'Faye'rytale

Chapter 13

Sahara couldn't sleep that night. She tossed and turned until she heard a familiar beep on her phone. It was Raeburn.

"Happy birthday, Sahara."

Tears welled from deep inside and coursed down her cheeks. Everything has changed. She racked her drawers to find Raeburn's wish from last year – a special handwritten note just for her. She had read it a thousand times. But this time, it hit differently. She wondered if Raeburn had even remembered her birthday. He probably saw one of their mutual friends' posts and wished for the sake of wishing.

But, did she give a damn? I guess not. Yes. She loved him deeply. "Loved". She didn't even know how to love him anymore. He wasn't the man she fell head over heels in love with. He was a different person. Or maybe he was a different person all along. It was her love that made him extraordinary. Without it, he was just another ordinary guy.

          ...  

A giant leap forward in time reveals a completely new world, Raeburn, being the only aspect of it that reminds the world of a time before cosmocracy. 

Baby pink, neon pink, hot pink, pastel pink.....Pink is her favorite color and her name is Faye. Ever since, she was a toddler, she always made a point to somehow, incorporate the color into every aspect of her being and she was very particular about it. At the age of seven, when she was made to stay at her granny's during summer break, her granny, who found this obsession of hers silly, intentionally took away all her pink clothes, gave it away to the homeless and bought her some new ones, which weren't pink, of course. The outburst that followed is laughed about even today by some of her older relatives. It is said that she sulked for the rest of the holidays. Since then, that was a rule no one dared to break although rules are made to be broken, especially, nonsensical ones like this. Her temper tantrums were nightmarish for the people around her that nobody tried to provoke her ever again. Tough kid, I must say.

Apart from this childish stance about the color pink, she was a really good girl who had all the attributes of a well brought-up kid. In kindergarten, she was known as the girl in pink. Slowly but gradually, as she grew up, her obsession for the color lessened. Surprisingly, by the time she was in high school, pink totally disappeared from her wardrobe. Possibly, in the rush of modern life, her likes and dislikes got buried deep down.

Besides this childhood fascination for the typical Barbie color, there is a lot to her that is totally bonkers. Topping the list is her unusual means of increasing productivity. She didn't think twice before transforming her spacious workspace into a cramped compartment, owing to an article that stated the higher one's anxiety levels were, the higher his/her productivity proved to be. Surprisingly, that lasted only for a couple of weeks, so unlike the typical Faye. Her best friend, Ava Pierce was cheesed off for she had not only ruined their hangout, but also activated Fay's nosy trait. When Fay casually asked her what she was doing that weekend, she smirked and said, "Revamping Fayedom." She loved to see Fay's professional smile distort into a scowl each time she brought up her secret workspace. Fay was on the top of her Arch-Rivals Catalogue. The rivalry between Faye and Fay began ever since Faye was beaten in a fancy-dress contest by Fay back in Grade One.

Confused? Alright, for the sake of proper comprehension, let's address the two young ladies by their first names. The rivalry between Athena and Nyx began ever since Athena was beaten in a fancy-dress contest by Nyx in Grade One. 'Beaten' was tolerable for little Athena but what inflamed her was the fact that Nyx sneered at her. That was the beginning of a never-ending battle. The two girls competed with each other like nothing else mattered. Year after year, their rivalry grew larger and larger until it got to a whopping magnitude that it became impossible to despise each other more than that. 

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