Utopia
Title: Utopia
Summary: Imagine a world with everything you ever wanted; the world of your dreams. Would you want to wake up?
(A/N: Inspired by Coraline and Yume Nikki (Dream Diary), a Japanese video game where the protagonist explores the bizarre worlds of her subconscious mind when she goes to sleep. (Belated) birthday present for sootato! (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:・ﾟ✧)
She woke up in a dimly-lit octagonal room, with white-washed walls that had intricate designs on them. On each of the 8 walls there was a door, but there were no windows anywhere, so she had no idea what time of the day it was. She assumed it was night time because it was about 11pm when she went to bed. Each door was about 2 meters tall, with a gold handle and a small peephole. Each door had something different that distinguished one from the other: one had a dream-catcher hanging from a hook, another was in a shade of blue that resembled the sky, and another had a great lion painted on it.
She wondered how she got to this strange place, and slowly got up to look for a way back to her bedroom. She looked around and noticed that one of the doors had a mirror hanging from it, and it looked exactly like the mirror in her bedroom. She walked towards it but stopped when she saw someone approaching her from that door. "Silly me," she thought, waving her hands in front of the door, and the reflection did the same. "It's just my reflection." She walked closer and looked in the mirror again. The person staring back at her looked just like her; only with silkier hair, rosier cheeks, eyes that sparkled and full, pink lips. Even the pajamas that the girl in the mirror was wearing looked softer and more comfortable.
She placed one hand on the gold handle and looked through the peephole. She saw her bedroom, looking exactly like it was before she got to this strange room. She slowly opened the door and stepped into the room. The floor felt soft beneath her feet and she realized that the floor in this room was carpeted, unlike the tiled floor of her own room. She looked around the room she had thought was her bedroom. It was like her bedroom, but everything seemed better. The room seemed bigger and the temperature was cool, not as stuffy as her bedroom was. She walked to her wardrobe and opened it, her eyes widening at the sight of every piece of designer clothing she had ever wanted but could never afford.
Sunlight streamed in through the bedroom window. She walked over and looked outside. Instead of the usual view of her front garden and neighbor's house, what she saw looked like it was taken right out of a travel postcard. Her house was a castle and the moat surrounding it was as clear as glass, with mermaids looking up, smiling and waving at her. "What is this place..." she wondered, looking around the room curiously before opening the bedroom door again.
This time, the door didn't lead to the strange, octagonal room she came from before. There was another door on the white wall in front of her room, and when she looked to the right and left she realized that the door to her room was in the middle of a corridor, and at the two ends of the corridor there were maids and butlers rushing to places she did not know of. One of them noticed her watching and hurried towards her. "Princess! You're awake! You have to prepare for your coronation," he gushed, stepping aside while he gestured towards the left of the corridor.
"My what?" She was confused, but she found herself walking along with him anyway. They walked past many doors; one in particular that caught her attention. Unlike the other wooden doors, this one looked like the door of a vault. She made a mental note of its position and reminded herself to go back to it later. She noticed someone familiar and ran towards her. "Mom!" she yelled, tapping her on the shoulder. "What are you doing here? Why are we here?"
The woman turned around, and the girl realized that this woman was her mother, but slightly different. Her features were softer, and when she spoke her voice was mellifluous, unlike the nagging she was used to back in the other world. "Why, honey," she said, "we've always been here." That day was spent exploring her 'home'. She discovered a large kitchen with an enchanted refrigerator. Whenever she felt like eating something, a cool breeze would blow in her direction when she opened the refrigerator door and what she had craved for would be there, on a silver platter. She also found a beautiful garden outside with a myriad of colorful flowers, and the grass as soft as the carpeted floor in the bedroom.
She remembered the steel door she saw earlier and decided to find out what was behind it. She had a feeling she wasn't supposed to be there, but she wanted to know what had to be kept so secure and hidden in this wonderful place. She rounded a corner and stopped when she saw the same butler from before talking to her mother outside the door. "She mustn't know the details of the coronation," said her mother in a hushed tone. "she might find a way to go back before we can proceed." The girl watched from the corner in silence as her mother walked away. Her heels clacking on the stone floor echoed eerily in the silence.
The butler looked around once before placing his hand on one of the stone bricks on the wall next to the steel door. With a slight push the brick swiveled inwards, and he placed something in the small hole in the wall. He pushed the brick back in place and, thankfully, walked off in the opposite direction from where the girl was waiting. She waited to see if anyone was coming in her direction, but she heard no footsteps. She took small steps towards the door and repeated what she had seen the butler do earlier. A gold key shone before her eyes.
