Departure

Paige Reynolds told herself everyday that she hated everything around her.

She hated her life.

She hated her family.

She hated her school.

She hated the people in her school.

Sometimes she would even say she hated her friends.

Paige believed that everything around her was produced only to make her life a living nightmare.

She believed that God created her as a joke, a failed experiment to laugh at.

So, one night Paige wished she could get away from everything. Leaning down on her knees beside her bed, locking her hands together to pray to God regardless the terrible things she believed He did to her, she begged to Him that she could be sent to a different world where she was recognized as the amazing individual she really was, the individual she wanted to be.

She wished that her parents could disappear, so all the restrictions they placed on her would matter no more. She wished that her younger brother could disappear along with her parents and learn some hard discipline as well on the way.

Most importantly of all to the teenage girl, Paige wished that God could create a man that loved and admired her everyday; a handsome man that would pamper her and tell her constantly that she was the gleaming light in his existence.

But, as Paige slipped under her large blanket, tucking it close to her body, on the spring mattress of her queen size bed, she knew that her wishes wouldn’t come true. Her wishes never came true. She’d been praying to God every night for the past three years that some positivity could be brought into her life, and he never answered her call. What would make this night any different?

Regardless, she still hoped.

Hoped that all the trouble in her life could just vanish in an instant.

That night, Paige dreamt pleasantly of the world she longed to reside in.

A world where nobody would order her around, nobody would bother her with irritating stories and remarks, and that her auburn-haired, blue-eyed, handsome knight stood closely beside her, repeatedly telling her how much he loved her, her forehead against his strong chest.

“You’re so beautiful,” he told her, a gallant smile on his face. “I can’t comprehend why I’ve never laid eyes on your wonder before.” Paige giggled, caressing her knight’s soft face with her thin fingers, her cheeks flushed.

“That’s because I’ve been living in a cursed world. You brought me out of it.”

“I’m glad I did.” her knight said, closing his eyes and delving down towards Paige’s lips to share a passionate kiss.

Paige turned her cheek, dodging her knight’s lips.

Her eyes grew frantic, her body started shaking.

Something was wrong.

This couldn’t be a dream. This wasn’t a dream.

She always broke out of her enchanted world that only appeared during the night as soon as her majestic knight leaned down to embrace her.

She always woke up in her cheap, queen-size bed, disappointed at the kiss she didn’t receive.

“Paige, what’s wrong?” her knight asked, his hands holding her trembling shoulders gently, a concerned look on his face. Paige turned her head and looked up into the handsome man’s blue eyes, terror clearly expressed in her face.

“Where…am I? Where is everyone? My parents, my brother, my…” her knight hushed her, pressing his finger gently down to her lips, smiling.

“They’re all gone; you don’t have to worry about their annoyances anymore. It’s just me and you Paige, me, you, and the whole world that we control.”

“No!” Paige shouted, fright in her voice. “No, what are you talking about? My wishes never come true; this is all just a dream, a harmless dream, right?” A bead of sweat raced down her cheek as her knight smiled tenderly down at her, shaking his head.

“No, this is real. This is your world, Paige. The world that you wished for; our world.”

“I want to go back!” she screamed, distraught. “I want to go back to my home, my world, my school…” but she stopped speaking as her knight stared down at her with his concerned frown, appearing confused at her behavior.

She took a deep breath, and frowned, tears welling up in her eyes. The horrible truth struck her mind like a bolt of lightning.

“There’s no way back?” her knight shook his head. “I’ll never see my world again?” her knight shook his head once more.

Paige directed her eyes down to the bright green, grassy surface below her, shocked at what was occurring. She couldn’t go back home? She couldn’t see her wonderful friends again? Her wish really did come true?

But, she really didn’t mean what she said in her wishes. She just recited them to make herself feel better, to keep her going through her life with some stray hope. She never expected them to come true, no; she never really wanted them to come true.

Tears streamed down her cheeks violently, tears to express the mistake she made when really believing in the hateful words about her world she constantly repeated in her head. Her knight held her, caressing the back of her head with this soft hand.

That didn’t make her feel any better though; her knight’s touch caused her sorrow to grow even more.

She wouldn’t see anyone again. Her mom and dad, her annoying, little brother, her friends. She was completely cut off from her own world, now in a fake world with a knight that loved her for no apparent reason.

Paige cussed at herself in her mind at the idiotic sense of comfort she made to keep her satisfied.

She could do nothing more but continue to cry.