Ever since I was a kid, I've never been quite good at expressing myself or my preferences. I was of noble birth, and good things always came to me naturally. My family looked up to me with high regard because I was an unprecedented genius. Even as a child, my IQ rivaled most adults and professors. I was the golden egg.
But such a gift was always both a blessing and a curse. I had an overactive brain that analyzed everything before I did anything. Because of it, I missed out on most of my childhood. I came to see it as a curse, and soon enough, I believed it was one. From the high window in my room, I watched other kids my age picking flowers and chasing each other with bugs. I found it repugnant, though deep down I knew that was how normal children were supposed to behave. It irritated me.
I wasn't exactly bullied by my siblings, but I wasn't welcomed either. That was always my fault. I tended to put on an air of all-knowing superiority whenever I was around them, so they pushed me away. I spent my years in my massive room, decorated with every book I wanted. With nothing else to do, I filled my head with knowledge upon knowledge .
At twenty years old, I decided to leave my family's luxury and find my own path. My parents objected, of course. They had grand plans for me—after all, I had saved the family from ruin multiple times by intervening when they were about to make terrible decisions. It had been a minor, convenient way to pass the time. When they refused to let me go, I ran away with my suitcase and necessities. I was a scrawny, nerdy girl with jet-black hair. On my own, things were not easy. Carriages splashed mud on me, people yelled as I crossed roads, and I was almost robbed several times. Giving up was never an option; I had known these risks the moment I left luxury behind.
I was preparing to sleep on the streets for the third time that week when I met him. He wasn't the finest man on the planet, but in that moment he seemed like an angel for deciding to help me. I sat on a bench, using my luggage as a pillow and my blanket ready for sleep, when I saw him standing in the street with a leaflet in hand. He looked distressed and extremely worried. It wasn't my place to offer consolation, but when I heard him mutter, "Then where can I find someone for the job?" my interest was piqued.
I stared at him intently, hoping he would notice me. By the gods, he did. His blue eyes came to rest on me as I sat there.
"The streets are dangerous. It's best you find somewhere else," he said.
I stared at my feet. Stupid me. Instead of being robbed, I had handed everything over to the robbers—better than being stabbed, at least. At that moment, I was as broke as a cheap doll.
"If you don't have anywhere to go, I could get a place for you," he continued.
"For free?" I asked.
He stared at me for another moment, probably wondering why someone on the streets would start asking questions when offered help. "If you're worried I'd try to take advantage of you, I think—"
"No, I'm not worried about that," I said. "I have a knife. But why are you going to do it for free? Shouldn't you at least offer me a job or something so I can earn my keep? From your outfit, you don't seem poor."
The man stared at me for a while, probably wondering if he had ever met a girl so bizarre. Instead of accepting help like most would, she asked for a job?
It took a moment before it dawned on him. The wind helped as it blew the leaflet from his hands. He picked it up, looked at it, then back at me.
"Yeah, you're in luck," he said, dusting off the leaflet. "If you're educated at least, I might have a job for you."
"Do I come off as uneducated?" I scoffed.
"Well, you definitely seem qualified just from the way you speak and carry yourself," he smiled. "Let's go. You might as well begin your job tonight."
That evening, purely by chance, I met the angel who saved me from the streets. It was a chance encounter, and I expected nothing more from it.
He didn't explain the details, but from the way he spoke and acted, I quickly deduced he was around my age or younger. According to him, he wasn't in any particular situation to bring me home, but he could offer me a job and a place to stay if needed. Seeing an opportunity to get off the streets, I agreed. He brought me to an orphanage where the former caretaker had died of smallpox. Naturally, I was terrified of the disease, but I decided to stay regardless. At least it was better to get sick in a bed than on the streets. My job was fairly simple and came with an apartment big enough for me and a lover if I ever had one. I was to oversee the orphanage and act as the children's teacher or tutor. Of course, I would be paid. Seeing no real downside aside from the smallpox risk, I agreed. He thanked me with a warm smile, his golden hair highlighting his blue eyes and handsome features, and left me with a small bag of cash and many thanks.
After he had gone, I sat at the desk in my new room, looking at the bag of cash and the neatly furnished apartment. No doubt the woman who had died had used it too. I should be thanking him instead, I thought as I lay on the large poster bed. It was comfortable and smelled strangely of lilies. Smiling as I dozed off, I couldn't help but thank the man once more.
The days and months that followed were fairly easy. The children were shocked at first to see me instead of their usual caretaker and took a long time to warm up to me. After that, things became simple. Their classes consisted only of English and mathematics; nothing else was needed at the moment. The man—or should I say boy at this point—kept visiting us daily. He always hung around me in my lab. Yes, I had a lab. He didn't mind as long as I didn't put the children in harm's way. We chatted every day when he visited. To be honest, I grew to like him, but being who I was, I couldn't let those feelings show. It was just how I was built. Even though his advances were clear, I couldn't determine his intentions or motives. My brain naturally refused to acknowledge feelings. He didn't give up, though. Occasionally I saw him fully dressed in armor, sword at his side and heavily exhausted. I would offer him coffee amid my experiments. He always accepted with gratitude. To be honest, I don't drink coffee, but I always kept some because of him. I didn't know what had become of me at the time.
Monsters were terrorizing the kingdom, and apparently the man was one of the strongest knights, so he was worked to the bone. There were times he rarely visited, and I started missing his presence. Still, I couldn't identify what I was feeling. He came as usual, played with the kids, talked about books, and laughed with me. He was quite knowledgeable, though he paled in comparison to me. I felt like he studied just to have something to talk to me about. Still, I didn't notice how I felt.