She grabbed the silver twine that was tied in a loop through a small hole in the key and put the loop around her wrist. She put it in the keyhole of the steel door and turned it to the right. She heard a soft click and the door slowly opened. She stepped inside and closed the door behind her. She stiffened when she saw something move in the corner. A girl about her age shifted out from the shadows and looked at her with large, deer-like eyes. She looked frightened but when she realized that the girl was just as scared as she was, she spoke.
"You have to get out of here," she said, her hands shaking as she pointed to the gold key in the girl's hand. "Use that. Go back to the bedroom and lock the door with it. Wait 3 seconds and unlock the door. When you open it you'll get to the octagonal room. Lock the bedroom door again, then find a stone brick on the wall that moves. Put the key back in the hole and push the brick back into place. When you try the bedroom door again, it'll be unlocked, and you'll be back in your world."
"How do I know I can trust you?" the girl asked, her fingers tightening around the gold key.
"You don't understand, do you?" the other girl replied, looking at her sadly. "You'll end up like me. You'll want to stay here forever because it looks like such a lovely place, when it's not. The 'coronation' the Queen's been talking about-"
"You mean my mother?" the girl interrupted.
"She's not your mother. She only looks like your mother. When I first got here she looked like my mother too, but when they threw me in here her face changed to look like how she does now. Where was I?" she asked, looking back at the girl.
"The coronation...?" she replied.
"Yes, that. You're not going to be crowned Queen or anything like that. The coronation is a sacrifice to keep the Queen, and this place, alive. After me, you'll be next if you stay. You've only been here a day so you can still go back, but once you stay here for 5 days, you'll be stuck here forever, like me. You'd better go back while you still can. Forget about me, I can't leave even if I tried," the other girl retreated into the corner of the dungeon into the shadows. The girl opened the steel door and kept the gold key in her pocket. She walked back to her bedroom, with the other girl's words swimming in her mind.
She woke up in the middle of the night after countless tossing and turning. She sat up with a jolt when she remembered what the other girl told her. The conversation between the butler and the Queen finally made sense. She walked to the bedroom door and took the key from her pocket. "Here goes nothing," she thought, as she put the key in the keyhole of the bedroom door. she waited 3 seconds before looking through the peephole. The white, octagonal room was there, just as the other girl had said. She took a deep breath as she placed her hand on the gold handle, ready to leave, when suddenly she heard a voice behind her.
"Honey! You're not thinking of leaving before your coronation, are you?" said the Queen, who was seated by the window. She stood up and slowly walked towards the girl. The girl glanced at the mirror as the Queen walked past it. The woman in the reflection was old and haggard. "Give me the key, dear."
The girl quickly opened the door and almost fell into the white room. She slammed the door shut and locked it with the gold key, her hands trembling as she did so. "Open the door, darling," the Queen hissed, the door shaking as if something large was throwing itself against it. "I don't want to!" the girl screamed as she pushed the brick in the wall and threw the gold key inside the small hole. She hurriedly pushed the brick back in place, and the door stopped shaking. She turned to look at the mirror, which was beginning to crack.
"No!" the girl could see the Queen and the bedroom through the mirror. The castle was shaking violently, and the Queen's face cracked like the mirror did. She clutched at her face but that only made it worse. She collapsed on the carpeted floor as the walls of the room crumbled around her. More cracks formed on the mirror till the girl could no longer see the other world. The mirror shattered into pieces, the silver pieces crashing onto the floor like a waterfall. The shards slowly faded and vanished into thin air.
The girl slowly approached the door and looked through the peephole. She saw her bedroom, empty as it usually was. She tried the handle and the door opened with a soft click. She stepped into the room and almost cried out in relief when she felt the cold, tiled floor beneath her feet. She opened the wardrobe and saw all her usual clothes hanging by their grey hangers. She rushed to her window and looked outside, a smile forming on her lips as she saw her dog running around her front garden, and her neighbor looking up, smiling at her.
"Good morning," her mother stood by the door, smiling as she brought a tray with eggs and bacon into the room. "I thought you'd like some breakfast in bed. I'm sorry I've been so hard on you lately. Did you have sweet dreams?"
"I guess so. But I don't think I could dream up a better place than where I am now," the girl replied, taking the tray from her mother as they both walked to their cosy little kitchen to have breakfast together.
