Now the clock is ticking clear
And our time is drawing near
My heart is aching to see one more smile
I’ll just watch your profile for a while
Those were the thoughts of The Pauper before she had decided to walk down this path. How she wished the notion had never crossed her mind. How she wished to have the past quarter of an hour not exist.
She walked out in the mist, lost in her thoughts. Having just found her heart mutilated again, consequences of her own undoing. She had been down this road too many times before. Thorn to pieces, numbed.
She had thrown herself like a canon ball into the cold dark depths of the ocean, hoping and praying that a lifeline would miraculously appear. It still wasn’t her turn, and it hurt. She had watched silently as others survived floating along, holding tightly to their buoys while she struggled for dear life to keep a float.
She walked down darkened corridors, through secret passageways from the castle in which she would never belong. She glanced to her side, seeing again The Prince in his soft warm chambers in the arms of The Beauty. What of herself? Foolish girl, she would never fit there.
How could she have thought otherwise?
She must think too highly of herself.
She dreams too far.
She wants too much.
The Beauty dressed in her finest. Hands painted. Face polished. Clothes gleamed with sparkles.
The prince dressed in finery. Fluffy seams. Face full of character.
The pauper herself, complicated. One day in the best she could find from castaways and on other days, in ragged up wear. She would never have the sophistication acquired to reach their air of class.
Waking up from her thoughts, she finds herself lost, disorientated. Her thoughts, ideas and kaleidoscopes have brought her to a dead end. Searching, she finds her way through the cold, damp air, dark forests and stumbles her way in the direction of her chilled nook.
The quiet kills as she falls into her cot. Her masks no longer exist, faceless suddenly. The warmth and spirit taken away from her just like how they had inexplicably appeared. Exhausted and wasted, she tries to pull herself together, looking for the strength she can no longer uncover.
Reflections of him flood her mind endlessly. The secret letters they wrote. The pet names they shared. The humour. The laughter. The pointless jibes they playfully abused each other with.
Now bleeding from her eyes, her heart smashed into million pieces over and over again. She could never go down that road again. She had lost her will to fight a long while ago.
Tormented, she had to make peace with her past the only way she knew how, by replaying the old memories. Demons from within crept up to remind her of the pain she had survived. The roads of treachery and disguise she witnessed to get where she was. No where.
Knowing no other way, she accepted her fate and flowed along with the evil, as they showed her the nightmares she would be dreaming of.
If only she could find someone who was willing to watch over her dreams, if only for a night.
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