Sometimes he arrived with a worried look. Apparently the monsters were mutating, and a singular power now ruled them. The humans were losing, and greedy people were exploiting the chaos to enrich themselves. It was then that I started working on it—a contingency plan. I didn't know if it would work. I possessed no magical power and was below average in strength, but I had read every book about monsters and magic. What if I could turn back time, before the humans started losing and before the monsters even appeared? It was a fleeting thought, but I began working toward it anyway. I didn't tell Carl. He didn't need to know; he had enough on his plate. I thought sadly as he slumbered at my lab desk. I covered him with a sheet. Even then, I didn't notice how I felt, and I went into my room to continue my research.
The orphanage was attacked. Luckily, the children weren't badly hurt. I had hit my head so hard that I was bleeding profusely and couldn't see straight. We weren't attacked by monsters, but by the very humans Carl was protecting. They raided our food reserves, took everything, and trashed my lab. Luckily, my contingency was already finished and on me at all times. I searched for Carl around the orphanage, yelling his name. He didn't respond. When I reached the gates, I saw him lying on the dirty, bloody ground, riddled with arrows. His face looked peaceful, as if in slumber. He was dead.
I felt a giant thud in my heart. Did I always feel this way? Yes, my foolish, always-analyzing brain answered. I was broken. Despite having two functional legs, I couldn't walk. I crawled toward him on the floor, still in his armor. I wished I had figured out my feelings sooner. I wished we had dated. I wished I had said those words: "I love you." I couldn't stop crying and clinging to his lifeless body. Why now? Why didn't I realize sooner? I hate myself. He wasn't coming back, and I knew it. That shattered me even more. The children could only cry. I was crying, they were crying—no one to console the other. Then I felt it in my pocket: the glass bottle I had created and kept. I tore my lab coat and pants to get it out. The blue liquid glittered inside. I stared at it for a long time, then opened it and drank the entire bottle. I fell beside him instantly, twitching in pain, still holding Carl's lifeless hand. What was I expecting? That my chemical, made on a whim to turn back time, would actually work? Never. The world is not that generous. The children cried even louder, thinking I had drunk poison to kill myself. I couldn't tell them what I had drunk. The pain grew significantly worse, and I was practically blinded by it, but it paled in comparison to the pain of finding him dead. I held onto Carl's arm, tightening my grip. Maybe if I died, at least I'd be where he was. It was the only thought that kept me going until I faded into the looming darkness.
Sarah woke with a jolt. She stared around frantically. *I just had the weirdest dream. I didn't know I was still capable of that,* she thought. She got up from her enormous bed and noticed something blue in the mirror. She moved closer.
"What's going on?" she said, feeling her face and baring her now razor-sharp teeth. Her blue hair fell down her face in waves. "I could have sworn I didn't dye my hair. No! I definitely didn't. So what's going on? Why is my hair suddenly blue?"
She sighed. "My siblings are going to have something else to taunt me with if I don't find a way to get it off. Luckily for me, I had black dye lurking around somewhere in my cabinet."
She rummaged through her gigantic wardrobe in her nightgown, scattering gowns, beakers, and weird green substances in bottles. Finally, she found a bottle of a very dark substance.
"I was once fascinated by how dyes work, turning people's hair black and all, but that curiosity didn't last as soon as I got hold of a lot of them. I had dyed my cat black, the house dog black, and even tried dyeing my already black hair black. I was scolded nonstop by my parents because when I finished, my entire room was almost black as night," she said, turning the liquid in her small hands and staring at it intently.
She poured the substance into her teacup, mixed it with the spoon, dipped her hairbrush in it, and applied it to her hair. After the scolding, she had learned how to do it properly, of course. She stared at herself strangely in the mirror—half her hair partially black, the other ocean blue. She made to apply the rest and turn her hair completely black, but the most bizarre thing happened: the dye faded into her hair, turning it ocean blue again. She stared indifferently as the dye vanished completely. She put down the brush and doused herself in the dye. She watched, fascinated, as her hair sucked it all up, leaving only her skin and nightgown black while her now-blue hair still shone blue.
"What is going on?"
"I woke up with razor-sharp teeth and blue hair?" How bizarre is that? she laughed. "Mum's going to kill me."
*I'm eleven, right?* she thought, feeling herself. A deep pain throbbed in her chest. *I'm hurting, and I'm hurting bad. Was it that dream? That dream?* She thought in a daze. *Carl, was it? It was a stupid dream, honestly. I don't think I'll ever experience something like that. But why does it still hurt? What's going on? I've never felt this way before.*
She sat at her desk for a while, staring at her blue hair and sharp teeth. "The blue liquid in the dream," she said to herself, touching her face and teeth. "Yesterday my hair was definitely black, and it was in the dream too. But everything changed when I drank that stuff to turn back time. Taking it all into consideration, it's safe to say it was a success. That definitely wasn't a dream. And if it wasn't, that means Carl and the kingdom will start crumbling twelve years from now." Feeling her chest pound at the mention of his name confirmed it. "I'm not dismissing everything as a dream. I know the future now, and I'm planning on using it all to my advantage." She stared at her small hands and chest, stood up on the chair, and looked at her legs. "Hurry up and grow up so I can go get Carl." Looking at her puny build, she couldn't help laughing at herself. "I definitely wasn't carrying anything massive when I was older, but I didn't think I was this skinny when young," she laughed loudly.