Beasty | First Draft Sample

01

They said, "life is wonderful"

"The possibilities a person can have are endless, the tales their lives can spin — countless."

They said. Everyone around me.

And every time they said, every time I heard of peaches and sunshine and candies and perfection, I laughed.

They said a lot of things. After all, they were all optimists. My mother, my dad, my sister. Hell, even her self-announced nerdy accountant of a husband.

But what had the glorious life they spun given them?

An untimely demise.

What optimists always forget to realise is ultimately the hard fact that life isn't all peaches and sun rays. There is only a limit to where 'plan Bs', 'plan Cs' and 'plan Ds' actually work if something goes wrong again. It is a game.

It isn't like I'm a pessimist—I've seen the joys of life, I've walked through the field of flowers. But that never stops me from knowing that even the field dries, barren, when seasons change.

Growing up, even I knew, that sometimes life's game could rival the one in The Hunger Games. But dammit, most times, in times like these, I wish life knew that I was no Katniss Everdeen.

Cringing at even comparing Hunger Games to my own life I shut my eyes for a minute before I did another sweep around the boutique.

Midday Wednesday found me behind the counters of a very posh and happening boutique situated just near my college campus.

I was employed because I wanted to be, after all, a few extra bucks in my pocket beside the allowance my scholarship offered was always a thing to welcome with warm arms.

Another reason I preferred to work? I didn't want to be a burden on my aunt. I was after-all lodging in her home ever since I moved to Berlin.

Aunt Prue (or Prudence). Prue, for the professional world, was a high ended, self-independent, one of the most talented lawyers Berlin could have.

After my mother and grandma, Primrose Elizabeth, she was my only living relative. And considering Grandma Primrose lived all the way around the world — in Australia. Aunt Prue had insisted — no in fact ordered — that if I were to study in Berlin and not in London, my home city — I would live with her.

It had taken a few weeks but come the end of the time — I had given in. It wasn't such a bad idea after all.

"Erm excuse me?"

Immediately my eyes darted up and met with warm ones. I smiled. Genuinely.

"Hello! How may I help you?"

The red-haired teenage girl, who looked thirteen fidgeted on her feet before extending a dress towards me.

My eyes moved over to the dress and stopped.

It was skimpy da la skimpy.

"Going to a party?" I suggested lamely, not at all judging the poor girl for wanting to wear that piece of rag.

I had to admit, although the dress was in our boutique, I could bet my woolly socks it could barely cover anyone's posterior, if at all.

"Yeah," the girl mumbled out shyly. I nodded, smiling, as I reached out and took the dress from her extended hands.

"It's beautiful. Impressing a date?"

Her eyes fidgeted to mine and back to the dress. She nodded. "Kyle likes... girls in these sorts of... clothes."