Chapter 1 The girl in blue
The past
Who decides life and death? Who makes that decision? There are some people that should have lived till they were old and wrinkle...yet they die before their life even begins. Then there are people like her...who should have die at birth yet she is still alive. But she wanted to die. Every night she hoped it would be her last night...yet every morning she would open her eyes to another day of living.
Ariel stared calmly down the cliff. Her hair was blowing in the wind, and her light blue nightgown was drenched with water from the waves...yet she was not cold. She has one purpose and one purpose only...she was going to die tonight. She was going to make sure her life end that night. It was better if she was dead. Life was meaningless, what was the purpose of living? Everything was gone...there was nothing left on earth for her...nothing but endless sorrow, hopelessness, and despair.
Ariel edged closer toward the cliff. The wind was howling in anger, grief, it was taunting her, daring her to jump. Coward! Coward! Jump! Jump! The ocean was calling for her, the sounds of the waves bidding her to join them...the thousand lost souls encouraging her to jump...to join them in their grief. Come...come...you are one of us...the wind softly whispered. Ariel closed her eyes and leaped into the air.
She was...
falling
falling
falling
deep into the ocean. Ariel is not a swimmer; servants were not allowed to swim; she never learned how to swim. That was why; jumping into the deep ocean was the quickest and fastest route to her death. The icy water covered her whole body, enveloping her, robbing her of air. She couldn't breathe, she couldn't breathe...Goodbye world, goodbye...Ariel closed squeezed her eyes tight and allow the pitiful tears to drips from the corner of her eyes. Who would miss her? Nobody. Who would mourn for her? Nobody. Who would realize that she was gone? Probably the other servants.
She opened her eyes to take one last glimpse of life and saw the most beautiful sad dark eyes gazing into hers. Ariel frowned, why is he still alive? They said he was dead! The young man smiled sadly at her and she knew he too was crying. Tears of joy and tears of sorrow. He took her hands in his and kissed it gently, lovingly. He pulled her closer to him and held her tenderly in his arms. Despite the freezing water, despite breathing her last breath...Ariel felt a moment of pure happiness in her heart and she knew that this man...this man loved her. She sighed and wrapped her arms around him, her body pressed tight against his...together they breathed their last breath and then all was silence.
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There was over two dozen men running with spears, and sabers in their hands ready for attack. Some were leaping gracefully from tree to tree and others ran on foot. They all had one mission: To capture the murderous servant girl.
"There she is! There she is!" One of the young warriors yelled excitedly. He pulled out the spears and aimed straight at the girl.
"Stop! You're still too far!" The leader hissed. The warrior nodded and quickens his pace. The other warriors saw the same girl in blue and they too hurried. She was worth a lot of gold. Whoever catches her will be rewarded with a year's worth of gold and food. At times like this, even the wealthy would battle for the girl's head.
They were just a few inches away from her. Each with spears in their hands waiting for the leader's order.
The servant girl's eyes was closed, she was oblivious to their presence. Someone threw their spear without the leader's command. A young man blocked the spear...he protected the servant girl. The young man turned toward the warrior that threw the spear. There was anger in his eyes as he pulled the spear out from his chest. He was bleeding yet he showed no signs of pain.
No one moved...for the person protecting the servant girl was their prince. The emperor's heir and successor. There was stunned silence as the warriors watched the young girl leaped to her death. The prince tried grabbing her hands but met only the air. He too without a moment's hesitation jumped into the ocean. In one swift motion, they were gone.
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Chapter 2 Crazy
The present
2007...what was so great about 2007? Ariel shrugged, nothing much. Another year just like any other year, except the only difference is she's getting older and getting more paranoid as her ex-therapist used to say. Yup, she was now twenty three years old and still aimless in life. No big news there. Ariel has always been aimless in life, no goals, no dreams...just living day to day. It was hard to explain this puzzling behavior to herself...let alone other people.
It was a Monday morning, another mundane day of the same routine, day in and day out. With a loud yawn, Ariel poured coffee into her cup and added one spoon of sugar and one spoon of creamer. She turned on the TV, went in her bedroom and searched through her closet for suitable work clothes. Her job was pretty ordinary too; nothing special...she's not a rocket scientist or even a school teacher. Nope, she was just an office lady. She is the secretary of a barely legal lawyer...who's has been under fire lately for malpractice. Not that she cared; as long as she gets her paycheck then she's happy.
When Ariel was younger and her parents were still alive, Ariel's mother sent her to see a therapist at the age of five. She knew her parents worried about her, she knew her parents thought she was a little on the Looney side. Who wouldn't think that? She remembered begging her parents to take her to visit China; she had asked to visit a specific spot which was not open to the public. Ariel refused to take no for an answer...she had to see the cliff. When her parents were talking to the guards, Ariel shook loose of her mother's hands and ran through the yellow caution tape.
She ran and ran until she saw the cliff. It was the same cliff she saw in her dreams almost every night. The cliff that was filled with bittersweet memories, it was a place of serenity and danger. Standing on the cliff, five year old Ariel felt unexplainable emotions in her heart, it was love, hate, anger, grief, sorrow, despair...it was an onslaught of feelings that was too much for a five year old to understand.
She remembered the sudden urge to jump; it was like someone was calling for her, pleading for her to join them. Five year old Ariel edged closer and closer and looked down the cliff. She saw the waves beating furiously, waiting for her. She heard the wind whispering her name in welcome. Echoes of familiar voices...and the sudden urge to be part of those voices were irresistible. Five year old Ariel closed her eyes and jumped.
She didn't fall. A guard had grabbed hold of her shirt and pulled her up. He shook his head at her in disapproval and handed her over to her parents. After that incident, Ariel's parents had always kept close eyes on her.
She was put on medications at the age of ten when she knocked the swim teacher over the head with a baseball bat for forcing her to learn how to swim. Ariel refused to swim and told the swim teacher there was no way in hell the teacher could make her swim. The teacher did not listen and pushed her in the water.
Ariel was mad as the devil and grabbed the closest thing to her...which happened to be a baseball bat. She hit the teacher over and over until the other teachers had to forcibly pull her off the swim teacher. The incident left a big impression on Ariel...it made Ariel aware of how different she was from other people.
It also triggered flashes of events that confused her. In the quick flashes, ten year old Ariel saw herself standing in front of a cliff...an older version of Ariel standing in front of a cliff in the process of leaping down into the ocean. The incident also made Ariel aware of her emotions. She was afraid of her own behaviors, she didn't understand where the sudden anger came from...but it was scary even for her.
At twenty three years of age now, both her parents are dead. Ariel is still on medications...one pill in the morning to keep her nerves under control and one pill at night to prevent dreams of ancient China. She refused to see a therapist, but the few people who still kept in contact with her recommend and even encourage her to see a therapist or psychologist.
No one wanted to say she was crazy, but she knew they all think she was crazy. Nothing new there. Everything was pretty ordinary in Ariel's life...except she dreams of a sad lonely prince waiting for her, and a cliff where she jumped to her death and warriors who are after her...even though it's now the year 2007.
Yup, everything seems pretty ordinary...yet nothing is what it appears to be. Just like Ariel knew that both her parents were murdered by the warriors in her dreams but who would believe her story? People already thinks she was a nutcase, so what if she tells them she could still feel the presence of the warriors and that she was next on their assassination list? Who would believe her? Does it even matter if she told them that she was worth a lot of gold? Probably not.