Twisted Souls

Chapter 1

Dreams. They're beautiful things to have. You create them and make them to your liking. You can control them, even if you're not in control of anything else in your life, you can always control your dream. Sometimes if you wish hard enough or work hard enough your dream will come true. In order for that to happen you'll probably need more of the latter than of the former. Still dreams are incredible things.
My dreams? Well my dreams are pretty generic in some sense. Going to college, falling in love, getting married and having children, living in big beautiful home, growing old and spoiling grandchildren. In some of senses I have more fairytale dreams. I want to be swept off my feet by my knight in shining armor, experience true love (yes I believe in true love and love at first sight), live in a beautiful and grand castle nestled in a lovely, peaceful kingdom, and sing my troubles away.

Most people would say that's delusional fantasy that's too juvenile for me to be believing.
But I think about the words of Aurora,"They say if you dream a thing more than once, it's sure to come true." This always fills me with hope.
Or maybe I am just a little out there.
Nevertheless, I believe with all my heart that some dreams, if you believe hard enough and fight for it, will come true one day.
I guess I'm still waiting for that one day. And since I've been waiting for so long for that one day- 16 years to be exact- I'm starting to grow restless.
Yeah I know some people wait their whole lifetime for their dream to come true, but it's especially dragging to me that I have waited 16 years and still nothing. I don't even feel the slightest bit of my dream coming true.
Well, still I wait patiently forever hopeful my dreams will come true.
Ever patiently waiting as a four year old screams in my ear, a seven year old brat annoyingly and repeatedly ask for me to re-tie her red and white polka-dot hair bow, and two ten year old boys run recklessly around the house in football jerseys throwing a baseball and hollering at each other on the top of their lunges. But even so calmness is maintained.
"If you ask me one more time to re-tie that stupid bow, I'll strangle you with it."
Ok, calmness is nearly maintained.
"That's mean. You're mean. I don't want you to tie my bow anymore." Hazel said giving me a pouty look and crossing her arms.
"Fine." I huff before turning my attention back to the shrieking four year blond. "Molly, can you please stop scream, sweetie? I can fix your dolly."
"No!!!" By now Molly's face has turned a bright cherry red and boogers are running down her face into her mouth. "No one fix my dolly!"
I run my hand through my hair frustratingly. I can't even hear myself think over the backround noise.
"Dalton! Dylan! Stop running through the house! You're gonna break something and you're going to get hurt!"
The boys don't seem to get the message and continue to trek through the house carelessly tipping furniture over and smashing portraits.
"Hazel, tell your brothers to stop running through the house."
"You didn't say please." She replies and sticks her tongue out.
"Hazel please." I said desperately.
She gives an audible sigh(look at that, a teenager in the making) before yelling even louder than Molly's screams,"Stop running around the house or else!!!"
"Not so loud." I said covering my ears.
She just sticks her tongue back out at me. I want to rip the stupid little tongue out of her mouth and shove it down her throat, that way she'll stop talking.
Molly's screeching because nearly intolerable to the point of driving me insane. Dalton and Dylan are still chasing each other through the house and Hazel is just plain agitating.
"Ugh...why is this happening to me? These are the kind of kids you read about in a preteen romcom novel. These are the kind of kids you as a babysitter never want to watch because they're just crazy. I can see why their parents always leave them and why they alway need new babysitters every two months. This is just too much."
Finally my breaking point comes when Dalton and Dylan accidentally knock over a glass of unfinished OJ on the coffe table and splash my phone with a wave of orange liquid.
"You all are unbelievable!"
My voice reaches volumes I rarely ever use. I'm actually surprised this is my voice at all. But I get my point across and both boys freeze in place, Hazel stares wide-eyed at me, and even the noisy beast has stopped her whining."
"I'm sick of this! I'm sick of all of you!" I point angrily at Hazel. "I told you to finish that juice, but you wanted to be a little, bratty know-it-all and left it there."
Hazel begins to sob and tell me that she's going to tell her parents on me.
"Go head." I then point to the to silent boys looking sheepishly at the ground. "And I told you two to stop running around the house and look what you've done. You're like Thing 1 and Thing 2, except neither of you help out or learn from your mistakes."
"And you!" I scowl pointing to the innocent looking four year old. "I was going to fix that dumb dolly of yours but you wouldn't give it to me."
