Trapped Heroine

The sun was slowly settling. The streets were busy like always. In the library, a girl with wavy blonde hair was sleeping peacefully. Her face was facing the table and her arms were hugging her head. Her hair flowed like a fountain from her arms to the table. They were shining with a golden light. She was in a deep sleep.

There was no sound in the library. Everyone had already left because the library was closing in 5 minutes. The blonde girl's breathing was getting irregular. She was fighting against her dream, trying to wake up.

A sudden gust of wind blew her hair and revealed her round face. She opened her big blue eyes with a gasp, looking around and panting very hard. Her heart was beating fast for some reason.

She got up from her seat and looked around. She didn't have the time to calm her heart that it almost jumped out of her chest in fright. She jumped with a small scream. The chair was in the way so she fell down with the chair.

"You ok? We are closing. Where are your parents kid?" Someone said coldly without even reaching a hand to help her get up.

It was the librarian. The blond girl looked at the person who talked with frozen eyes. Of course her parents wouldn't be here. She lost them forever. She grabbed her backpack that flew away during her fall, mumbled something and left ignoring that cold person. The librarian closed the library swiftly after the girl left. Even if the girl was a child, it wasn't the librarian responsibility to take care of every lost child. Plus the kid looked like she knew where to go.

The girl's blue eyes were covered by her slightly curvy hair. Humiliation was showing in them and a slight blush could be seen. No one could see her watery eyes.

She walked quickly towards a hotel and ran up the stairs. She wasn't supposed to be living here. Kids weren't supposed to live alone. She could barely even live here thanks to her relative who took advantage of her and gave her the strict minimum to survive. She didn't even take her to live with her and no one said anything about it... She always thought it was suspicious. Arriving in front of her door, she walked in without looking around. Tears were strolling down her cheeks. Sadness, humiliation, anger… so many feelings. She still didn't get over her loss.

The blonde girl closed the door and threw her backpack towards the wall. It hit the wall and made a slightly louder noise than usual, then it flopped on a small bed. The room itself was small. There was nothing else besides the bed.

She walked towards her bed and fell on the bed near her backpack, and buried her face on her pillow. She let out a muffled scream and kicked her legs. There was a small wardrobe with almost no clothes in it. At least they looked all clean.

She took her face off the pillow and looked at her backpack with her reddish eyes. "It's a 3 person project! I waited all day and they didn't even message me saying that they wouldn't come." She punched her bag in frustration. They always treat her like that; pushing all the work to her. They even said they were friends and friends do that. She keeps forgiving them but they give her so much work. She was thinking of her first friend at the school she was going to just before the present one. When everything started to become hell.

It was the day she saw her aunt take all the precious things from her house, she grabbed her mother's ring and hid it on her. Her aunt didn't care about that ring so she let her take that useless ring. The girl, happy to have something left, put the somehow big ring on her finger. When she got to school, her friend complimented her ring and said she liked how it looked on the blonde's haired girl. After some time she asked if she could try it on. Because she considered the blond girl considered the other as her best friend, she decided to let her wear it for some time then take it back. Her friend was so happy she even felt a little bad to take it back, but it was a treasure to remember her mother after all so she had to.

The blonde girl asked to have the ring back politely and shyly. Her friend looked hurt and said in an exaggerated manner: "Aren't we friends? Didn't you give it to me just now? Let me wear it more. I like it so much. We are best friends after all." She couldn't help but nod her head and accept while feeling bad for asking for the ring so soon. She liked her friend after all. At the end of the class, she asked for the ring again. She thought an hour was enough but her friend thought otherwise. "Later, later. At the end of the day. Why are you like this? I feel like you want to stop being my friend."

The blonde girl panicked. "No sorry. It's just the my mother ring and I like it a lot and it's precious to me so..." She got cut again. "I like it more so wait for tomorrow. I'll give it to you tomorrow so stop asking today." "Oh... ok" She felt uneasy but she didn't want to lose her friend so soon after losing her parents.

The next day, the blonde girl looked at the girl's hand but didn't see the ring. She decided to ask about it. "Ring? Oh I forgot it. I'll give it later and don't ask, let's play instead." So another day passed.

