Lolita
Legacy Name: Lolita

A high tower in the forest is concealed with trees and moss surrounding and covering it, so one can only see the tower if they look a certain way at a certain angle. It appears like it was made a long, long time ago with its stone wall and solitary window at the very top, covered perpetually by a dark purple curtain. A passerby remarks to his friend; “Does anyone actually live in there?” “No, no one’s lived there for years.” Replied the friend. An oil lamp dimly lights the shadowy figure in the corner of the small room in the tower. The figure, a young girl, wears a once extravagant dress. The dress, a faded deep blue with a delicate lacy and intricate design, is tattered and ripped. She looks like she is in her late teens, but on some days she can look and seem startlingly younger. Her skin is a ghostly pale color, almost porcelain and is offset by her wild and perturbed dark brown eyes. Eyes that glaze over as quickly as they respond to movement and sound that seemingly aren’t there. Her room could have been once owned by someone of the royal and wealthy variety. A dusty chandelier drearily hangs from the ceiling, its candles unlit. A canopy bed lies in the center towards the back of the room. It too is dusty, with its vibrant purple curtains completely covering the bed. Inside, the sheets are all balled up at the foot of the bed, with the pillows nowhere to be seen. The multiple pillows are in fact erratically strewn all over the room. Across from the bed there is a cracked mirror with chipped gold paint lining it. Beside the bed there is a little wooden drawer with a music box on top of it. Beside the music box there are two porcelain dolls, from what appeared to be a mother and a child who were holding hands, which came to an abrupt end when someone decided to smash their two hands off. The two dolls’ once content smiles now seem crudely plastered on. On the other side of the room lies a wooden closet, with one door open, with clothes that have toppled out some time ago, containing dresses fit for a queen, that have never been worn. A cold draft fills the room but gives no clue as to its source. The room is dead silent, except if you strain to listen, then you may hear the girl quietly muttering under her breath. It’s so dark in this cave. I will find those jewels once again and reclaim my place on the throne of good fortune and talent that only a select few have the capability to enter. To be embraced, adored and cherished by people who don’t know you and never will, the pathetic commoners that they are. As I am blessed with this power and greatness, it would be a shame and regrettable to all humanity if I didn’t share this talent to the world. It’s a job I was destined to do. It’s lonely at the top, looking down at people who will never quite be as special as me. With their middle-wage jobs, coming home to their families and eating dinner together. It’s all so pointless to me. The word family is such a foreign concept is me. What is the point of having a family? What do they actually do for one another? The rocks in this cave are all beginning to look the same to me. Have I passed this way before? I have traveled through this hollow cavern for so long. Each step I make echoes through the cave. The cave can feel my presence but I don’t know if I can anymore. At the beginning the echoes sounded like thunder, so powerful and strong that no one would ever question it. But as time wore on, and as I grew weary, the echoes started to sound more faint and timid of themselves. I am so tired, but I can not give up searching. Even if my feet do, then I will start crawling if I have to. I’d rather die then leave this cave without my precious jewels, the jewels that made me who I am and who shaped me into perfection with every cut. Without the jewels, no one would even know who I was, the world’s most famous jewel collector. Even with all the jewels I have, I can never have enough. It will never fill the desire to want more, have more, and to be more. I feel dizzy. Have I passed this way before? I can not stop searching. I sometimes feel hollow inside like this cavern, are we starting to become one? I feel so tired…I sing sweet, sweet melodies luring sailors to their deaths. Spend time with me, listen to the words, and breathe them in, as you slowly lose your mind. It is I who causes it, I who controls it, and I who will destroy it. I am a siren, listen to my song as it gets increasingly sweeter as you lay there dying. The water is so still and calm. It is all that surrounds me for miles. It is waiting for you to arrive in your big ship, to hear my song. I am so lonely. Please stay. They always stay, but it’s never quite the same. As days go by, their bodies grow cold and pale and I have nobody but myself to blame. But I can’t control it. I am so lonely. Why must they all leave? I long for some company. I