"I will burn down the whole fucking world until you have nowhere to turn but my arms."
Jim Moriarty has always loved fairytales. In particular, grim, macabre ones that end in bloodshed. You've been abused by your step-family for years - in every me...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
"PERHAPS GOD WOULD LISTEN IF YOU WANTED TO INFLICT PAIN, INSTEAD."
---
Most fairy tales follow the same format. A lovely, picturesque life, subsequently followed by a tragedy, a period of hardship, all of which is solved by the power of love. The dashing prince saves the damsel in distress, and they remain happy and in love forever, having easily recovered from the trauma of the tragedy and hardship.
Originally, fairy tales did not end quite so nicely. They were macabre, morbid and horrifying. Just as real-life has a tendency to be. They weren't an idyllic escape from everyday life. They were nightmarish stories that reflected the fears of society.
By 1815, The Brothers Grimm had compiled several stories, among them The Frog Prince, Hansel and Gretel, Little Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel... and Cinderella.
The latter had always, always been your favourite. You had memorised every line, every word, every single mark of punctuation. You could recite every single version of the story off-by-heart. All of the variations sparked a deep-rooted curiosity in you.
How could the same story end so differently?
All that changed was the person reciting the story - and they would chip away at it, changing it piece by piece, passing it down orally, until it was barely recognisable. In some versions, the characters got their happy ending. Cinderella would marry her Prince Charming with the help of her Fairy Godmother. In others, they didn't. One of her vile step-sisters will hack off parts of their feet and marry Prince Charming, and Cinderella would be left alone.
Sometimes minor aspects of the story would change. Different variations would feature doves, her dead Mother, fairies, and occasionally, the glass slipper would be golden.
Your version was entirely different to anything imagined before.
...unbeknownst to you, however, was the fact that you weren't the only person that liked grim fairytales.
---
Your mother's battle with her myriad of diseases had been one that had defined your childhood. She had been ever-so frail, perpetually in and out of hospitals, constantly deteriorating. There was more than one occasion where you had watched her drop to the floor, her body entirely limp, and you had to be the one to call the ambulance. There were always, always, blood-soaked handkerchiefs strewn around the house.
She was plagued by illness, and in some ways you were suffering just as much as she was. Most children were afforded the luxury of not having to confront the idea of death - often they simply could not even comprehend it. You weren't so lucky as to experience that naivety.
