been verbally, sexually, and physically abused. It had started with her dad's new girlfriend. The woman was psychotic, insulting the young girl, getting physical at the slightest provacation and forcing Kylie to dress in inappropriate clothing when she was a young girl, and then sent her to school. After a number of dress code violations, Kylie began to see herself the way her dad's girlfriend did- disgusting and ugly. She had gotten her first real boyfriend at eleven, and sex when she was twelve.
When he broke it off the week after they had first had sex, she completely withdrew. At thirteen, she had already been with three boys, and none of it... none of it mattered anymore. Unlike the popular teen dramas, it wasn't like her classmates called her a slut. They just... knew. Like it didn't matter. Like it wasn't special. Everybody did it. Nobody was special.
Sure, she had been sexually assaulted three or four times, but, that was typical. Lots of kids at her school had been raped. Yeah, they were older than her, but there were four or five kids from her class that had been abused, usually by a relative or friend. They were forced to sit in group and talk about how they felt, and their experiences, blah, blah blah. But if they got done early, the counselor would let them put on a movie.
After the emotionally draining group therapy, but before the dread of going home, Kylie got to choose which movie to put on. The very first day, she had to listen to the thoughts of self-harm and suicide, the teenager had no desire to EVER come back. She just wanted to be left alone with her terrible life and her self-loathing. She, just like millions of other children, was doomed to a life of addiction, heartbreak and criminal convictions.
Disney had saved her.
She had haphazardly selected 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarves'. Even though the others had hissed when it first came on, Kylie could not help but notice that they were silent when the movie started. From the first moment she was hooked- the lights, the sounds. Snow White was dated, but still quite a masterpiece. Kylie could barely wait to come back to class and pick up her next movie- 'Sleeping Beauty'. She also went through 'Cinderella' and 'The Little Mermaid'.
After waiting and waiting and waiting, the day had finally arrived. Kylie was running, running as fast as she could to the Disney store. Then, suddenly, she found herself lost in the woods...