UNTOLD | JJ Maybank

Prologue

Have you ever thought of your life as a movie or a book? Have you ever wondered, on how you'd want to tell your story? Would you even want to tell your story?

When I was a child, I spent a lot of time thinking about it. I loved stories and I was sure, that someday, I would tell mine. When I was about ten years old, I fantasized about running away and finding my mother. I knew exactly, how I'd tell this adventurous story of a young girl looking, finding and reuniting with her long-lost mother. When I was twelve years old, I had my first crush and I was sure, that we would be the greatest love story of all time. I was so sure, that I wrote a letter to Taylor Swift to ask her to produce the soundtrack, once our story would be a movie. With fourteen, I kissed two different guys on one evening. Damn, the love triangle story I would have told. It would have been sexier than 50 shades of grey, more dramatic than the Vampire Diaries and more romantic than Titanic.

Those were the stories I wanted to tell, that I had planned out all along. In the end, I never told any of those. I never tried to find my mother, I never got to experience the great love story and I also didn't end up in a sexy love triangle. I learnt, that the stories I wanted to tell, had only been my fantasy and I accepted, that happy endings weren't made for me. So, I stopped living in a movie, lost my love in stories and told myself, that my real story, would never been told.

But as I stand here now, in the pouring rain, I can't help but feel like I'm in a movie. It feels surreal, like I watch myself from the outside. I can't really feel my body and I'm not sure, if I can move anymore. A lightning strikes up in the sky and I can see the tents trying to withstand the storm, even though I don't feel the strong wind around me. The rain is falling down on me, but I feel neither wet, nor dry. It feels, like I watch the situation, but I'm not really in it. It feels, like I'm a watcher of my own movie. My mind drifts back to the time, where I lived in all those made up stories. To the fake scenarios in my head, to the movies I watched and the books I read. It feels ironic and I think that maybe, this is karma. That I spent so much time fantasizing about stories, that now, I'm stuck in one. Stuck in a story, that I don't want to watch, that I don't want to experience, that I don't want to tell. It had to be like that, because no way in the world, could this be true. This couldn't be real, right? Please tell me, that this is not real.

My legs suddenly start to move and somehow, they bring me safely inside one of the tents. The storm outside is still raging dramatically, but the real chaos is going on inside this tent. Shouting people rush around and somehow, I feel like the world is spinning a hundred times faster, while I am still stuck in the moment. I look around and suddenly make eye contact with Shoupe. He comes up to me, but I don't move. He looks sad, but I try not to read anything in it, because it wasn't real anyways. It couldn't be real, right?

"Mary-Louise.", the grey-haired man greets me loudly and I look at him. A small information in my mind, suddenly reminds me, that a state of shock could be a reason for my weird feeling and I try to focus.

"One of your men brought me here.", I answer and think that I sound like a robot. Is that information even important? Maybe I should have asked, why I they even picked me up and brought me here, but I don't want to know that answer. I don't want to know. It can't be real.

"Mary-Louise, do you know, that your brother and Sarah Cameron tried to leave the island today?" I hear a ringing inside my ears and look up. While I look around the tent, I see Pope and Kiara. Their parents are with them.

"Mary-Louise, can you hear me?", Shoupe asks again and I suddenly feel something on my arm. The feeling startles me and I feel, like I'm being pulled back into my body. I look down on my arm to see his hand resting on it. I feel his warm skin on mine and suddenly I can feel the cold raindrops dripping from my wet hair onto my skin. Gaining back my senses, I suddenly feel the panic rise inside of me. The pain in my chest and how my throat seems to be cut off.

"What? What happened?", I ask and look back at the man in front of me.

"Do you know, that your brother took a boat and wanted to leave the island today?"

"No, Shoupe, what happened?!" I shout this time and my hands start to shake. The man looks at me sadly and places his hand on my shoulder. He looks, like he's about to cry.

"Your brother and Sarah Cameron took an open boat to leave the island today. We followed them out and had radio contact to them, but we lost them in the storm. I'm sorry."

The thing about stories is, they are not real. That can either be good, or bad. You can decide, if you like it or not. You can decide, if you just accept the ending or if you make up a different one in your head. You can decide to close the book, if you don't like it. You can decide to pause the movie, if you can't take it anymore. You can decide to fast forward, if you're afraid of the next scene or you can decide to read a chapter over and over again, to experience the moment more than once.

Maybe that's why I used to like stories so much. Because I had the full control over them. In reality, life is nothing like that. No matter how hard we try, we cannot control our lives. We can't decide, whether we like something or not, because it won't hinder it from happening. We can't skip a chapter, we can't pause the moment, we can't rewind it and hell, we can't change the ending.

What we can do, is to decide whether we let those things break us or not. We can decide how we let things affect us. We decide, if the glass is half empty or half full. We may not be able to control our lives, but we can control how we response to it.

Now, let me tell you a story. The story of a girl, finding back to herself, after she had lost everything that she had ever loved. It could be a drama, a love story, a comedy or an action movie. Or maybe, it's all at once, because our lives just aren't that simple.

My name is Malou Routledge, short for Mary-Louise. And this is my story.

Welcome to Untold.