golden [kaylor]

( prologue. )

I know, I know, I have The Bite That Binds. But unfortunately, my muse for that story isn't cooperating right now. This is the prologue for a new idea I had and have already written a couple of chapters of. Hopefully it'll bring my writing muse back?

It's written in second person, from Taylor's POV, and as strange as second person may seem, it's actually going to be much easier to understand in the long run. Anyway, I hope you guys enjoy this, and I'd love some feedback!

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You were 24 when you realized you couldn't let people hurt you anymore. It was a strange, prickling sort of thing. It nagged at you with small, sharp teeth until it was breaking your flesh. Other people had too much power. Their hands clutched your ankles like shackles and they were dragging you down to the ocean deep.

You reinvented yourself, barring complaints from your band, fears from your record label. You made something new, something strong, and named it after your birth year because it was like starting all over again.

You'd known success. You'd tasted the wine only someone with $50,000 to spare could throw money away on. You'd looked out across crowded stadiums filled with people screaming your name. Loud, happy, almost worshipful. And you'd stood above them, grinning in gratitude and an admittedly shameful and selfless burst of heroism. You'd felt strong.

But this was different. This was more than you could have imagined. Fame carried you on golden streets. Red carpets rose up to greet you. The fans were louder, their voices stronger when they sang back to you. You wrote boys out of your life and wrote in fire instead. Fire to burn in your chest, heat you up and power you. Fire to burn old bridges. Fire to rise from like a phoenix.

You were 25 when you found yourself.

It was the height of a world tour. You were on a roller coaster, frozen in the split second your stomach turned at the beginning of the drop, but before the wind blasted against your face. You were suspended in a world of euphoria. The lights were neon blue and pink and purple, and you used their glow to write your stories. New stories.

It was October 31st, ironically enough, and your dancers suggested a night out. Drinking to celebrate Halloween. You agreed, because you'd grown up even though the media seemed stuck in the past, and Taylor Swift in a bar wasn't a big deal in your head anymore. But you were still a lightweight, and one beer and two shots of something that tasted like vodka and cherries had you soaring.

You while intoxicated was a reckless thing, a wild thing, not even in the fact you made bad choices but instead that negative situations seemed to find you. You slipped out anyway because you wanted a few minutes away from security, and a collection of Law & Order episodes came back when you found yourself in an alleyway. You knew better, but you still walked through the thin space, the cool air drying the humidity of the bar that still lingered on your skin.

You were lucky it was dark when it happened, and the streetlamps sprayed your face with shadows. Because when the gunshot pierced the night, you were right there, in the open, wobbling in your heels. The man who'd taken the bullet stumbled, and he fell much like you imagined trees to fall when they were cut down. Hard and graceless. His skull cracked on the pavement. His breaths escaped in little gargles, tiny wet sounds, until they stopped escaping at all. Blood pooled until it soaked the bottom of your shoes.

You saw the shadow, the beginnings of features forming as the man who'd shot the other stepped around the corner. You saw the gun smoking in his hand. Maybe he lifted it. Maybe he went to pull the trigger. But you slipped out of your shoes and you ran and you screamed and screamed and screamed and screamed.

The next few hours were a mess of conversations with police officers. Then the FBI. They kept you in the police station overnight, and before long the ultimatum was delivered.

You could no longer exist. You'd witnessed a murder by one of the most prominent drug lords in the state of New York, and you were no longer safe. Taylor Swift could no longer exist without risk of a bullet to her brain every time she went outside. And the only way out was to remove you completely.

It was planned. A "car accident". You escaped the scene unharmed, of course, and the burnt corpse in that car had been in the morgue already. But a well-paid dentist "matched" the dental records with your own, and you were declared deceased. Witness protection took you in, plucked you like a berry from a bush that you called your old life.

You were moved from New York to Colorado, in a tiny town near the mountains. Your hair was dyed dark, and you were given colored contacts that made your blue eyes deep green. There was a terrifying, incredibly painful process where freckles were tattoos on your face, a new birthmark on your neck. But you endured it in a numb stupor. They remade you, reinvented you, and gave you a list of names to pick from.

It was your birthday when you finished unpacking the sparse items they gave you, filled your wallet with your new IDs labeling you Eva Sterling. You spent the night alone, watching news programs where people mourned your loss on the night they should have been celebrating. Your fans, your family, your friends. All people you could never speak to again. Because Taylor Swift was dead, and you were just Eva now.

You were 25 when you found yourself.

You were 26 when you lost that knowledge all over again.