Vie de Fleur

Prologue

Upon further examination, you can see she wasn't happy. You may brush my words off, saying that I know naught to what I speak of. But do stay a while longer and listen. Listen and perhaps you will hear her pleas for help - all the while she has that contagious smile on her face. "Nay," you say, "tis' not true! She's like a sunflower, a marigold of sunshine! She skips with every step, her hair bounces with every laugh!" But do you, my dear spectator, know that her smile is fake? Do you know of her sobs and tears in her room, a bluebell of misery? Do you know she cut her hair to diverge the urge to cut her wrists?

I know you don't. I myself did not. She was an actress who never wanted the spotlight, the glory, the applause. She saw the world in black and white, and pleaded for color. But no one listened to her. No one heard her cries. "Of course she's happy," they said, until she herself tried to be convinced of it.

I'm afraid it's too late to rush to her aid, to give her the affection and care she needed. I'm afraid she's beyond the point of being saved. She's drowning, drowning. Drowned.

You still wish to save her? You still wish to try? To what purpose - bring her back to the miserable life she forsook, to the loneliness she faced, to the air she could barely breathe? Won't she hate you, despise you for bringing back the pain, for disrupting her release from this cruel world?

What if she doesn't want to come back? What will you do then?

Can you make her happy, or will you leave her back in her room, alone?

...

Shan't you reconsider from continuing? No? Very well. Try as you might, her existence is fleeting, her flame of life is dying. The clock is ticking. Come savior, come angel, come knight: the girl is yours to save.

You have til week's end. Once you fail, she shall be mine to keep.

Tis a futile dream to save her, but perhaps you shall be lucky. Or perhaps you will merely provide her a happy end.

Adieu, my nameless Visitor. Her name is Ren Hope.