When Dreams Come True

This is a short story I wrote last year for English class ... well kind of. I wrote it at first for fun, but I used it for that class. Enjoy!

Life here in Neverland is a bright shining ball of light, cloudless skies, warm wind, birds that sing, and butterflies. My life is perfect. I have a boyfriend named Link Charleston, three best friends named Belle, Luna, Alice, and the cutest little Yorkie named Phip, short for Phidipedies. My name is Elizabeth Marie Bennet, I am 23. I don’t know how I came to be in Neverland, but one morning I woke up in a beautiful little house in a quiet peaceful neighborhood and I’ve been here ever since. I live with my best friends in the same cute little home. Link lives next door. Link and I met my first day here as I wandered around aimlessly trying to figure it all out. He took my hand, then showed me the whole town. We became best friends sticking together like peanut butter and jelly. About a year ago we started dating. It’s been the most wonderful experience of my life. It’s been three years now since that first day, thought it seems as if I’ve always been here. There are no cars or airplanes or motorcycles here, not thing that makes excess sound. The wind carries music while the sun laughs. Everything here is bright and gay. The only bad things that ever happened here were my vivid nightmares. They showed a world completely opposite of this one, though the people were still the same. It frightened me, but I forgot about them once the morning comes. Those nightmares are where the story gets its foundation, but I’ll start at the beginning.
This story starts with a walk Link and I took. We held hands as we walked. The early morning dew hit the grass at just the right angle to make the grass look like it was sparkling. Birds sang along with the wind as the sun giggled, rising from the horizon. I didn’t know where we were going, but I didn’t ask. I trusted him. Every once in awhile, he’d look at me and smile because I never took my eyes off his. The beautiful combination of blue, green, and yellow with light blonde eyelashes was breath taking. They went deeper than the surface. Eventually after an hour, I grew tired and leaned on him. He put his arm around my waist, holding me up while I lay my head on his shoulder. I didn’t realize I had fallen asleep in his arms until I woke up.
He had brought me to an open field, the spot we were in was the only grassy spot, and everything else was covered with flowers. The colors, waving in the wind like a flag, made me remember something from my past life, but I ignored the memory. We had a delicious picnic of bread, cheese, fruits, and vegetables, with iced tea, while talking for hours.
“Eliza, I love you. I never want to lose you.” He said after we had finish eating. I teased him saying,
“Well, I love you way more! Where would I go? There’s nowhere I’d rather be than right here.”
Then we became little kids, arguing over who love who more. We ran, chasing each other in the flower fields, laughing and screaming until we were too tired to continue. Then we curled up among the flowers looking in each other’s eyes until we fell asleep, hand in hand. When I woke up, Link was sitting a little way away from where I was, watching me. Without a word, he took my hand, leading me back to our street. He walked me home, kissed me on the forehead, and whispered,
“I love you.” Then he crossed my lawn to his house. Right before he went into his house, he looked back at me. I blew a kiss, which he caught, then put in his pocket.
I went up to my room quietly so I wouldn’t wake the girls or Phip since it was five in the morning. I turned on my music and took a nice warm shower. When I was done, I looked at the clock and saw that it was time to go, so I skipped off to work. My job is an interesting one. I make jewelry in the morning, then I sell it in my store after lunch. I was so filled with inspiration from my time with Link, that I jumped right into the beads. By lunch I had created 10 new works of art and was brimming with pride when Link stopped by with lunch. I told him all about my morning, then he told me about his, as we munched on pasta salad with mangos on the side. We joked around, teasing each other, until he absolutely had to leave. He needed to get a scene filmed today because the weather was perfect for it. He’s a moviemaker, writing the movies, then directing them. After Link left, I opened up shop, and got ready to sell my new masterpieces. The day was pretty full with selling twenty-three pieces, including the ten from that morning. In and out people came, then went, always running about from place to place, friend to friend. Like busy bees, never resting to take a look at the flowers or enjoy the sunshine.