"Shut up!" I tell the still sobbing seven year old. She muffled her cries to sharp intakes of breathes.
"You're all annoying, ungrateful, useless, mean-spirited brats. And for that I blame your mom and dad. Remind me not to ever raise kids like you." I turn to head into the kitchen to call Mr. and Mrs.Richards, but look back at the kids one last time to say, "I quit."
A little childish but completely and entirely deserved.
After I call the Richards I phone my dad to come pick me as fast as he humanly and lawfully can. Thankfully the Richards come home before my dad can arrive, because I would have left those kids in a heartbeat even without supervision and not have cared in the least bit.
When I tell the Richards the whole story they seem to be sympathetic and offered me extra in payment than originally promised. I declined the offer and took my promised amount. The whole time Hazel was trying to say I was lying, though the state of the house clearly showed I was telling the truth.
It would've been cool if I could just walk outside with my head high and just step into my dad's old station wagon and ride away like a boss, but of course me being me that just would never happen. Still, I head outside, not wanting to spend another minute in that hectic household. Once I get outside, I decide to spare my dignity and head down to the nearest restaurant.
The Richards' house was in the main drag of town so it was pretty easy getting to a fast food place. The overcast skies threatened a downpour on the way, pretty common around here. I hurry to Taco Bell not wanting to dampen my spirits anymore by getting wet.
In the small town of Cauldron, fast food from restaurant chains was rare. There once was a KFC near the library, but it closed down after constant complaining from residents that it was making people eat instead of read. I know stupid right. But nevertheless it was closed down and the town rejoiced.
"Yeah! We closed down a greasy fast food giant. Now come eat at our family-friendly restaurants that serve fatty food 10x more unhealthy than a bucket of fried chicken."
This doesn't mean I think everyone in Cauldron is an idiot or something. It just means that it's a rare treat to have fast food from a food chain. A rare treat I'm going to utilize today when I most need it.
Once I'm at Taco Bell, I order my food and pull out my drowned phone.
This phone is nothing to cry about. It's a flip phone (you have the right to cringe now and give a disgusted head shake) so that pretty much means it's been around since Jesus walked the earth. But it's the only phone I have and will probably ever get until I leave the house. When I get home I'll put it in rice and see what happens. Everyone says it works, but I always thought it a myth and that it only works on smartphones.
While I'm eating, I notice Mr.Benson sitting at a table and decide to ask him if I could use his cellphone. I tell my dad that I'm at Taco Bell and to pick me up from here.
Like I said, Cauldron is a small town, approximately 288 people living here. Our elementary school, junior high, and high school are all in one building, so yeah we're a pretty small place. You blink and you just gone right through it. Everybody pretty much knows everybody. Cauldron is the most magic that's been in my life and it doesn't even have to mean a fairytale witch's cauldron. Though the people living here are one big mystery.
People here are friendly, don't get me wrong, it's just that they have their unique quirk. One unique quirk that I didn't seem to inherent is the subtle, but still there, snobbish, egotistical attitude everyone seems to have.
Ok, right now you're probably thinking, what a grumpy, vain teenage girl who yells at children and is delusional enough to still believe in wishing for dreams to come true, she's so full of herself. But I'm honestly trying to tell the truth. Besides you'd seem a little grumpy and vain if you had the horrible day that I did.
I've seemed to notice this undesirable trait when I was young. Not everybody in town is like this, but a vast majority are which is confusing. I find it somewhat interesting, though, because it's kind of like a strange spell on the town and to my imagination that sounds magical. However magical, though, it's bizarre.
I sometimes chalk that up to the reason I don't really fit in too well in town. I'm not a complete outcast, but I can't really name anyone off the top of my head who would be considered a good or even best friend. I had one once, but we had a falling out over a Disney Princess coloring book (we were young) and after that she moved away.
"It could also be that I'm just fairytale crazy and not everyone wants to participate in a Disney cosplay." I try not to let it get to me too much, but every know and then I wonder a true friend feels like again.
Out of the corner of my eye I notice an old station wagon pull up to the Taco Bell. It could only be my dad, so I throw away my trash, say goodbye to Mr.Benson, and get in my dad's car.
It's starting to drizzle as we drive out of the parking lot.