#dpgen1

Once upon a time, there was a girl. A beautiful girl with hair of gold who wrote her dreams down in books, never to see the light of day. Dreams that would never come to be. Dreams that helped her cope with her every day life. Her room lacked decoration and her home lacked warmth; all in thanks to her stepmother who had not one nice bone in her body. It had only gotten worse since her father had passed of a heart attack. Now it was just the two of them. The two of them alone, in their cold house, with nothing but Everly’s dreams to keep her company.

*Thank you for the templates, @aliennooboo!

There were happy moments in her life too. It wasn’t all misery and chores. Everly loved nature. Everything about it. The feel of the grass under her feet, the rain on her face, the wind in her hair. She felt free. No one could judge her or ruin her mood when she was outside in her element.

“If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a million times. I never want to see a dirty dish in the sink, Everly!” the evil woman with dark hair said with a shrill tone. Her name was Evie Step and she was Everly’s only guardian since her father passed. Bad news for Everly and also bad news for Evie who hated children. Hated most people, really.

“I did the dishes two hours ago,” Everly replied.

“I just ate soup! The bowl is in the sink now. If you ever paid attention and stopped spending so much time doodling ridiculous drawings in your room you might have known that. You know I hate it when the soup crusts up in the bowls,” Evie snapped. Soup crust was her number three annoyance after the sound of happily tweeting birds by her window and neighbors nodding politely to her in the street.

“I’ll pay more attention, mother,” said Everly.

A dream is a wish your heart makes When you're fast asleep In dreams you will lose your heartaches Whatever you wish for, you keep Have faith in your dreams and someday Your rainbow will come smiling through No matter how your heart is grieving If you keep on believing The dream that you wish will come true

Once all her daily chores were finished, Everly would wander around the outside of the house, though never too far. She didn’t want to run across anyone else that might ask her who she was or where she came from. She kept to herself, the animals, and Fay. She still hadn’t told Fay the entire story of what had happened with her stepmother, but had given her bits and pieces of her upbringing. Enough to keep Fay from encouraging her to go home. She was such a help around the house that Fay was becoming a bit dependent on her.

No matter where she went, animals of all kinds flocked to Everly as if she had some sort of special animal powers or something. Birds literally landed on her, tweeting songs into her ear every single time she went on a walk. She loved them all; all these creatures great and small. She loved them much more than she loved people.

Everly spent so much time in the kitchen cooking meals and doing dishes that her hands were permanently chapped and calloused. And she was only sixteen! Her stepmother kept her so busy around the house doing errands that she wasn’t allowed to go to school. Her stepmother assured her that school wouldn’t teach her anything of use anyway. Hard work and dedication to the household’s cleanliness would teach her everything she needed to know about the real world, she assured her.

What happened next was a blur to Everly. She remembered a spark, then a cry from her stepmother, then smoke enveloping the house at an alarming rate. Her natural instincts kicked in and she ran as fast as she could out the door, not even thinking once about stopping to look for Evie. She ran and ran and did not stop for a long time. A small voice, very faint, in the back of her mind said, burn, burn, let it all burn away.