Author's Note: This week's image was AI generated. This will be the only time I do this.
Now on with the show!
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A ten-year-old Cassie stood in the front yard driveway of her suburban home, its facade bathed in the amber glow of a setting sun. Behind it was the edge of a vast field of grain that frequently whispered whenever strong winds blew past them. However, there wasn't a single breeze this evening, as if the universe itself was aware of the tragic event unfolding around her and wished not to interrupt.
Nearby, her mother Layla wrestled with a suitcase, its bulging contours fighting against closure before finally sealing in the trunk of a red car.
Cassie, her heart an open wound, turned to her father, her voice a mixture of despair and desperation.
"W-Why do you have to divorce?" She sobbed, "Why can't you just promise to treat mum better and apologise to her with gifts like chocolate and roses?"
Her father's sigh was a heavy curtain, "It's more complicated than that, Cassie".
A spectre of self-blame, an unwelcome companion, slithered into Cassie's thoughts.
"Is this happening because of me? Am I the reason?" she whispered, clinging to a frail hope that her admission could magically alter her parents' decision.
"Cassie, No..." Layla knelt down before her daughter, her eyes a mirror of the sorrow she sought to shield Cassie from, "Doll, please, don't blame yourself. You know this has nothing to do with you, right? Even though Mom and Dad don't love each other anymore, we both love you, and we always will..."
A final embrace and a kiss on her forehead bridged the chasm of their long-term separation temporarily before Layla drove away, the shadow of her car etched against the backdrop of the sun dipping below the horizon. Above, a chorus of crows took flight, their cries mingling with the sorrow of the moment as the warm hand of her Father tenderly stroked her frizzy hair.
"I'm happy I still get to have you in my life at least..." he said, his sad smile a fragile veneer over his grief, "And don't worry, your mom will be back in a month to collect you so that you can spend time with her in Los Angeles. It will be like this for a long time. Possibly forever. I know you don't like this arrangement Doll but it's for the best. I love you Cassie. Everything will be ok".
Without warning, the once-harmonious caws of the crows morphed with sinister synchronicity into a tumultuous crescendo, a nightmarish symphony that culminated in a scream—a girl's scream—so shrill and piercing it seemed to cleave through the fabric of the memory itself.
Cassie, besieged by the auditory assault, clamped her hands over her ears and screwed her eyes shut, a desperate plea escaping her lips:
"Stop! Stop! I want to wake up."
At some unknown point in time, the screaming of the birds died down and she dared herself open her eyes, hoping to snap back into the comforting embrace of reality but instead, although finding her body reverted to her current age, she was now draped in a violet gown that shimmered with an ethereal, otherworldly grace and ensnared in an even more elaborate dream.
The harsh, discordant cry of the crows had given way to the dulcet tones of orchestral, classical music and the familiar, comforting landscape of her childhood memories had been transformed into a grandiose masquerade party unfolding in a palatial ballroom, each masked reveller a phantom participant in a dance of shadows and light.
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