Beautiful Nightmare

Chapter One: Vacancy

Hey guys! This is the OFFICIAL third book to the Shades of Red series. So far this series has taken an unexpected roller coaster ride. As you may have viewed, Shades of Red has reached over 6,000 reads! As Blood and Lace tags along with more than 2,000! I couldn't ask for more supportive fans and readers nor could I have asked for the vent that recently happened. If you noticed, Beautiful Nightmare hasn't been updated since around May. Now, with this series, that is not like me. I had published the first chapter easily. But a few weeks passed and after I had published the second chapter I realized that the first chapter had somehow been deleted. It was most definitely my excitement that led me to forget to save it. So I apologize for the delay. I was just very upset and I considered quitting altogether but I knew I couldn't end this series. Thank you so much for everything you guys do.

Chapter1:

Alex's Point of View:

I remember my Grandmother, telling me stories when I was starting my teen years. Stories about fair Princesses and all their different traits. I remember her telling me how different I was from them. At the time, I think I didn't want to believe her because I didn't want to understand what she was telling me. I remember her telling me I had a chameleon soul. How powerful I really was and how one day I would live to see the sun set to rise. How one day I would live up to my potential. Being a young kid, I thought she meant what everyone's mother or Grandmother tells them. That they'll grow up and be strong and powerful. And I thought that's what she meant. That one day maybe I'll save a wolf caught in a trap or something. But not until now did I really understand why she had told me the stories she did. Why she had given me these speeches and why she had chosen her words so precisely. But now I do. And it couldn't be any clearer. She told me the stories of the Princesses because she wanted me to know that you can't just sit around and wait for your knight in shinning armor. And sometimes you won't see him for a while. That no one is going to do things for you. That it's my responsibility to protect the ones I love. That it's my job to go out there and save everyone. That this is my life, and I can't just sit around and wait for something to happen. I have to stop living a fairy tale. I may be the last Red Riding Hood. But that doesn't mean that my story is as innocent as a children's tale. This isn't your bedtime story.

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My feet padded over the freshly green grass. Winter was over, and I knew there was a reason for it.

"So, you just found me there?" I asked the girl standing next to me.

After the... incident she picked me up off the ground and shook me awake, then told me that we were going for a walk home.

If that wasn't enough to confuse a conflicted person's mind I don't know what would. The sunlight was captivated by the little droplets of water on the green leaves of the tall trees. The sun's rays glinting down on my pale skin.

"Pretty much," she said, she had light tan frizzy waves, cascading down her back. She had her outgrown bangs in a braid that hung over her shoulder, "you were just laying there in the snow, and the snow was so bloody, all next to you. And you had a blade in your hand."

I shivered and recalled what had happened.

"No one was next to me?" I asked her, worried he was dead.

"Nope, not a living thing in sight. But as soon as I woke you, the snow was gone, and so was the blood," she said the last part quietly.

She stood a few inches taller than me, wearing a long brown dress that she might have tripped on if she wasn't so swift on her feet.