A lone road stretched out into eternity, solitary, would it ever go anywhere but onwards? What if you happened to travel this road? When looking up, you would notice the vivid green of foliage, since birches and oak trees lined its path. When looking down, you would see a sea of tulips guiding your way on both sides of the road. Green, yellow, red, white, blue. The blackbird and pigeon sang a soft, soothing duet up in the tall trees, urging anyone who walked this road to continue on its way.
That day had been a sunny summer day. The air felt humid and sunlight fell on the path, interspersed with the shadow which the trees provided. The water in the canals had been at an unusually low point and most humans were holding a siesta. Most, the word itself already inclines a few exceptions. For that day, a tall man with hair the colour of caramel, had thread upon this particular path and walked it with firm steps, headed for an unknown destination. A young, beautiful woman smiled up at him and let her hand intertwine with his. Her head rested on his shoulder as they strolled and watched the two little girls that walked ahead of them. The two could have been twins, were it not for the difference in height. The youngest one laughed loudly as she chased a cabbage butterfly. The elder sister smiled indulgently at the sight of her younger sister running around. The frivolity of youth was no longer something she was supposed to enjoy, or so the nine year old told herself. She turned her gaze to the sight of her parents, walking hand in hand like young lovers. An overall feeling of bliss filled the air and the girl felt the uncontrollable urge to laugh. But why? Weren't all days like this?
The man halted and brought his hand up, just above his eyes to provide them with some shade as he gazed into the distance. The girl realised that she couldn't get a clear sight of his face, no matter how much she focused. But she quickly dismissed the thought. After all, it couldn't possibly be as important as enjoying the feeling of the sun's gentle caress on her cheeks when he managed to avoid the shields of leaves that protected her from his touch.
"We're almost there Eva."
Suddenly, the four found themselves standing on a beach. Wasn't it peculiar that she didn't remember how they had gotten here...wherever here was? Still, none of the others seemed to mind, so the girl refrained from asking her questions. The sun had disappeared behind a dense mist, which drifted towards them from across the silver coloured sea. A strong gust of wind made the girl shiver and brought an ominous feeling with it. The girl was only wearing her thin white t-shirt and short. She could already feel the goosebumps appearing on her arms.
Her sister still ran after her butterfly, happily laughing, oblivious to the cold, yelling words the eldest couldn't quite distinguish. A shiver went down her spine, she couldn't tell if it was caused by the increasing cold wind or some feeling of foreboding. Why was her sister running so far away? She hadn't noticed, not at first. A hole had been poked in her belly and all of the happiness she had felt earlier, was spilling out. She wanted to scream out to her sister, to be careful, not run too far, not into the cold seawater, it would spoil her cute white dress and she would no doubt cry all the way home. However, no matter how hard she tried, no sound came over her lips. Why? Her sister ran further and further, until the oldest could no longer see her, the only thing she heard was a shreds of her sister's laughter. As clear and sweet as small bells, yet hollow somehow. Panic nestled in her chest, building a fire that rapidly expanded throughout her entire body. She had to do something, or else her sister would die... Only then did she look around in search of her parents. But as she looked, all she saw were the waves that came crashing on the shore in front of her, the dunes at her back and the beach that stretched out as far as she could see to her right and left. I have to find them. No, I have to help her first.
The girl ran towards the direction her sister had disappeared in, towards the waves. But the further she got, the slower she could move. She could feel the freezing water against her knees, but she kept on walking. Her sandals made odd noises as they clutched the mud underneath them, trying to halt her. She kept on wading through the water. Her sister was still nowhere in sight and the water already reached her shorts. The cloth greedily drank in the sea water and weighed the girl down even more. She struggled further. Tears streamed down her face and became one with the sea of despair around her. Panic was slowly tightening his grip around her neck, preventing her from breathing. At last, she halted. When the water came to her chin, her body had stopped shivering and instead a numb feeling encompassed her. The girl let out a pained, lonely cry.
"Mama, Papa!?!"
Thunder was the only one who answered, making the little girl cry even harder as she tightly clenched her hands around her ears.
"Eli....-Ne... ELIEN...."
Incoherent words echoed after the thunder and the girl looked up at the sky with a bewildered expression on her face.
"God?"
"Non... dam...! Open... épouvan... door!"
The mists around her slowly became darker and darker and the little girl let out another terrified yelp, muffled by her own sobbing and the water that now rose to her eyes.
Suddenly, the darkness lifted and a small ray of light fell on her face. She could feel it before seeing, and when she finally opened her eyes, she suddenly became aware that the ray came through a window. A window which was supposed to be closed and instead let the cold morning air fill the small room. The girl was no longer little but found herself still sobbing uncontrollably. After a while, she regained control over her thoughts and began wondering what had happened. She was lying in bed, in her small two-room-apartment. The room was still dark, except for the small ray of sunlight. It seemed like it had all been nothing but a dream. The alarm clock on her nightstand told her that it was only half past seven, meaning that she still had an hour and a half before her college would start. Loud voices came from the hallway, fully audible now that she was awake.
"Elienne? Merde, open the door girl or I'll let Lars bash it in." "Me? Why would I have to do that? You're a lot stronger than you look. Do it yourself!" "Je m’en fou! You are the guy, you ave to take you responsabilités!" "Stop with the French already, you know that I don't understand you when you do that. Should I start speaking German? Das werden Sie nicht gefallen, ja?" The bickering went on for a while and Elianne easily recognized the voices of Cécile and Lars, both exchange students like her, living in the same building. She quickly got up to answer the door, just in time before Lars attempted to ram it.
