[Hey guys! I have a request: can you please tell me if you liked or disliked the first chapter and why? I just realized I lost a bunch of readers on that chapter and can't figure out why. Thanks!]
One snowy morning, a girl slipped off her watch and stared pleadingly at it, almost as if she were begging it to speak. It was one of those ancient watches with Roman numerals that hung from chains and always had an intricate design on the front.
It had hung from her neck for nearly sixteen years now, starting from when she was just four years old and had received the watch as a present from her grandfather.
"Keep it as though it is time itself," he grandfather had told her, as she played with her new possession. "Sometimes it may feel like you're just running out of time," he had said. "But you're never really running out of time; the pages have just been flipped, and a new chapter has begun."
Unable to stop it, a lone tear slipped from her lashes and down her face, finally exploding against the ground into millions of tiny droplets. The girl hooked the watch by the rusted chain on to a hook and left it there, knowing that, as a story goes, there must be a beginning and an ending, and winter was no doubt the ending. She whispered this out loud, and with a broken sniffle, turned on her heel and left, the watch still swaying on its perch, as if trying to call her back. But she did not turn.
From the trees, a boy emerged, lonesome eyes taking in the old wooden cabin, the watch hanging from its hook, the belongings that had not yet been cleared out from the cabin, and unexpectedly, he began to cry. As the tears fell, one by one, from crystalline blue eyes, it began to rain.
And as it rained, the old paint from the cabin began to wash off, the earth previously good for planting began to turn to mud, and the tension began to ease.
A girl cupped raindrops in her hands, and thus began a new chapter of her life.
A boy touched a watch hanging from a golden chain and frost crept from his fingertips to preserve it.
[I know, suckish chapter. Sorry. (Based on a post on deviantART! Tell me what you think!]