… Elizabeth took a tentative step forward onto the grass plains that surrounded the mansion that she was in. After making sure that no one was following her, she took a wider leap forwards and started running as fast as her legs could carry her. Exhilaration built up inside her as she thought of the expanse of freedom that was waiting for her outside the perimeters of this castle until—

            CRACK!

            There was the sound of a breaking twig and she found herself lying completely flat on the grass; she had just tripped over an inconspicuous tree branch and her legs felt as heavy as lead from the effect; it was impossible to move it without causing pain to her ankle. Miserably she felt more than imagined her freedom slipping away from her hands. She wriggled her fingers urgently as if trying to grab hold of it; her escape plan had failed.

            “Elizabeth!” came a hoarse cry from behind her. Someone was padding towards her and she struggled to escape, to run, but her ankle resisted against her wishes.

            “Elizabeth! Why did you run away again?”

            The man helped her to a sitting position and she stole a glance at his beautifully carved features. He had wonderful, thick black hair that was trimmed neatly at the sides, though his fringe spilled over his eyes so that he often had to gaze through the curtain of hair to look at her. Not that Elizabeth minded it at all; she thought his overly-long fringe made him look y. But it was his eyes that stole her heart the first time she met him. He had dark eyes as black as the universe, and that sparkled as though there were little stars living in his pupils. Following her line of vision, his nose was slim and pointed, and he had lips as pink as peaches… In fact, it would probably taste like peaches…

            “Prince Harry! You mustn’t be here—“ Elizabeth cried, trying her best to tear her gaze away from his handsome features, but finding it hard to do so.

            “No, Elizabeth. If you want to escape from this palace, then I’m going with you!” Prince Harry replied with insistence, his eyes boring into Elizabeth’s.

            Elizabeth felt the distance between them close, Prince Harry’s face was inches from hers; in about a second, no, half a second, she would discover for herself the taste of his lips… if they really tasted as delicious as they looked—

            “Ow!” Winter yelped as something round and yellow hit her against the right side of her skull. She turned towards the direction of the attacker in a fit of anger and found her classmates laughing mutely at her from the far side of the classroom. Winter rolled her eyes deliberately in annoyance. She hated being a part of this class as it was made up of mischievous pranksters who enjoyed breaking the peace in a typical classroom. Today, Winter guessed, their idea of a prank was to throw crushed up paper balls at random targets in the class when the teacher was not looking. Biting back her anger, Winter hurried to grab her pen and continue writing out the scenes to her self-written melodrama. All she required was one more minute to complete that —

            And her journal was gone in a rush. Her Math teacher was already flipping through the pages before Winter could comprehend the situation.

            “Well well well and what have we here? Is it devil little Winter passing notes in the middle of math class?” said Mr Jeong in a poisonous manner.

            Winter, sensing danger, tried to grab her journal back, but Mr Jeong already had it way out of Winter’s reach. “Please sir, this is nothing. It is simply nonsense written by a bored student. Please;”

            “Hold on now, this is some juicy business! Winter was writing fiction in class! Her very own creation indeed. And I thought a bunch of sixteen-year olds about to graduate in a few days could leave a shred of respect for their teachers. But I guess not for little miss Winter here. Now what have you written?”

            To Winter’s ultimate horror, Mr Jeong started to read off the portion that she had freshly written in class a few minutes ago. She shrunk back in her seat in exasperation, trying to hide herself from what was going to happen next.

Please Subscribe to read the full chapter