Once upon a time, there was a girl. She wasn’t some great fairytale princess or anything. She was just a normal girl, like you and me. This girl grew up, got a career, had children, lived life the way life was supposed to be lived, and then she died.
That’s it.
That’s the end.
Gone. Kaput. Just like that.
Nothing could ever bring her back.
Cinderella’s fairy godmother wasn’t there to magic her back to life. Prince Charming wasn’t there to give her true love’s kiss. There wasn’t a curse to be lifted, or a quest to be completed. She wasn’t trapped in an enchanted sleep or poisoned by a evil witch.
It was simple, really.
Annabel Mary Brown died at age 34 in a car crash. She left behind a thirteen-year-old daughter, a grieving husband and a lifetime of buried hopes and dreams.
That is her story.
That was her life.
THE END
Now, it’s time to begin another story. This one is about a girl named Elle. A girl whose life flipped upside down at age 13 when her mother got into a horrific car crash. Elle still remembered the exact moment she and her father had received the call. Tuesday night, as they were eating lasagna and takeout from the nearby Chinese resteraunt and waiting for her mother to return from work, her father’s phone began to ring. Elle only remembered snatches and flashes of the conversation that had ensued, but what she would never forget was the way her father had turned ashy white, and the single, disbelieving word he had uttered:
“No.”
The later details were just a blur, moments lost in time, with only the bold, hard facts remaining: Annabel’s body was recovered from the wreck. It was cremated, and the ashes were thrown into the sea, just the way she would have wanted it, Elle’s father said.
Want.
It was a strange word. Definition: a desire, wish or need for something you didn’t have. What Elle wanted was to turn back time, talk to her mother and find some way to stop her from dying. If she was in a fairy tale, Elle thought, at this point some genie or fairy would descend from the heavens and answer her wishes. But this wasn’t a fairy tale. This was real life, and people didn’t always get what they wanted.
Day after day, month after month. Time passed on. Eventually, the memory began to hurt less. Elle recovered. Slowly. Then, something worse happened.
As she was cycling home from school one day, there was a shriek, a thump and then the furious sound of a car trying to brake. Elle barely had time to look up before a giant white minivan slammed straight into her. The world spun upside down, colors shifting into nothing. Distantly, Elle could hear people’s voices. A man, sounding panicked, saying: “Oh no. We better call the ambulance.” Then, the sensation that she was slowly being lifted. Though Elle fought to stay conscious, gradually all the noises grew softer and more detached and she began to feel herself fading away. Just as Elle felt certain that this was the end, a sharp, spidery little voice sounded in her head.
Ironic, isn’t it. Dying of a car crash just like your mother.
What? Elle felt certain that she was hallucinating.
And you had so much promise too. Never mind. I have come to collect you, child.
Who are you?
Me? I am everything and I am nothing. I am the darkness of the shadows and I am the wind in the trees. I am the silence and I am the cacophony of noise. They hate me and they fear me and yet they need me. My child, I am Death himself. And I have come to you at long last.
No. No! You can’t have me! Besides you can’t be death, that’s not possible! Please please let this be a nightmare.. Please tell me this isn’t real, Elle thought, feeling panicky and breathless all of a sudden. But indeed, it seemed realer than ever as the world around her began to morph and all of a sudden she was … in the middle of nowhere. That seemed to be the best description for the vast expanse of darkness she was surrounded by. Crooked, leafless trees that looked like old crones rose up in scraggly bunches around her, plumes of dust and smoke filled the air and the only source of light was a lone star, twinkling brightly in the night sky.
Not real? Child, you insult me for Death is the realest thing in the world. It is everywhere and it is nowhere and it will surround you with its embrace. Come now, I have no time for idle conversation. Come, child. Let me lead you away from this world.
Elle shuddered all over, as a clear vision of Death appeared in her mind. A tall figure cloaked in shadows reached spindly fingers towards her as she flinched away.
Don’t fight it, child.
I don’t want to die. Elle thought fervently. Let me stay. I’m begging you, please let me stay. My father, he needs me. He can’t cope with yet another death in his family. Listen, I have my whole life ahead of me. What about university? What about a career? What about everything that is yet to come? This can’t be my end. Not when my story hasn’t even started yet.