Time passed and passed. The blonde girl didn't ask the girl about the ring but a week had already passed and she still didn't get it back. She accumulated the little bit of courage she could find and asked one last time about the ring.

"Ugh! Leave me alone. I don't know what ring you are talking about. The class is over now, so I have to go home." Her friend pushed her away and ran to her mother. Some kids nearby chuckled at her for falling.

After that incident, she noticed that her friend kept stealing some of her things like pencils, erasers, everything that wouldn't be noticed. When the blonde girl asked why she stole her things, her friend would gasp and ask why she was accusing her for stealing her stuff when she already had them. The blonde girl felt like something was wrong but she couldn't get what so she just let her friend take her stuff if she wanted and never again commented on this.

She doesn't know when, but at some time everyone started to treat her badly and she ended up with no friend. Not wanting others to see her sadness and how much they hurt her, she let her hair cover her eyes. In the end, she made long bangs to hide her eyes and almost half her face. The others became calmer and left her alone after some time of mocking her.

This year, in this new school, it just so happened that the teacher put her into a team of other 2 people cause the teacher didn't want her to be alone so she became somewhat friends with them. More like the slave that would do all their work while they would go around and play. Yet she kept innocently doing it, only feeling sad for being left out in the dark. They would talk once in a while with her and it made her happy but she felt sadness most of the time. It looked like she was bothering them and was an extra but she so wanted to talk and be with them... she could just silently be sad and smile at them when talked to.

"Mother… Father… Why did you leave me alone.. I am so lonely… I want to be with you." She hugged her knees and hid her face on them, trying to appease her sorrow.

Time passed and the sun was already long gone. The light of the full moon was shining on the girl, making her look like a shiny golden gem surrounded and waiting to be eaten by darkness. She lifted her head and decided to stay awake all night. Again. Normal kids wouldn't be able to but her nightmares haunt her so much, she couldn't get any sleep even if she tried to sleep normally. With time, she got used to getting randomly woken.

She opened her backpack and let all its content fall on her bed. She then remembered to turn on the lights. The poor light that could even light up the small room. With the lights on, the darkness surrounding her disappeared a little but it was waiting for her outside, watching her every move.

Her blue eyes stared at the bed with a hint of resolve until they landed on a thin book black book. Her eyes looked confused and her face became pale. "When did it get here? I-I didn't steal this. I have to give it back but… It's closed tomorrow." She thought it might have fallen on her back when she fell but her backpack was always closed... Was it not?

She took the book in her hands and read its title: "Flawless". The words were written in a golden color. She didn't know what the book could be about. Some kind of secret to become perfect? Perfect at what? It didn't have a cover and the title was so simple. The book itself looked like it would only take 10 minutes to read. She turned to the back cover and there was no summary. Everything was black.

A pair of blue curious eyes were going back and forth from the things on her bed and the book in her hands. In the end, she mumbled "I still have time" and pushed everything else off her bed.

Reinforcing her resolve to read it and pass time, she opened the book at the first page. A gentle breeze came to her face but the girl hadn't noticed the weird occurrence. The window was closed... She had already started reading. It reassembled a fairy tale. As she read, her expression was changing: started off with curiosity, keeping with a hint of surprise, then a small smile and warmth in her eyes. In the book, there was a girl called Devi. Just like her. Just like her, she was living a happy life with her parents. They even had the same name as hers. The only difference with her was that unlike her, the other girl had some power and people were calling her a heroine for doing something good with them. Plus... even when she read the end of that story, the heroine still had her parents. With the bangs still covering her eyes, no one would be able to see the jealousy in her eyes. Who would be jealous of just a story but kids?

"Devi, huh?" The blonde girl laid down and looked at the ceiling. "What a coincidence… She has the same name and appearance as me but our life is so different. She still has her family while mine died. She has really good friends and… She can use cool magic! She's so lucky to be able to heal others. I want to be like her. I want to be her!"

Devi covered herself with a thin blanket and humped while closing her eyes. She kept praying to have the life of that heroine instead of the one now. She wanted that warmth that she lost. She needed it. As she fell asleep, she heard a sweet giggle and she fell into the darkness of her dreams.