Summary: Imagine a world with everything you ever wanted; the world of your dreams. Would you want to wake up?
(A/N: Inspired by Coraline and Yume Nikki (Dream Diary), a Japanese video game where the protagonist explores the bizarre worlds of her subconscious mind when she goes to sleep. (Belated) birthday present for sootato! (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:・ﾟ✧)
She woke up in a dimly-lit octagonal room, with white-washed walls that had intricate designs on them. On each of the 8 walls there was a door, but there were no windows anywhere, so she had no idea what time of the day it was. She assumed it was night time because it was about 11pm when she went to bed. Each door was about 2 meters tall, with a gold handle and a small peephole. Each door had something different that distinguished one from the other: one had a dream-catcher hanging from a hook, another was in a shade of blue that resembled the sky, and another had a great lion painted on it.
She wondered how she got to this strange place, and slowly got up to look for a way back to her bedroom. She looked around and noticed that one of the doors had a mirror hanging from it, and it looked exactly like the mirror in her bedroom. She walked towards it but stopped when she saw someone approaching her from that door. "Silly me," she thought, waving her hands in front of the door, and the reflection did the same. "It's just my reflection." She walked closer and looked in the mirror again. The person staring back at her looked just like her; only with silkier hair, rosier cheeks, eyes that sparkled and full, pink lips. Even the pajamas that the girl in the mirror was wearing looked softer and more comfortable.
She placed one hand on the gold handle and looked through the peephole. She saw her bedroom, looking exactly like it was before she got to this strange room. She slowly opened the door and stepped into the room. The floor felt soft beneath her feet and she realized that the floor in this room was carpeted, unlike the tiled floor of her own room. She looked around the room she had thought was her bedroom. It was like her bedroom, but everything seemed better. The room seemed bigger and the temperature was cool, not as stuffy as her bedroom was. She walked to her wardrobe and opened it, her eyes widening at the sight of every piece of designer clothing she had ever wanted but could never afford.
Sunlight streamed in through the bedroom window. She walked over and looked outside. Instead of the usual view of her front garden and neighbor's house, what she saw looked like it was taken right out of a travel postcard. Her house was a castle and the moat surrounding it was as clear as glass, with mermaids looking up, smiling and waving at her. "What is this place..." she wondered, looking around the room curiously before opening the bedroom door again.
This time, the door didn't lead to the strange, octagonal room she came from before. There was another door on the white wall in front of her room, and when she looked to the right and left she realized that the door to her room was in the middle of a corridor, and at the two ends of the corridor there were maids and butlers rushing to places she did not know of. One of them noticed her watching and hurried towards her. "Princess! You're awake! You have to prepare for your coronation," he gushed, stepping aside while he gestured towards the left of the corridor.
"My what?" She was confused, but she found herself walking along with him anyway. They walked past many doors; one in particular that caught her attention. Unlike the other wooden doors, this one looked like the door of a vault. She made a mental note of its position and reminded herself to go back to it later. She noticed someone familiar and ran towards her. "Mom!" she yelled, tapping her on the shoulder. "What are you doing here? Why are we here?"
The woman turned around, and the girl realized that this woman was her mother, but slightly different. Her features were softer, and when she spoke her voice was mellifluous, unlike the nagging she was used to back in the other world. "Why, honey," she said, "we've always been here." That day was spent exploring her 'home'. She discovered a large kitchen with an enchanted refrigerator. Whenever she felt like eating something, a cool breeze would blow in her direction when she opened the refrigerator door and what she had craved for would be there, on a silver platter. She also found a beautiful garden outside with a myriad of colorful flowers, and the grass as soft as the carpeted floor in the bedroom.
She remembered the steel door she saw earlier and decided to find out what was behind it. She had a feeling she wasn't supposed to be there, but she wanted to know what had to be kept so secure and hidden in this wonderful place. She rounded a corner and stopped when she saw the same butler from before talking to her mother outside the door. "She mustn't know the details of the coronation," said her mother in a hushed tone. "she might find a way to go back before we can proceed." The girl watched from the corner in silence as her mother walked away. Her heels clacking on the stone floor echoed eerily in the silence.
The butler looked around once before placing his hand on one of the stone bricks on the wall next to the steel door. With a slight push the brick swiveled inwards, and he placed something in the small hole in the wall. He pushed the brick back in place and, thankfully, walked off in the opposite direction from where the girl was waiting. She waited to see if anyone was coming in her direction, but she heard no footsteps. She took small steps towards the door and repeated what she had seen the butler do earlier. A gold key shone before her eyes.