I needed a break from the hustle and bustle of the little town so I went to my place, a meadow all of my own. If Neverland sounds wonderful, my meadow is paradise. Flowers bloom in every single color imaginable, combinations of beautiful flowing shapes that seem to melt into each other. The trees are like those in fairytales, bark twisted into smooth patterns, and a presence that makes everything believe it has a soul. The breeze blows through my hair here, whispering secrets to me about itself. The sky is so large; it feels as if it might swallow you. There is a kind of magic here that makes me feel that everything is alive. I become aware of the entire world and every living thing, as if my senses have been honed into nature. Life is a fragile but constant beat that just keeps on going even if some one is left behind. No one knows this place exists. Not Link, Belle, Luna, nor Alice, just me. It’s my little place.
That afternoon, something felt off. A disturbance that made me feel as if something wasn’t right. At that moment, the sky went dark. It was like night in the daytime. I ran, practically flew, home right into Luna’s room. She sensed it too, the strange ripple in the peace of Neverland. Luna is very attuned to nature since she was raised in the wilderness. Luna is kind of a hippy. She has long black curly hair that she keeps in a ponytail, grey eyes sharp as a hawk’s and a pencil stuck behind her ear at all times. She wasn’t sure what was wrong since it had never happened before.
“Eliza, I can’t make it out, but something is definitely wrong. I think the best thing to do is see if it passes. I don’t sense any true danger, so don’t worry about it.” She told me, but still I felt on edge. As if something were coming, something ominous. That night, in my dreams, I was in Neverland as it is normally. Blue skies, green grass, flowers, singing wind, everything. I wished I wouldn’t wake up. But morning came, even though it seemed as if it hadn’t. Link came over and asked me why I was anxious, but he couldn’t understand the feeling I was getting. No one could comprehend why this was such a big deal to me. I asked Belle to mind my shop for me while I went to visit Alice. Alice and I are almost twins. We both are tall, long blonde haired, though her eyes are piercing blue and mine change colors. We always feel and think the same things, so I thought maybe she could help me, or at least understand. We both comprehend each other on a level that is extremely close to telepathic.
When I got there, she was waiting for me, as if we had planned this. I took one look at her and knew she felt it too. We sat in her room, talking it over until it was dusk. It was about time for me to leave, so I got up to leave.
“Lizzy, I wonder if maybe you could sleep in my room tonight? Unless you want to spend time with Link or something …” she trailed off at the end, trying to make it sound nonchalant, but I could feel her fear. I sensed her need for me to stay with her.
“Of course I’ll sleep here with you! Silly goose, I saw Link this morning. You need me!” So it was decided, I got all set in her room. Since we share a house, all I had to do was run up to my room, get ready, and head back down to go to sleep. Right before I fell asleep, Alice got in bed with me,
“I’m too uneasy to be on my own,” she whispered to me and I felt the comfort of knowing she was right there, as I floated off to the real Neverland. Here, I ran, danced, sang along with the warm wind, and talked to the sun about how beautiful the flowers looked, until I returned to my living nightmare.
No sun, only a cold black sky with wind that howls, cutting through anyone like a knife. The flowers disappeared. I don’t mean withered or died, but disappeared, as if they had never been there. It was pouring rain that didn’t stop. Ever. I stayed inside all day because the moment you stepped outside, you were pelted by tiny bullets that soaked then froze you through. Link, Belle, Alice, Luna and I were all camped out in my room since it’s the largest; I have the most light, along with the most stuff to do. Even Phip my puppy was curled up under a blanket in my bed. Alice was on my bed playing with my DVD player. Belle and Link were playing on my Nintendo 64 while sitting on my couch. Luna was staring out into the gloom with a look of concentration etched into her face. I was pacing the room, pondering dreams and reality. The idea came to me that maybe my nightmares had become reality by some sort of magic. At the same moment I came to that conclusion, Alice looked straight at me, then lost it.
