A World of Their Own

Chapter 3: Through the Rain

Gwyneth was confused.

She was sure that she had just been with her parents a moment ago. Now, she was sitting on the swings in the middle of an empty playground. It was raining again, and the world around her was silent.

The silence was unwelcoming, and Gwyneth restlessly kicked at the woodchips on the ground, getting brown dirt on her once-clean white sneakers. Her long white-blonde hair had gotten wet from the rain some time ago. Strands of it stuck to her face.

She jumped up, bored of swinging back and forth, and looked around the playground. There was still no one there.

"Hello?" she yelled, breaking into a run around the playground. The dark gray blouse that she was wearing clung to her because of the rain, and so did her knee-length black skirt. It was uncomfortable, to say the least.

"Anyone there? I'm all alone!" she continued, frowning. "Anyone?"

Water splashed up around her as she ran onto a concrete path. The rain came down harder as she went. She didn't know which way was out of the park anymore. The concrete paths all went in circles, and they intersected and diverged in different directions.

Gwyneth didn't like it. This world was too cold and disorienting. Where had everyone gone?

After what seemed like an eternity of running through the cold, harsh rain, she finally reached the front gate of the park. Its iron bars and engraved designs seemed tall and intimidating in the dark, downcast afternoon.

She didn't stop there; she ran straight through the gates and found herself on the sidewalk. The street itself was empty, save for the occasional car that would come roaring past with its bright headlights and screeching tires. The storefronts and parking lots on this road all looked the same to her. None of the stores had their lights on inside, and there were barely any cars parked in the lots. They all had a dreary and unwelcoming look to them, as if all the like had been sucked out of them.

Still uncertain of where she was going, Gwyneth continued walking down the road through the pouring rain. At some point – she wasn't paying attention to where she was going anymore – the parking lots and storefronts lining the side of the road had changed to iron fences and trees. Large houses and mansions loomed behind those iron fences. One of those mansions probably belonged to her family.

Her friends' houses were most likely around here somewhere. Most of them lived in the large houses along the perimeter of the park, like her family did.

Gwyneth didn't quite understand it, but she knew that a few families like hers lived in this small area of the capital city. Their houses formed a ring around the large park in the center. The houses were huge, elegant, and spaced far apart.

The park was the pride and joy of this part of the capital city. It stretched over a large distance, and on a nice day, people were always there – going for a stroll, taking their children to the playground, or having a picnic. On dark, cold days like this, everyone with an ounce of common sense was inside, probably enjoying a nice nap under a warm roof. The park itself was empty except for the occasional person asleep under a tree or the awning of one of the many pavilions scattered across the park.

She had tried to talk to those people multiple times before. They always answered her questions with short, blunt answers, regarded her with cold, silent stares, or simply turned and ran at the sight of her. She never bothered to chase them after that.

That confused her. She just wanted to talk to someone, anyone, and have them listen to her. Her friends often wouldn't; they cared more about elegance and being "proper" and sitting still and silence. She hated silence and stillness.