Rapunzel: The Twisted Tale

Once upon a time, there was a beautiful princess named Rapunzel. She had extremely long and beautiful blonde hair, fair skin and bright emerald green eyes that sparkled that like dia-

"Stop."

What? Who are you?

"It's all wrong. Let me tell my own story."

Rapunzel?

"It's Zellie. Now let me tell my story."

Alright. Listen up. My name is Zellie. Not Rapunzel. Call me that and I'll kill you myself. I don't have beautiful long blonde hair, sparkling green eyes or fair skin. It's not physically possible for me to look extremely beautiful.

Why? You ask.

Well, I'm a vampire.

So I have short red hair, and dark eyes. And pale skin. The pale skin part about vamps are true. But I don't have to suck blood from people. That's only for young or newly turned vampires.

But you might be wondering why the princess of Corona is a vampire. Well, that was mother Gothel's fault. She was the nanny that my parents had hired before I was born. Gothel had wanted a child for so long she was desperate. She took jobs as nanny, turned the baby and when the parents realized their beloved baby was a monster, Mother Gothel offered to take the child to her tower, deep in the woods.

But not everyone survives the turn.

If the first child had survived, maybe Corona wouldn't have such a high missing children's rate. But for the last 15 years it has gone down considerably. The people just say the ogre in the woods moved on to terrorize another kingdom. No one wants to admit their kids are vampires 'living' in the woods.

But how did the princess disappear? You cry out in confusion. Well, I am not considered missing per se. The kingdom thinks I'm dead. I apparently died at 5 months old from dragon pox.

Now that you know my backstory we can continue with regularly scheduled programing.

"Zellie! Open up!" Mother Gothel shouted from outside.

"No!" I shouted stubbornly, prefering to read my story instead.

"Your parents traveled all this way to see you and you won't even give them the time of day!/"

I paused. I hadn't always gotten along with my birth parents. Once i was old enough to understand why i lived in a tower, I had sulked in my room for days, hating my birth parents for not keeping me and Gothel for lying to me and hiding me from the world. I later understood why they gave me away but i didn't like it.

Why did princesses have to be perfect? Why couldn't we have blemishes, scars or mutant powers? Why did we have to care about these expectations set by people who were beneath us anyway?

Would it be so crazy to have a vampire princess in power?

"Zellie!" Gothel shouted once more, jarring me out of my thoughts. I decided to speak to my parents as they visited almost every other year, close to my birthday. They also brought really cool gifts.

"Alright, I'm going." I put my book down reluctantly and hopped out of my canopy bed, straightening my clothes and tying up my hair. Mother wanted me to care about my appearance. But what does she know? She only sees me every other year.