Déjà vu

Chapter 1: Wandering Soul

Déjà Vu. It is an overwhelming  sensation of familiarity with an experience that shouldn't be familiar at all. They say it is quite normal for someone to have déjà vu once in a while in their lifetime. It is rather a complex phenomenon which its severity and instances vary from person to person. 

My life however, is just full of these instances. In my case, it felt like things I did but couldn't remember how, when and where it happened. You might say that perhaps this is a case of retrograde amnesia. I can assure you it's not. I am a perfectly healthy girl that was fully checked by the best doctors in the empire. I haven't experience any traumatic brain injury either.

My name is Avrila Spades and I just turned five years old. I am often told that I am too mature for my age. Rather than being called cute, the way I speak, think and present myself and even to my expressions as well, all seems to give off a "grown up" predisposition. I can't blame them for thinking such things. It is just the way I am for I have learned from a tender age the weight of what this title ask of me. 

I am the crown princess of the Spade Empire and the only daughter of Emperor Dueht. My mother, Empress Deniel who died while giving birth to me left me nothing but portraits hanged in the palace walls to remember her by. That being said, she is rather a very beautiful woman. With hair as red as rubies and eyes black as coal, many say that I exactly look like her when she was young. The only difference is that the empress had a much softer round shaped eyes while I had pointed cat like eyes. This gave me more of a uptight and cold appearance which is a contrast of what my mother was hailed for.

My mother was said to be a kind and wise empress. I can see it in when people had these warm fleeting expressions on their face whenever they talked about the late empress. Apart from her exotic beauty and wisdom which charmed the emperor, it was her benevolent kindness and abundant grace that made her the empress after all.  Thus, her death filled the entire empire with great sorrow.

This is exemplified in my relationship with my father. Given that I am the reason of her death, I cannot blame my father for the sorrow I cased upon him. The sadness of a young widower who had loved his wife dearly cannot be quenched even if such death was for a glorified cause. I can see it in how often my father point out the similarities I had with her with his cold and mournful eyes that tell a tale of regret and hate.

Unable to bear the weight of my guilt, I prefer to desolate myself as much as I can. Books then became my world as I immersed in the knowledge it brings.

Reading books, however instigated these feelings of déjà vu. I once read a book about how to bake muffins and it sparked a feeling within me that I had done cooking before which is hilarious because the royal family doesn't cook their own food. It is always prepared by the royal chief in the palace. 

My suspicions grew worse when I chanced to read a book about an ancient language called French. It explains why even though the phrase déjà vu is not of Spadian descent, I seem to have perfectly understood the meaning of the phrase.

The result of my suspicions was the desire to know why such phenomenon happens to me. Absorbed with the thirst for answers, I spent all of my time reading books. This probably prompted the people in the palace to regard me as mature because of my disinterest in playing childish games fitted for my age. 

However, the more I study and read, the more I became confused since it had provided me no answer to my questions.