Déjà Vu

Chapter 1

His big blue eyes stared directly into mine. The wind was blowing through his white hair and the salty taste of the sea was in the air. "Who is this man? Why is he here and why do I have the strong urge to be with him, to stay with him?", I asked myself. A strange melody appeared, the sound of the water meeting sand ceased. My sight became blurry and I couldn't identify the man's face anymore. The music became louder and I suddenly felt a pain in my whole body. I opened my eyes and realized I fell from my bed. It was a dream. The same dream I had the last days. Now I remembered who he was: my competitor.

"Celestia? Are you awake?", I heard my sister shout from the living room. I turned off the annoying sound of my alarm clock. Ann's head slipped through the door and she stared at me confused. "Did you actually fall from your bed?", she burst into laughter after giving up to hold it back. I sighed and crawled back into my bed. "Ah ah! No! You're not going to sleep again! Don't you know what day it is?", she asked. I knew exactly what day it was. I got accepted as the representative of Austria in the Eurovision of 2024 and today was my flight to Madrid for the pre-party. I was going to see the other competitors I didn't meet at the national final performances. That was actually my second performance I've had ever done. When I got chosen for the representative of Austria the only sound I could her was the cheering after singing my song. I knew, it wouldn't be easy to win this competition, there were a lot of good songs. But even though I was in the knowledge of my lack of chance to win, I wanted to try. My song was different than the others. I listened to a few songs already, so I realized that my composition distinguished from the Eurovision's competitors' songs. Everytime I sat down to compose something, I created something calm, nearly depressing because it was always based on my experiences. Of course, I also made good experiences but it's the bad ones that define you after all. "I know, I know. Calm down, I'm just trying to take a deep breath before it all starts. After I really get out of my bed, I can't go back.", I answered with my most innocent smile. She giggled, "Well then take your deep breath faster. Your driver is already waiting outside and he doesn't look like a person who likes to wait." My eyes widened and I immediately jumped out of my sheets. "Why didn't you tell me earlier?!", I screamed while I ran to my closet, grabbing the clothes I chose yesterday to wear. My big sister tittered again and I gave her an angry gaze.

I got out of the front door with a small suitcase, packed with all the things I needed for a few days. I knew that everything was organized perfectly and I wouldn't have needed to bring any of my stuff but I wanted to keep something of my own belongings, just to feel a little bit more safer.
My sister was right. The driver really didn't look very patient and I was sure that he felt very angry because of my late arrival. Apparently the driver wasn't the one who caught my eye. The car I was going to drive with was absolutely awesome. I didn't know a lot about cars but that one looked very expensive and luxury. It was a little bit smaller than a van and the color wasn't just black it was matt black. The windows also had a black tint, so you couldn't see what was going on in there from the outside. "Hello Miss Danz. I am Peter Ross and I will be driving you to the airport. Two gentlemen will accompany you there and spend the flight to Madrid with you. You won't ever be alone, except you wish to be alone, so you can ask questions whenever you want to. That's actually all the informations I've got for you." It sounded like I was going to be passed around to a lot of people that day. "Well, thank you. I guess..." I gave him a light smile, then he moved his hand to the handle of the car's door and opened it for me. With the palm of his right hand he made a gesture for me to get in. I mumbled a "thank you" again and entered the car. Peter took my suitcase, I left outside, and put it into the trunk. According to his distorted face, my suitcase seemed to be very heavy. I chuckled a little. My sister waved me out of the window a last time before I closed the door. I was going to miss her a lot but I was too excited to even think about it.

It didn't take us very long to get to the airport. To be honest I would have preferred a longer drive because I enjoyed listening to the music coming out of the car's radio. Inside of my head I sang the lyrics of Years & Years by King. I didn't want to disturb my driver otherwise I would have sung so loud you could hear it through the car. I couldn't believe that the singer of Years & Years was this years' representative of England. I was so excited to meet them all, but I was really curious why I dreamt that much of the Croatian singer. I remembered his empty gaze, his white hair moving upwards because of the wind, his lips parted, ready to say something but there was nothing he told me, absolutely nothing. I didn't meet him after or before our first performances until his song started playing and his voice resounded throughout the whole hall. His voice was raspy and his song a masterpiece. Maybe I was going to talk to him very soon? One day I had to speak to him in order to do marketing together. That was part of participating at Eurovision, we had to draw interest from the audience.

Peter opened the car's door and I yawned while stretching my limbs. He smiled lightly:" We have arrived Miss Danz. These are Mister Lork and Mister Zujuk, the two gentlemen I told you about earlier." Two men stood beside Peter and smiled brightly. I wondered where they were from because of their unusual last names. Fortunately they looked very empathic and I smiled back. Mister Lork gave me his hand and helped me out of the car. I was so tired I could have slept on the floor. The excitement took my last energy.

I hated flying. I would have liked the idea of flying but not the big metallic thing that was supposed to transport us. It didn't take us very long to check in and find our gate but we had to wait two hours before we could get into the airplane. I was really scared when we had a delay because of a defect wheel. I really didn't talk a lot with my bodyguards, just the basic questions: When is our airplane taking off? Why do we have a delay? And whatever... When I got on the plane my breath fastened. I didn't just hate flying, I was extremely scared of it. I sat down on my seat, with the number 7, in a first class row. The two men sat down in a row beside me. The seat on my left and on my right were unused. The airplane started moving towards the runway. I quickly opened my cardigan and took it off. My heart pounded loudly against my chest when the airplane gained speed. "Deep breath in" I took a deep breath in. "Deep breath out", I mumbled. The air left my lungs slowly. My stomach felt pretty weird when the plane took off. The pressure was terrible but I've had imagined it worse. Outside I could see the houses become tiny, nearly looking like ants. We were above the clouds in about 20 minutes. Since then it was actually very calm. I tried to sleep a bit because I was still tired.

The flight lasted 3 hours. I was really bored most of the time but I got some wine so it was fine, I guess. The landing was the worst part. My stomach flipped and I nearly threw up. My bodyguards were asleep during the whole flight compared to me. I really tried to but it was impossible. I was too scared that we could have crashed. When I saw the city of Madrid becoming larger underneath, I felt my excitement rise again. It was time to say hello to the Eurovision Song Contest 2024.