In a quiet coastal town, a mysterious journal is found, tucked between the pages of a random book. It belongs to an explorer who vanished a century ago while searching for a mythical island believed to grant immortality. The journal, filled with cry...
I remember. It is a bit hard, but I do. I remember why I am here, who I have come with, who I have left behind. I do not know why I am writing in this notebook, but I am. And maybe I will continue, too.
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HE DID COME BACK, IN FACT, TWO DAYS LATER THAN THE DEADLINE.
The day he was supposed to return the reading material she lent him a week ago, she waited, like always. As the morning sun arose in the sky, a halo of light and hope and all that is good, she waited. As the afternoon arrived, and she was left all alone again, she waited. And when evening fell, and the sky broke into a million colours, vermillion scattered across the horizon, she...well, she gave up. Seraphina did not know why she was hopeful this time. The man was clearly annoying, and somewhat self-obsessed, so she thought. But she craved human company, more than she could ever admit. She wished to talk, not just to herself and her books, but to people, who genuinely listened, cared, admired, replied.
People who looked at her in the eyes with indecipherable emotions in their eyes, who held her hand, gave her warmth, and soothed her with their words. Who shared her lunch with her, and laughed with food in their mouth, like she did, so she could relate to someone.
But when she looked around, there was nothing. At all. Books. Hundreds of them. Hundreds. And they trapped so many feelings, so many characters inside them too, who gave her someone to spend time with. But it wasn't enough. She wanted to throw a fit, maybe go outside without her corset or her dress properly tied, to see how people would react. She wanted attention.
Seraphina was an orphan. Her parents, Alfred and Cadence, had both died, long ago. Her mother had hemorrhaged to death while she gave birth to her daughter, while Sera's father had died fighting in the war. She didn't really know them, so she did not grieve as most would do. She heard strangers whisper their praises and exalt their qualities, but mostly Seraphina thought it was hypocritical.
Half of these people had little to no relation with her mother or father. All that they said was nothing but empty compliments that were not only insincere but also insulting. She didn't like such people. Seraphina hadn't gotten to know her parents, but now she was free to imagine them whatever way she liked. They could be secret agents of the Royal Family, or traitors to the nation, or scientists working on a dangerous new invention. They could be a Duke and Duchess, or a King and Queen in her mind. And was that not enough? More than enough?
She gripped a book, her fingernails growing white, her body of flesh and bone suddenly being too unbearable, like a candle set on fire, but instead of wax, it was her sanity slowly slipping beneath her fingers, leaving her brain a morass of unfinished thoughts and desires or dreams fighting for the freedom they would never get.
