A Flight's Desire

Chapter 1: Sleepless Nights

"No! No! No no no no no!" The young woman sitting on her bed shouted at her laptop, whose screen was brighter than she would have preferred it to be. "Why are you doing this to me?" She screamed, frustrated beyond anything, the pain in the back of her neck not helping her anger. She wanted to throw her laptop with a great force on the floor and break it, but cleaning it afterwards would pose a real challenge. Her laptop was a part of her, but it really got on her nerves sometimes.

The bridge of her nose was hurting because of wearing glasses for a really long time. She removed the black-coloured square-rimmed Titan glasses that left their mark on either side of her nose and placed them next to her on top of the book that she had been reading for motivation. She closed her eyes for a minute or so as she let the momentum of the situation take her entirely with it. She slowed her breathing to a minimum and enjoyed the peaceful silence of her room before a beeping sound on her right broke the tension that she was feeling.

She opened her eyes immediately, annoyed at the sudden disturbance, and turned her head towards the sound, realizing that it was nothing but the alarm on her phone. She picked it up and a sigh escaped her. "I should be sleeping," she told herself as well as the alarm clock that was definitely telling her so. "I know that I should. Well, I can't." She placed her phone back on the nightstand for it to continue charging.

The walls felt like they were closing in. It was difficult to breathe due to the pressure that she was feeling, almost hearing the disappointed voices in the room. She buried her face into the pillow that she had been hugging and screamed into it. That was one of the only things that she could do to calm her mind down. Sometimes, letting it all out was better than keeping it all in and suffering in silence. She turned her attention to her laptop that was threatening to wash into sleep mode. "Please work out." She begged with her hands joined together. "I need you to help me out here, buddy."

She massaged her temples by moving her fingers in the clockwise and the anti-clockwise direction, hoping that it would help. The region below her eyebrows were paining very badly - another reminder of her lack of slap. She tied her brunette hair into a bun, praying that it would help. When it didn't, she took a deep breath. "This is not working out."

Not getting any ideas, she walked out of her room and into the living room. The vintage yellow overhead lights that she switched on looked brighter to her tired eyes while she made herself a nice cup of coffee. Coffee fixed everything - that was her motto. No matter what went wrong in her life, coffee was never one of them.

She warmed her fingers on the outer surface of the mug and danced into the living room to open the curtains of the window that looked over the city, especially the Széchenyi Chain Bridge. The bridge looked beautiful when it was all lit up. She could feel the breeze that would be blowing outside even without having to open the windows. She didn't need to. She had lived in Budapest for a while and it was a second home to her. She knew the city like the back of her hand and could move around with a blindfold without faltering or straying from her path. It was definitely a home to her. She knew the people very well and felt safe and happy living in her single bedroom apartment. She imagined herself cycling over the bridge and looking down at the River Danube. It was one of her favourite spots in the entire city. She would go there before she made any big decision in her life.

Robin Hale snuggled herself on the couch and looked at the late night sky. The city was asleep unlike her. Looking at the moving clouds with beady eyes, a sudden calmness spread over her, but the thought of what was waiting for her back in her room made her groan.

She should have been writing her second novel. Her manager, who was also her best friend, had informed her that the publishers of her book Out of the Blue were asking for a second book because of the potential that it held. Her first book became famous despite what she had thought initially, but everything that she wrote felt wrong. She needed inspiration.