She went completely berserk. She was screaming a bunch of nonsense. I couldn’t understand the feelings inside of her, they didn’t even seem like her own. I sensed pain, joy, agony, happiness, fear, sadness and confusion. The last three were more profound than the others, but only slightly. Suddenly I was acutely aware of every thought, feeling, and emotion in the room. It was all so overwhelming, like a faucet that had been turned on but forgotten, emotions over flowing the entire room, suffocating me. I had to get out, so I ran.
I ran until it felt like the world should have ended, until I was too tired to go on. Then for the first time in two years, I cried. I screamed at the sky. I called for the flowers. I punched trees, then kicked the barren ground. I ripped open the stitches I had sown around my heart, my feeble attempt to forget my old world. I cried for what was lost, and dreams that came to an end. I cried because the small piece of my heart that I had tried to stitch over, missed my old home. I cried because I missed Laurence my old boyfriend. We were so opposite we met on the other side of the circle, but I loved him. I cried for Melissa my one friend in the old world. I sobbed until my eyes were raw but didn’t stop. I went on like that forever, grieving everything I had neglected to grieve before, while the rain bruised my skin. I was screaming and crying so hard, I didn’t notice the rain stopping or the flowers creeping back, surrounding my aching body with velvet petals.
Once I’d stopped, the sky was blue, the sun was laughing its jolly laugh, and the beautiful music that traveled on the wind, ruffled my hair, lifting my spirits, caressing my bruises until they were no more. The flowers looked as if they’d never gone and the stream near where my running had brought me, was giggling where the pebbles tickled it. As I sat there in astonishment, I felt my heart click, as if my other world had been tugging at it and had finally come to grips with the fact that I am here forever. But I knew it wasn’t my old world that needed to come to grips with my leaving, it was I. Somewhere inside, I hadn’t been okay with being pulled away from my old home. I realized that Neverland is my dreamland, so when I locked up my feelings, they built up and broke into my world. For what felt like eternity, yet such a short time, I lay on the soft green grass. I pondered my feelings, checking to make sure I didn’t have any places that held pain or sorrow, surrounded by flowers who each tried to surpass the others in decoration. When I was sure I was fine, I started running again, except this time I was running toward home, instead of away from it.
My street was the same way it was when I first arrived in Neverland. The pavement, colored black with grey, the grass kept fairly long, and gardens that are actually used instead of just being decoration. Houses lined the street, in many different, unique colors, all looking warm and welcome. I walked to my house, colored in many different shades of blue, green, yellow, and white. As I walked inside, Alice ran to me. She shook me, asking why I had locked myself up,
“Lizzy, you could have gone crazy! I felt all those emotions inside of you! Don’t you ever do that again!” I promised her I wouldn’t. Next Link came up to me. He grabbed me and held me for hours, as if trying to reassure himself that I was there. He didn’t say a word, just held me, then I felt him relax.
“I thought you’d never come back.” He whispered in my ear.
“I’m so sorry Link. I didn’t mean to worry you. How could I not come back? I love you.” A little while after this, Belle came up to me,
“Eliza, you’re so much prettier now. You have this kind of light that shines out of you!” She sounded slightly jealous which made me laugh. Belle has a sense for true beauty, along with physical beauty, even though she only focuses on physical. It touched me though, that she thought me something to be envious of. Especially since she is the most beautiful girl I have ever seen, with her long brown hair, deep brown eyes, perfect complexion, and body.
It’s been a year since that happened. Life has gone back to normal. My dreams are memories of my old world, so that I don’t forget that part of my life. Neverland looks as if my nightmare had never happened, even though sometimes a rainy day comes to refresh the entire world. The sun still has its hearty laugh that enriches the soil and warms the day. Everywhere I go, I still hear the music on the wind. It calms my soul, telling a story, like background music in a movie. Colors here stick out like no other place. They are vibrant, as if they are alive, everyday they get brighter, instead of faded. Life in Neverland still goes on the way it always has and I’m glad I got to come here. Nowhere else could fit me the way Neverland does. Like the perfect jeans no one can ever seem to find (except for Belle). Everyday I take in the sun, the wind, and the colors. I feel happy to be alive, and ready for the next adventure.