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I didn’t stop until all the makeup was gone. Then I tossed the cotton pads away and changed out of my beautiful, glittering costume into a plain skirt and turtleneck. I pulled on some tights and added my thick wool coat, bundling up with a scarf and my gloves in my hand. I looked miles away from the glamorous ballerina who had danced center stage that night. Now, I was just a little girl with a dream and a coat that was too big for her. But not for long. Soon, my fantasies would become a reality.
Starting for the exit, I regretted leaving all those bouquets there to wilt. My eyes came to rest on the single, plump pink rose lying in front of the mirror. I wrapped my fingers around it and gasped when it pricked me, a fat, bloody drop running down my thumb where I’d touched the thorn. I stared at it, then sucked on my thumb and glared at the rose. I couldn’t leave it behind though, something telling me to take it with me.
My gloves were smooth pink leather, inherited from Mummy, and I slipped them on before taking the rose in my hands again. It was coming with me, but it wasn’t going to hurt me again.
As soon as I stepped outside through the back door, the cold air hit me like a force to be reckoned with, icy and frightening in how freezing it was. I shivered under the light of the streetlamp, my feet leaving prints in the fresh snow as I made my way towards home. It was about twenty minutes away, and I was considering being naughty and just calling a cab to take me home. There was no direct tube from the theater to my home, and it had been a long night.
But I had no cash, and I’d need the money to pay my rent – if everything went according to plan, the last time I’d have to for the shitty apartment I lived in. Hopefully, by next month, I’d be living in a gorgeous new place with a new job, too.
The street was deserted, and it should have been comforting, knowing there was no one out to get me, but instead, I felt fear seeping through my pores and filling me with an urge to run. But there was no one around, no one to hurt me or do me any harm. I just needed to brave the weather and the empty city and get a move on.
I put some distance between myself and the theater, the bright lights slowly moving farther and farther away until only the night lamps remained, lighting up the rest of my journey. My steps were brisk and hurried, and I rushed home, thinking about what awaited me. A lonely, cold apartment where I’d turned off the heating to save money. An empty fridge and very few coffee grounds for the next morning, since I’d been too broke to buy more. But all of it was bound to change, and a smile tugged the corners of my lips upwards as I thought about my bright future.
Stepping off the main street, I decided to cut a corner to get home and warm up faster.
It was a decision I’d regret moments later.
I heard footsteps behind me, only a few.
I turned around with my eyes panicked, scanning the street. But there was nobody there. A sigh of relief fell from my lips, and I turned back towards my destination, but now my path was suddenly blocked by a tall, looming figure standing in front of me. The rose fell from my gloved fingers.
“God!” I cried out. “You scared me, I–”
I didn’t get to finish my sentence. He knocked me down with a single kick to my knees and I crumpled to the ground, barely conscious but panicking, adrenaline surging and begging my body to fight back. I never got the chance to do that, and never even got to see the man who took me. He wore a hood, but I could tell he was impossibly tall and broad. I would never have been able to escape. A small consolation, knowing that I hadn’t even tried.
“P-please,” I muttered, and he reached for me, my battered body screaming in protest as he sank a needle in my neck. “No!”
The last thing I saw was him picking up the rose I’d dropped when he attacked me. The man twirled it between his fingers, seemingly not caring about the thorns.
“I like broken things,” he muttered in a dark, deep voice.
I blinked, my eyelids heavy with sleep. I needed sleep. I needed to rest.
And then darkness took over. The same soft, calming darkness I felt when I slept, a darkness that held a promise of pain and beauty.
I fought it until the last second, but eventually, it took over.