Upon slightly opening it, she peeked around the corner, attempting to hide her face from the two. "I'm sorry guys, just a nightmare. I do hope that I didn't wake you up?" Cécile brusquely shoved the door aside and tightly clenched her arms around Elianne. The short, dark-skinned girl, with chocolate coloured frisky hair, had immediately made friends with the much shier Elianne. On her first day in the apartment complex, Cécile had been the one to offer her a short tour and despite her lacking English and abundance of French curses, the girl had a heart of gold.
"Conneries, chérie. Francesco as been practicing is piano for alf an our already, no worries. What was your dream about?" Cécile slightly let go of Elianne, looking at her face with worry in her eyes, swiftly wiping away a few tears while mumbling something in French. "That's... something of my past." Elianne tried her best to smile, but the sadness and raw feeling of panic were still present. "Really, you do not need to worry. Thanks for waking me up though, I don't really want to know how it ended." She managed to bring forth a sheepish smile, which seemed to comfort Céline enough to let go of her and take a step back to give her some space.
"Well then, glad to ear that you are fine. Come over to eat something tonight, oke? You won't believe what appened to me yesterday." With a smile and a wink, Cécile disappeared down the hallway to her own apartment.
Only then did Elianne remember that Lars was standing in front of her door as well. For some reason, he didn't look at her, instead looking at the ground. Lars was a tall, skinny blonde guy in his mid twenties, but for some reason his cheeks were slightly flushed and a frown had nestled between his blue eyes. He softly mumbled something which Elianne didn't understand and an awkward silence formed. "What? I'm sorry..I ... I'm afraid I didn't really hear what you were saying Lars." She hadn't talked to him that much in the last three months since she had moved into the apartment complex, but she decided that the only way to overcome her shyness was to talk to him more often. It had been very gallant of him to come with Cécile, especially since he lived on another floor. "Cloth... I mean... Bye." Without looking up, he marched down the hallway, towards the stairs on the other side. Elianne stood still for a full minute before she realized that she was only wearing an old, large t-shirt and a boxer short. No wonder that it had been so cold. With cheeks the colour of apples, Elly quickly shut the door behind her. Her cold hands on her cheeks slowly cooled them down. Why couldn't she ever have a normal conversation with someone she didn't know?
Something soft stroke passed her legs, startling Elly for a moment. A long, wailing meow made clear that Katja really wanted to have her breakfast. With a smile, Elianne picked up the fat cat. "Wow, Katja... You keep on getting fatter lately, don't you? Perhaps I shouldn't feed you as much..." Almost as if she knew what her owner had said, the cat began struggling to get free and meowed even harder. "Alright, alright. I'll get you some food. You won't allow me to shower and eat properly if I don't, do I?" With a chuckle, she put Katja back to the ground, quickly put on some more clothes and went to the shared kitchen to prepare some food for the both of them.
"Shitshitshitshit nooooo, please no!" Just before she could press the button to open the doors, the metro started moving, leaving behind a very disappointed Elianne. "Shit." She added, silently hoping that the word would make the metro stop in its tracks and allow her to board it anyway. With a sigh, she walked over to one of the benches on the station and sat down besides a business man who seemed to have missed his metro as well, judging from the way he impatiently checked his watch every ten seconds. She tightly clenched one strap of her backpack, giving herself over to her ponderings. She wouldn't be late to her class, but she would have to hurry once she got to Main Okrug, seeing how it was still half past eight, and another metro would arrive in fifteen minutes. For some reason, Francesco had felt it was necessary to talk to Elianne about Bach's "Goldberg Variations". Seeing how she played the violin and he was a student of music, it was logical to a certain extent, but still, he could have picked a time when she wasn't already running late for her classes.
The man next to her had folded open a paper, allowing her to read some headlines. Or rather, she would have been able to read them, were it not for the fact that they were in Russian. Elly could distinguish a few words, but by no means enough to see what they were about. She swung her bag on her lap and rummaged through it until she found her phone. After plugging in a set of earphones to keep out the noises of the station, she clicked on the NOS news app. Despite being in Russia for three months now, she like to keep track of the Dutch news as well.
"Live: Twente against AZ, 2-0 for the Twentenaren"
"27 death in fights Kobani"
"Today possibly the results for ebola-test"
"Taliban leader fails on Twitter"
"Dance award for Russian dancer"
"Storm after the silence in Jordan?"
The last headline peaked her interest and Ell clicked it. Apparently the Dutch F-16's wouldn't come in action that day against ISIS, and Jordan was still trying to maintain the peace and quietness within its borders. "Can't really blame them. We would have done the same." She mumbled to herself. The man next to her looked over for a bit, but quickly shifted his attention back to his own newspaper. The sound of thunder announced that a metro was arriving, but Elianne quickly returned to her app since it obviously wasn't the one she had to catch. The man next to her did stand up, folded his newspaper and left. Elianne watched him go and just before she returned her attention back to her phone, she noticed that the man had left behind a small notebook. It didn't really stand out all that much, but Elianne found herself picking it up nonetheless. "Sir, you forgot..."
However, as she looked around, there wasn't a trace of the man left. Slightly puzzled, Elly put the notebook in her bag, deciding that she would take care of it until she saw the man again. Or perhaps she would bring it to the lost-and-found-office later. Before she could decide what to do, two things happened at the same time. Her metro arrived and her phone suddenly started ringing. A frown formed on her face as she quickly grabbed her bag and walked towards the metro. Nobody was supposed to call her, would something have happened Merel or her mother? How did she have reception here in the first place? Nevertheless, she picked it up before the doors closed behind her.
"Hello?"
|| 08:45 AM || 23rd October || 20XX