Death sighed, and it was a long, chilling gust of air that somehow filled the world with its sound of loneliness and despair.
My child, if only you knew the amount of times I have heard humans plead and pray for a chance to stay. I have collected infants that were newly born, snatched them from the arms of begging mothers. I have stolen the souls of those that had so much promise, so much potential and yet it was their time. I am the one who pens the words “The End” on the story of their lives and nothing you say will convince me to let you live.
For a moment, Elle thought of just listening to Death. It would be so easy, after all, to just curl up into a ball and let him take her away, where she could suffocate in a realm of silence and darkness. Perhaps she could even see her mother there! But then she thought of her father, and her schoolfriends, and all the days that were yet to come and all at once the number of unfinished things in Elle’s life shocked her. If she died now, she would never know what score she got on her algebra quiz, never get to eat the fabulous salmon Dad had said he was cooking for dinner tonight, never know if her best friend Max really did end up getting married to that handsome neighbor she was always gushing about, never get to redesign her room in the spring. Never, never, never.
It was as if her entire life was a stream of water, flowing from a tap until Death arrived and forcefully twisted the tap shut. Trickles and droplets of water still tried to escape, but eventually there was no more water. Dry. Barren. Desolate. That was what Elle imagined life after Death to be.
Life after Death. What a curious phrase.
And all of a sudden, Elle had an idea.
Death grabbed for her again, but Elle shifted away.
Wait. You say that each person’s life is a story. Elle said desperately. You are the one in charge of penning “The End” on their tales. You told me that my story ends here. But why?
Because it is written.
Then rewrite it.
Silence. Elle fixed her gaze on that single star, that one bit of hope in this land of despair.
Rewrite it? Death repeated, as if the concept was foreign to him.
Elle’s heart pounded. She had found something, a thread in the fabric of her fate, and if she pulled hard enough, maybe – just maybe – she could unravel it.
“Stories don’t have to end just because someone writes them down,” she argued. “They can change. New chapters can be added. A single rewording can turn a tragedy into something else.“
Death studied her for a long moment, his gaze unwavering. Then, with a slow, deliberate motion, he reached into the air beside him. A book appeared, a book with a rich brown cover and twisting spirals of gold engravings. A thin book with only a few pages. When Death opened it, Elle saw lines of elegant, shifting ink forming words she somehow knew were her own.
She saw her birth. Her first steps. Her mother’s death. The accident. The words spilled forward like water, rushing toward the final moment:
“Elle Mary Brown. Age thirteen. Died in a car accident.”
The End.
So final. So absolute. Her breath caught in her throat.
Death traced a skeletal finger along the final line of words, lingering there.
You are bold child. He murmured. Few dare question the ink of fate.
“That’s because they don’t realize they can,” Elle said, seizing the moment. “You’re the one who writes ‘The End,’ right? But that also means that you have the power to erase it.”
More silence. And just when Elle began to think that this was futile, that she was going to end up in a casket somewhere, buried without a hope of ever seeing the sky again, Death raised his hand over the book. His long fingers hovered over the words. The ink flickered, darkening, shifting, then slowly … melting away.
“The End” vanished.
The book trembled. Pages flipped wildly, as if caught in a storm. And then, suddenly, new words bled onto the parchment:
“Elle Mary Brown. Age thirteen. Almost died in a car accident.”
Death snapped the book shut.
Elle gasped as the world around her exploded in color, as if someone had turned the lights back on. She was falling and falling, her body snapping back to the moment before everything faded.
Her eyes flew open.
Fluorescent hospital lights burned above her. A sharp beeping filled the air. Her father’s frantic voice rang in the distance – “Elle? Elle!” – before she was engulfed in a crushing hug. Tears spilled down her cheeks as she clung to her weeping father, rejoicing in the happiness of that moment.
Elle was alive.
She had turned the page.
And her story wasn’t over yet.
The End
Have a story buzzing in your brain, waiting to burst onto the page? Have you created characters on a grand adventure, or perhaps written a poem about a moment that took your breath away? If you’re a middle or high school student with a passion for creative writing, we want to hear from you!
Images: Freepik