She grabbed the silver twine that was tied in a loop through a small hole in the key and put the loop around her wrist. She put it in the keyhole of the steel door and turned it to the right. She heard a soft click and the door slowly opened. She stepped inside and closed the door behind her. She stiffened when she saw something move in the corner. A girl about her age shifted out from the shadows and looked at her with large, deer-like eyes. She looked frightened but when she realized that the girl was just as scared as she was, she spoke.
"You have to get out of here," she said, her hands shaking as she pointed to the gold key in the girl's hand. "Use that. Go back to the bedroom and lock the door with it. Wait 3 seconds and unlock the door. When you open it you'll get to the octagonal room. Lock the bedroom door again, then find a stone brick on the wall that moves. Put the key back in the hole and push the brick back into place. When you try the bedroom door again, it'll be unlocked, and you'll be back in your world."
"How do I know I can trust you?" the girl asked, her fingers tightening around the gold key.
"You don't understand, do you?" the other girl replied, looking at her sadly. "You'll end up like me. You'll want to stay here forever because it looks like such a lovely place, when it's not. The 'coronation' the Queen's been talking about-"
"You mean my mother?" the girl interrupted.
"She's not your mother. She only looks like your mother. When I first got here she looked like my mother too, but when they threw me in here her face changed to look like how she does now. Where was I?" she asked, looking back at the girl.
"The coronation...?" she replied.
"Yes, that. You're not going to be crowned Queen or anything like that. The coronation is a sacrifice to keep the Queen, and this place, alive. After me, you'll be next if you stay. You've only been here a day so you can still go back, but once you stay here for 5 days, you'll be stuck here forever, like me. You'd better go back while you still can. Forget about me, I can't leave even if I tried," the other girl retreated into the corner of the dungeon into the shadows. The girl opened the steel door and kept the gold key in her pocket. She walked back to her bedroom, with the other girl's words swimming in her mind.
She woke up in the middle of the night after countless tossing and turning. She sat up with a jolt when she remembered what the other girl told her. The conversation between the butler and the Queen finally made sense. She walked to the bedroom door and took the key from her pocket. "Here goes nothing," she thought, as she put the key in the keyhole of the bedroom door. she waited 3 seconds before looking through the peephole. The white, octagonal room was there, just as the other girl had said. She took a deep breath as she placed her hand on the gold handle, ready to leave, when suddenly she heard a voice behind her.
"Honey! You're not thinking of leaving before your coronation, are you?" said the Queen, who was seated by the window. She stood up and slowly walked towards the girl. The girl glanced at the mirror as the Queen walked past it. The woman in the reflection was old and haggard. "Give me the key, dear."
The girl quickly opened the door and almost fell into the white room. She slammed the door shut and locked it with the gold key, her hands trembling as she did so. "Open the door, darling," the Queen hissed, the door shaking as if something large was throwing itself against it. "I don't want to!" the girl screamed as she pushed the brick in the wall and threw the gold key inside the small hole. She hurriedly pushed the brick back in place, and the door stopped shaking. She turned to look at the mirror, which was beginning to crack.
"No!" the girl could see the Queen and the bedroom through the mirror. The castle was shaking violently, and the Queen's face cracked like the mirror did. She clutched at her face but that only made it worse. She collapsed on the carpeted floor as the walls of the room crumbled around her. More cracks formed on the mirror till the girl could no longer see the other world. The mirror shattered into pieces, the silver pieces crashing onto the floor like a waterfall. The shards slowly faded and vanished into thin air.
The girl slowly approached the door and looked through the peephole. She saw her bedroom, empty as it usually was. She tried the handle and the door opened with a soft click. She stepped into the room and almost cried out in relief when she felt the cold, tiled floor beneath her feet. She opened the wardrobe and saw all her usual clothes hanging by their grey hangers. She rushed to her window and looked outside, a smile forming on her lips as she saw her dog running around her front garden, and her neighbor looking up, smiling at her.
"Good morning," her mother stood by the door, smiling as she brought a tray with eggs and bacon into the room. "I thought you'd like some breakfast in bed. I'm sorry I've been so hard on you lately. Did you have sweet dreams?"
"I guess so. But I don't think I could dream up a better place than where I am now," the girl replied, taking the tray from her mother as they both walked to their cosy little kitchen to have breakfast together.