get so nervous waiting, my heart strings all tied in a knot. The false hope I cling so tightly onto that someday, somewhere, my prince will come and sail me away. I sing even when there is no ship near, just me on a rock with the bodies surround me, floating. Sometimes I even think they can still hear me. I have grown fearful of this idea. Are they plotting against me? I grow silent. The silence makes me even more anxious, as now I am hyper-sensitive to sound without my voice to distract myself with. Panic sets in. There is no one here to save me. The bodies seem like they are closing in on me. I have nowhere to go but the rock that glistens in the sun but provides no reassurance. I close my eyes… The girl dreams, imagines and believes things far greater than the harsh reality of her life in the tower. She escapes into worlds so vast and elaborate that they have a mind of their own. Worlds that have no beginning or end in sight, just time and space, like in the ocean or underground somewhere. The world in question is a place she calls Utopia. The landscape in her Utopia is magnificent, with plentiful green forests as far as the eye can see, rushing waterfalls and sprawling gardens with colorful blossom trees, lilies and daises. The amount of life is breath-taking, butterflies and hummingbirds are sprinkled all throughout this world. The forest is rich with nooks and crannies, containing very mysterious herbs. It is a tremendously romantic and idealistic place, unrealistic in every sense of the word. But the landscape is a little too elaborate, a little too artful and the flowers glitter a little too brightly. And if you look very closely, the water changes every so often into a dark red color and then, in a blink of an eye, reverts back to its peaceful blue color. The world itself brings out an uneasy feeling, like a clown’s smile, colorful and innocent on the surface, but it has an underlying sinister and malevolent intend. But the girl is utterly absorbed and captivated by this amazingly pure world, oblivious to any other belief about it, despite the subtle hints. The green grass makes a soft bed for my bare feet as I run, far as the eye can see and even farther still. To connect and reconnect with the earth with every footstep is a glorious feeling. Feeling connected to something, anything, gives me a sense of purpose, like I was made to become part of the earth. The grass bends not in response but in anticipation of my movement. And as long as I keep running, I will feel connected. If I were to slow down, or even stop, I would start to lose that feeling. My mind would take over and pour over my entire body, with its nagging and slicing feelings of self doubt. My mind would then start to hack away at me, slowly, painfully. First through the ones most dear to me, but with such a refined knife that I wouldn’t know what’s happening until it’s too late. Then it would eat away at me, starting from the inside out. There it would linger, snuggled in my insides waiting for the right moment to at last burst through my skin. And there, in that instant, I would lose control and I would never be able to get it back. My body would have then been thoroughly hollowed out. And inside it would be a little baby echo that can’t hear itself, but still repeats itself again and again like a broken record. At that point- the only way out is to give up and give in. Sometimes, I have faint memories, about the ones who were most dear to me, but they are always so hazy. They never have sound, just the lazy buzz of a hot summer air. It’s like I see my life from a distance, sitting up in a tree, looking down… The girl suddenly has a revelation. She runs to the window and rips open the curtain, sending specs of dust soaring, illuminated by the light flooding in. The sunlight stings her eyes, but at the same time she sees clearer than ever before. In the distance, she can hear the water trickling down into a stream. The forest surrounding her gleams with such a vibrant green that she wonders if she is in heaven. A hummingbird flies up to greet her, just out of reach, hovers for a second, and vanishes just as quickly. A family of butterflies adorns a butterfly bush just to her left on the ground. She sees the green, green grass, once so far down below, seems now only a step away. She flings herself out the window, to smell the sweet, sweet air, to bathe in the sun and to at last reconnect with the glorious soft earth.

Lolita's pet spotlight nomination was denied for the following reason(s):• Not enough content• Coding errors• Hard to read• The not enough content is mainly for the TC. It would look great with some more! • The apostrophes need to be fixed in the story. • The content is hard to read because there are no breaks. Break it into paragraphs and maybe even add some images to split things up.

Originally coded by: dreamsky
Edited by: Petunia