The Charming

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 1

SCARLET

DREAMS LIKE THESE ARE NOT NEW TO ME. After all, a nightmare as beautiful as this isn’t hard to forget. Don’t ask me how I can remember each detail vividly, but this how my mind works. This is how our minds work. Remembering the exact details on a dream you have or had is just like remembering your name. Or your sister’s best friend’s cousin’s boyfriend’s dog’s name  If you can that is.

 I can tell you a hundred different variations of this tale, each one more believable than the other. But let me tell you what, I can remember the world before me was painted in a million different hues of grey and black. The sky seemed to reflect this color scheme as wisps and tufts of cottony clouds are spun into an endless whirlpool of grey and white. The large stone walls casted a faint shadow over the land where it was erected. Just above the pointed barbs on the top of the Great Walls, a few dozens of crows squawked, no care at all to the barren world just beneath them. Abandoned high-rise skyscrapers adorn the City, aside from the cracked pavements and the dark asphalt roads that lead you to nowhere.

Bang!

Out of nowhere, a large crowd of people scoured past the abandoned buildings into the dark asphalt. Each of them dressed in a faded suit which must have been a dark grey before. The Numbered. A gold plate was pinned on their left breast pocket, with a number for each of them. A maroon F was engraved just before the first digit of their respective numbers. Fiorenza, the walled City. It came into existence after the Fourth World War. It has wiped out entire countries and only several still exists. The crowd soon trudged down the asphalt road. I followed.

They all looked the same. Sunken cheeks and ill-fitting pants are the first things that you would notice about them. I also noticed that I was dressed in the same suit at them, sans the number plate. Newer and crisper, but still the same. They continued,parading down the asphalt until it has already ended, disappearing into the black earth. By that time, the clouds have already gathered into a single one. Pins of raindrops soon hit the ground and puddles began to form. Soon our faces were streaked with the wet mud.  A young girl about my age looked at me with strange, icy blue eyes. Her brownish blonde locks, just like my own, were tied up into a messy pony tail.

Another one. She’s like me, but different.

The crowds began to shift and the people were pushing against each other. I suddenly felt dizzy, but I don’t know how it is possible since I was dreaming. Just then I realized that people were passing right through me, as if I was not there. Like a Ghost. No wonder why the girl from before was staring at me. No scratch that, staring right through me.  I decided to continue walking. I wonder where they would take me.

I soon found myself entering an open Glade. Plants in all sorts of shapes and sizes cover the vast expanse of the healthy earth. After the war, only a few patches of soil can be considered fit for agriculture and each one was like this. From a bird’s eye view, one can easily single out this green blotch from the greys of The Rubbles, the Area outside the city. Fruit trees also grow here and there, providing shelter for all sorts of creatures that may live in there. Plump pheasants toil the earth in search of food. Flowers bloom in a burst of colors, embellishing the sheath of greenery above the dark soil.

The world was silent in awe of such sight. People huddled together, barely recognizing the bounty laid before them. Children are shrieking with glee while old women cry but tears aren’t falling. I see the girl from before bravely step forward. Soon the others were following. Men were picking every last fruit from the trees which seem to be eternally full.  Women are busy braiding and putting flowers in their daughter’s hair.  I saw their eyes starting to light up with joy.

I walk to the center of the Glade, when the sound of rippling water joined the cacophony of joyous laughter and shrieking. I saw a Lake at the center, casting a somewhat magical glow. But the reality of the Lake started to become distorted. Water began seeping through the earth, and began to settle above the plants.  It was minimal at the start. But little by little, the earth beneath my feet was covered in water and began to flood the Glade. I saw myself, wearing the same crisp suit and my hair into a tight pony tail. My face was stricken with splotches of mud but I didn’t care. Amidst all the chaos rising I felt alright. I felt like myself.

Then, a piercing scream was heard.

I turned around and saw the girl from before surrounded by a band of the Palace Guards but somehow they’re far from me. She was struggling, her hair matted hair caught up and matted and streaks of saliva covered the sides of her face. She’s trying to resist getting caught up in the muscled arms of her captors. Her face was not caked with makeup sold in the Shops, But it didn’t sit quite right. Somehow, she managed to pull it off. Beautiful.  Stunning. Gorgeous, even

It’s Undeniable, Unmistakable.  She’s one of us. She’s a Charming. She’s a girl capable of perfection.

I pry my eyes away from the girl and look at the ground. The greenery and the flowers have long since dissolved and were carried away in the torrent of water beneath my feet.  I don’t sink, but it’s not like I’m floating either. The water has stopped spreading about fifty meters away from the original position of the Lake. It was like stepping on a hard marble floor. The colors were fighting, raging under my feet. And they began to settle, away from where I stood,

 Just enough for me to see my own reflection.

 My image on the water soon began to distort right before my very own eyes. The dark grey suit disappeared into a puddle and was washed away, revealing the most elegant yet at the same time the most boring white dress that hugs my figure. The messy ponytail has disappeared and my brownish blonde locks were already spun into the neatest, most perfect bun. No trace of makeup can be found on my face but the mud from before has disappeared too.  My supple skin casts a radiant, youthful glow.  I see my electrifying blue eyes, both familiar and strange at once, staring at me. Confused. My head began to feel a lurching ache but I willed it to subside.

I am beautiful. I feel beautiful, but this feels just too wrong. I feel misplaced.

Bang! Bang!

The sound of gunshots soon filled the open space. Each and every creature began to hide into their respective habitats, scared to even show even just a snippet of their fur. The crowd from before began to disappear one by one. First the children, and then the men and women. The number of our entire populace began to whittle at each soul disappearing. At each disappearance, the water turns redder. Soon it was only me and the girl from before. She’s dressed impeccably just like me. White dress and her hair tied up into a bun. Her lips curled up into a shy smile but her eyes betray her. Glassy like a doll,too blank to be alive. I walked towards her but she seems to be farther at each step I take towards her.

“Sister” The word escaped my lips. It felt foreign but at the same time at home.

“Sister” she retorts back, ending almost at the same time as my lips twitch to utter the last syllable.

The next thing I knew she fell down, face first.

Her face, her clothes, her entirety was drenched in bright red blood. I felt dizzy at the sight of her bathing in her own blood. She was still breathing, almost as if she’s asleep in a fetal position.  My knees turned into jelly and I realized, I too was covered in blood. Somehow, I defied all the existing laws of Physics and fell just a few inches away from the girl. My body curls into the same position at her. Then, realization hits me. Hard.

I am her. She’s my reflection. She is me.

My vision began to get blurry and hazy and the last thing I saw was the sky painted in various tints of dark crimson red against a much brighter red.

Scarlet

I felt myself sinking into the ground. It felt as if all of me was spread to the enormous, infinite expanse of the universe, atoms and all.

And then I woke up, To the real world.