Imaginary

She had spent her whole life with her head in the clouds, far off in a world of her own. There, she became a princess, a magician, an empress, a lady of power. When she was young her parents had whispered with worry, though their friends would reassure them; “It’s just a phase; she’ll grow out of it.” And they had accepted this, leaving her to rule the lands she constructed. No longer a mere mortal, a goddess of creation she became. Her parents looked worriedly on as she gazed into the clouds and mist, seeing landscapes and worlds they could no longer dream of. “She’ll grow out of it,” they told themselves.

But she hadn’t.

The child grew, and her parents grew more worried. She was so far away, sometimes, she could not hear their calls. She grew apart from her classmates as well; too absorbed with her imagined worlds to participate in games or to make friends. As they noticed her difference, they called her names and teased her for it. In response, her once-bright worlds grew dark. Death, a far away figment before, played at the edges of her blurred worlds, not quite heard, never seen, but there nonetheless. Worried about her 'development' her parents took her to a spsychiatrist, who simply shrugged at their complaints and said, “She’s just imaginative. Enjoy it while it lasts- she’ll probably grow out of it when she gets older.”

But she didn’t.

Instead, her imagination took a different form (though the old one remained). She learned to read, and saw that she was not the only one to see worlds that no one else could. Others could see through the fog of reality, others shared her desire to escape. She wanted to be like these older people, people her parents and teachers respected, called 'authors'. She wanted to become one.

She grew further, exiting the years of childhood to enter the early years of adulthood. She became a teenager, and she was even farther from her classmates, who had abandoned books and childish fantasy. Except for her; she continued to read and imagine. She wandered through a numb fog, physically present in one world, mentally attached to the others. She was smart, but she was hardly passing any of her classes. Except for English, where she excelled. “The stories she writes are amazing,” her teacher told her still-worried parents, “you should be proud she is so imaginative.” They nodded stiffly in response.

With this encouragement (the only she had ever received), the girl (now a young teenager) began to write. She described her world with flowing letters, painting it in bright words and dark phrases, shadowing the edges (where death still lurked) and coloring in the center (where the goddess, who had never died, still ruled).

She became attached to her characters, to one young man especially. He was her favorite, her hero, her savior. He was beautiful and tempting, seductive and alluring. He was a vampire, and a cruel one at that. Though he became her hero (for he did the things she did not have the courage to do), he was the villain of her story. He was the death that lurked at the edges of her world, he was the shadows and the darkness.

And he had to die.

She wept when she did it, destroying the beautifully deadly creature she had imagined into existence. A sharpened piece of wood through his dead heart- a few words scrawled on a blank page. But it was finished, it was done. The hero had triumphed, though her savior had died.

Or, at least, that’s what she thought.

He awakened her one night, a silent shadow in the corner. In the darkness, the pinks and purples of her bedroom became red and black; his colors. In the darkness, reality blended with her world (his world), and she knew he was there, a mere wraith of darkness. A single word hung on his red lips, a question: “Why?” She should have turned away, bade him to leave her. She was his goddess, after all. But she could not send him away. He was her savior, after all.

Instead, she invited him forward to stand in the light of reality. He declined and faded into the night. Perhaps she was not as powerful as she had once imagined.

But he returned, drawn to her as she was to him. He was still her savior, though he could not invade her reality. She was still his goddess, though she could not bring him life the way she once had. He showed her the imagined world more clearly, shedding light where darkness had once been. Death, he showed her, was not as scary as it once had been.

As he did this, though, the light of reality slipped away from her, and he grew stronger as dark imagination filled the void. Her schoolwork suffered for it, and she became more withdrawn. Even her English grade suffered, and her teacher looked down at her, disappointment reflected in his clear blue eyes as he laid the failed test on her desk. She simply stared back at him, a fogged glaze clouding her vision. She was now the wraith, and her creation, her savior, was the solid figure, lurking just beyond the fog that separated her world from his.

One day, he stepped beyond the fog.

She stared at him, as she observed her seductive villain (her attentive hero) in the stark light of day. And now, he asked her to show him reality. He did not fade, as she thought he would, but seemed to root himself in the bright reality. He belonged here now; she became a fallen goddess, defeated as her creation gained his independence. But he did not leave her.

She returned home to her worried parents, hiding the love-bite he had left on her neck. She touched it with reverence, nearly unbelieving. That night, he returned to her, offering his repayment. “You brought me back to life,” he said softly, his sultry voice sweet against her ear, “let me take you from here. You do not belong in this place, sweet goddess. Your throne, your altar awaits.” She agreed, hardly wincing as his sharp teeth dug into her soft flesh. The light reality around her shifted, the darkness of her world replacing it. She had always been a part of it, but she had never known. Until he came, a part of her had always believed that it was “just a phase” and had dreaded the day when it would flee under the light of reality.

---

Frank eyed the body, pale against the dark carpeting. The knife wound stretched from one ear to the other, the knife itself lying politely at her side. Suicide. The policeman sighed. She was so young- the same age as his daughter. “Frank?” one of his men asked.

“Hmm?” he grunted, half-turning to look the younger cop.

“What do you make of this?” the fresh cop asked.

Raising an eyebrow, Frank responded curiously, “It’s a suicide, Martinez.” The younger cop looked doubtful, and asked quietly-

“Then what happened to all the blood?”

Frank turned back to look at the body, so pale in the light of morning. It was so obvious, he questioned how he had missed it. Such a dark, bloody wound, such a rough, terrible slash- there should be blood everywhere.

But there wasn’t.

Finally, his eyes came to rest on the knife. It glittered innocently in the daylight, mocking him with its clean surface. He simply shook his head. “Suicide,” he repeated, unconvinced.

But it wasn’t.

---

AN: I just wanted to clarify that this is the end. As far as I know, there will be no further chapters.