Butterflies

Chapter 3 - The Announcement

Picture of Tom Hiddleston as Llywelyn (evil)

Chapter 3 - The Announcement

Light was pouring onto the space around her and she almost thought she was back home, before the End. She almost called for her parents. Almost. She was almost insane. Almost. Not yet while she still had a chance of living the rest of her life. She stood up feeling all the aches and pains you feel after fitful sleep. She wobbled a bit, and her head started to spin, but she was okay after a while. It had been a long time since she had slept longer than ten minutes. Dressed in her deep blue blouse and navy blue skirt, she had breakfast with Jarod. He almost seemed positively happy today, by his standards. "I get the week off! It's unbelievable! Usually I have to interrogate people well into the night, yet they don't seem to care anymore!"

"Have you been playing with people's minds again Jarod?" his job was to use his powers as a Mentalist to interrogate and find out if someone had committed a crime and the people of the castle were not the nicest employers.

"Yes and no. Yes I've been doing my job and yes I've been playing with people's minds but not for the reasons you think. Apparently, because all the girls are in the test, everyone is occupied elsewhere, so it would be unsafe for it just to be me and a criminal - none of that was my mind tricks. But, I did put in a few things of how you should not be considered for Queen etc. It's all for the greater good really," the last line was from Hot Fuzz. It had been her favourite film when she was twelve - she and Jarod had bounced different lines off each other for years afterwards. Until the End. Then they had stopped, as if all happiness had been sucked out of the world along with all the lives. The smile that had appeared on her face turned sour as she remembered. Clearly it was going to be one of those days.

After breakfast, she decided to Travel to the ruins. The best plan for today would be to make sure she had seen a vision so it wouldn't randomly occur when she was at the castle. The moon had not left yet, but the sky was already purple. Soon the sun would appear and the ten remaining girls would be announced. It was clearly going to be safer to go to different ruins than usual to make sure she didn't have the vision about clocks.

The ruins were colder, blacker and bleaker than elsewhere. They stood on the edge of a beautiful yet deadly drop to a water covered land, stretching further than she could see. As she always did, she walked up to the nearest wall and stepped through a gap. The images came flooding towards her. Clearly none of her own, because they were too fast, but eventually a memory drifted towards her and she grabbed hold of it with her mind. A room. Wooden floorboards. Reflections looking back at her from shiny surfaces. The memory's feet started to ache so she glanced out of the corner of the memory's eye to see Pointe shoes. The only things that had survived the End and World War 3 which she only knew the name of because of the memory of the first time she had ever worn them. It was going to be that exact memory today. The dance teacher came over and explained the exercise to the memory. None of the words made sense anymore, but it was comforting to hear them all the same. The memory faded a bit and then became black and white until it went back to normal again. The world was changing and it was only getting weirder. Olivia went back to the memory. She saw a bright light start to grow but stayed in the vision a little while longer until the whole mirror was ablaze with light. The vision filled over with light and then disappeared just as quickly as it had come. She opened her eyes to see the sun was rising and she was late. Very late.

Bursting into the castle, all eyes turned to stare at her as she entered a room full of girls, guards and the King, giving a speech. The annoyed girls' eyes seemed to be boring holes through her, but the King merely carried on with his speech. Olivia muttered her apologies to the girls she passed as they gave her evils. "And now we come to the announcement of the final ten girls," the King's voice echoed through the great hall. She looked around at the room for the first time. Everywhere seemed to have a thin layer of silver, gold or was encrusted with precious stones like diamonds. There was a high domed ceiling and crystal chandeliers overhead, a thick, luscious rug on the floor in deep violet and the walls had a lilac coating with amethysts on the pillars. All together it gave off an air of luxury, splendour and showed off how rich the King was.

"So here they are," the King continued. Olivia had managed to tune out again - she really needed to get out of the habit... "In no particular order: Lucy Stevens, Lily Clarke, Scarlett Cross, Samantha Jones, Rita Ora, Rihanna Smith, Cheryl Cole, Melissa Duchannes, Katie Holmes and Olivia Courtez," everything around her slowed down - "Olivia Courtez..."Over and over. Her heart thumped in her ears. They must have got it wrong. There were many other Olivias - there was Olivia Duchannes, Olivia Hearth and herself, Olivia Courtez. It was an easy mistake to make but deep down in her heart, Olivia Courtez knew there were never any mistakes. That of course they meant her, and then she wanted to shrivel up and let the ground swallow her up. It would be so much less painful than having her powers taken and being crushed by a meteorite though. "Come on up girls. What an honour it is to be the only ten to have the option of having a chance at being Queen," she felt frozen to the spot as the girls around her turned to stare at her and move away. She started towards the mini stage at the front of the room. The girls who had been giving her evils now looked at her with sorrow and pity - a girl who would probably die soon. What a waste, they were thinking. None of them believed she would make it. So she would prove them wrong. Her little steps turned into long steps with confidence and conviction. She lifted her chin a little higher, stood up a little taller. By the time she got to the stage feeling very proud, all the girls were looking at her with jealousy in their eyes. "Good luck girls! And remember - keep your wits' about you and an eye on the time!"