The Paradox (OLD)

Prologue

            “Bored, Bored, Bored”, a girl mumbled over to herself kicking her ankles together. This girl was Charlotte Watson, bored to anger at her aunt’s (?) or cousin’s wedding. She didn’t know, nor did she care, she only knew she was at a wedding were she didn’t know ninety per cent of the people there.

“Weddings are dumb…” she mumbled to herself.

“I couldn’t agree more,” said a man sitting in the chair beside her, “I don’t get all the fuss, I mean they’re probably going to end up divorced”

“Exactly, I mean they spend all this money on one day and then fight over money for the rest of their marriage.”

“True,” the man sighed

"Hey, could you look after this for me?" the man handed her a gold key on a chain, with cogs and a metal wing on its side, just before getting out of his seat.

"Sure," Charlotte replied, taking it from him and hung it around her neck.

He left, and gave her a thumbs up, and vanished from view.

A boy around Charlotte’s age walked over to her, held out his perfectly manicured hand, and batting his perfectly cared-for eyelashes, said, “Would you like to dance?”

“No, I have better things to do!” she grumbled rudely, abruptly jumping out of her chair.

Charlotte wandered down to the bottom of the garden, where almost a whole forest of trees stood. She began drifting through them, keeping her eyes aware for anything that might be at least a smidge interesting to her, but tripped over a tree root, crashing into the owner of this root, a humungous oak tree. But, something caught her ear. The oak was hollow. She searched the trunk for an opening, and found one. It was big enough for her to fit in, being the small size that she is. She crawled into the incredibly small opening, and found that it was quite cosy in the hollow. She climbed up through the trunk, and appeared at the top.

It wasn’t what she expected to see. The trees in front of her were snow covered from top to bottom. She leaned over to get a better look, but lost her balance, and tumbled headfirst, endlessly through the cold, bitter, open air.

Charlotte was either falling slowly or the oak was extremely tall. She helplessly tried to grip the trunk, but the bark kept crumbling off. She howled at the top of her lungs, in the unlikely hope that someone would hear her. She stopped briskly when her fall was broken by the cold, hard grip of a rattling skeleton.