• It all began when someone left the window open. Or, did it really begin when she moved in? It’s hard to say, but she did indeed move in, and someone did leave the window open and because of it, this curious occurrence came to be.
    The girl was a basic definition of normal; she had her set of friends, and her cluster of interests and skills, she was happy. But things happen, as they always do. Her life was flipped on its back. Everything was to be changed, and she didn’t want it, she was content with the way things were. There was nothing to be done, as she had realized. She had lost all important to her and entered a completely new area, with nobody and nothing. She decided to try and take it as a fresh start, entering this new place.
    The first thing she noticed was how odd her new home was: there were three floors with three bedrooms in all, but only three people living there. All her parents had to say on the topic was that there was a pull towards this house, that it felt right. She was assigned to live on the highest floor, having only a large bedroom and bathroom, accessible by a spiral staircase from the second floor hallway. When she actually made it up to the room, the first thing she noticed was the walls, the wallpaper to be more specific: pure white doves against intertwining vines. They looked caught in midflight, almost as if they had just freed themselves from the vines grasp. Despite the rich colors, it looks worn and old; the girl assumed it had been around as long as the old house itself. She didn’t think too much about it except that it was unique, why should she care?
    After moving, it became apparent that things weren’t working for the girl. She tried to look on the bright side, but she couldn’t accept her new life. She went to school, but she didn’t want to learn anything, she went through the motions of talking to new people, but she couldn’t bring herself to like any of them. Her best days were the ones where she didn’t have to deal with any people at all. Everything felt wrong. Her mind was possessed by thoughts of her old life and all she had lost. All of these changes came at her so fast, she was too shocked to react, and she began to feel the repercussions. Day after day she found more reason to despair than smile, and she couldn’t stop herself from growing dimmer.
    After some time passed, and things still hadn’t improved, her health deteriorated as well as her mind; her sleep was messed up, she didn’t want to eat, she lost weight, and she began feeling sick often. Sometimes she would have periods of intense fear; she couldn’t breathe or think straight, she would just curl up in a ball and wait for the pain to pass, sometimes she would open up the window to breathe some fresh air. Of course the physical pain would leave after a while, but the mental scars would only build more. She told no one. Despite all these things going on, it never occurred to her what was going on was abnormal, that she shouldn’t feel this abysmal 24/7, which no one should have to deal with. No one knew, she assumed no one cared.
    The details of her every day were the same: get up, go to school, come home, and sleep, give or take a few details. She just did what she thought was comfortable. One particular day, she woke up a little later than usual and had to leave home in a rush, forgetting to close her window from the previous night’s fit of fear. During the day and returning home she thought nothing of it. She came directly into her room and over to her dresser to remove her contacts to go to sleep. Because she was removing her contacts, she didn’t notice that a dove inches from her face was peeling off the wall and morphing into a three dimensional and living thing. She just finished up and curled into herself in bed. Later on, the only thing she would be able to recall from her dreams was that it was very white.
    She woke up and after trying to recall more of her dreams and failing, she stumbled to her dresser wiping the sleep from her eyes and put her contacts back in. She turned around and was met by hundreds of birds staring straight back at her, almost like statues. She should have been scared and yelled or something, that would have been a normal response, but she just stood there. She was shocked of course, but she was met with a heavy sense of calm as soon as she laid eyes on the group, and all she could do was think how and why they were here. She noticed the wallpaper and pieced that it had to have been where they came from, but how? While all these thoughts and theories were running in her head, a single dove landed on her shoulder and began cooing softly. A couple birds joined in at a time, and before she knew it, there was a chorus of birds singing to her, and she felt that it was an attempt to comfort her.
    She noted that she hadn’t felt so calm in ages, and asked herself why. This in turn led her to ask why she never felt calm or comfortable, and it was as if a light bulb had switched in her brain. Why hasn’t she allowed herself comfort? Why couldn’t she move on and choose to try happiness? The sudden realization hit her that she had been putting herself through this pain and this heartache for a very fixable situation. She knew now, she was killing herself with the way she was being.
    She hadn’t noticed it, but amidst all these thoughts, she had a solitary tear fall down her cheek and onto the floor. The bird perched on her shoulder took flight again, losing a feather in the process. The girl watched it descend slowly, and cover up her fallen tear. The hundreds of other birds ceased their song and followed the first, proceeding to fly in a steady pattern which encircled the girl. She sank to her knees and finally let out the real pain she had been feeling. As she cried and cried, she could feel all of her numbness and fear flow out of her as well. It felt like all of the pent up feelings she had were being taken out of her by this whirlwind of feathers and snowy white. For every tear that fell, there was a feather to float down and catch it, and a painful memory to shed.
    The girl tried to calm herself down after she felt she had done enough, but as she looked up, the birds were on their respective parts of the wall, and the room was still. She was confused, wondering what was real and what wasn’t, but in the end, she didn’t really care if it was real or not, because a part of her had been healed. The girl stood up and reached out to touch one of the paper birds, and as she did so, she thought to herself that they had never looked as bright.