I heard the scream as clear as if it should have been me myself who uttered it. “Cassandra!” I yelled, but there was no answer. I ran from my bedroom as fast as I could, and entered her room. The curtains were blowing violently in the wind, paintings lay on the floor, the room was colder than winter itself. The bed in the middle of the room was messy, the two red pillows were on the floor, and the large mirror on the wall above the desk had been broken. I ran to the window and looked outside. The window was situated right above a steep cliff, leading straight down to the sea, several thousand feet below. The waves were thrashing against the rocks of the shore, and then I saw it… her red dress, floating in the violent sea. Tears flowed freely down my cheeks, as I realized that my only companion through the last ten years had now gone. My heart felt broken, like the mirror, and I clutched my chest and gasped for air as I sat down by the desk. On the desk in front of the broken mirror lay my book. A book with a red cover, my masterpiece, and the only important thing I’d ever done. It was not a diary or a journal, like I’d told her so many times. It was a story, a story I started ten years ago. It was a story that had just finished.
It was a story called Cassandra.1
It started ten years ago. I was a writer, out of money and out of ideas. I would walk around my lonely house day in and day out, thinking and pondering upon what I should write. When I finally thought of something to write, I noticed that I was out of paper, my usual luck. I walked down to the village of Mirror Breeze, a long and tiresome walk from my isolated house, but I needed to find some cheap paper. As always, I was out of luck. Paper was expensive, and I was out of money. As I was leaving, only bread new to my bag, an old woman approached me. Her clothes were ragged and filthy, but she had a kind and gentle smile. She told me she’d seen me asking around for paper, and told me she could give me a whole book with paper, if I only gave her the bread I’d purchased. The bread had been cheap, and I was in no shortage of food, living so close to the forest and the sea. I thanked her sincerely, giving her the bread and a fish I’d brought to trade. She smiled at me, handing me the leather-bound book, telling me to write something beautiful. I promised that I would, and started walking back up to the top of the cliff and the comfort of my house.2
That very night, I started writing. I had a solid idea. I started writing about a girl being the only survivor of a shipwreck. Lost and confused, she walked towards the only house around. A lonely man lived in the house, and he took the girl in to take care of her. After writing the first few pages, about the girl and the man meeting, I noticed that I was out of ink. Now, ink was cheap, but it was far too late to go back down into the village, so I decided to wait until the next day. As I went to bed, I felt good about finally writing again, and I was looking forward to continuing the story the next day after buying ink.3
The next morning, someone knocked on my door. For me, this was strange. I rarely ever had visitors, and if I had, they did not walk up the long and tiresome road to the top of the cliff at this time of the morning. I opened the door, and there stood a young girl. Her clothes were soaking, and even her lovely long golden hair was completely covered in water and sand. She looked at me for a second, and then the tears started flowing down her face. I took her in my arms and carried her over to the fireplace. I lit a fire and made her a hot drink, finding some blankets I could use to help warm her up. Her lips were blue, and she was shivering, yet she had the courtesy to thank me, warming my old heart. As I sat down beside her, she told me what had happened. Her father was some sort of a travelling merchant, and as a widower, he had to take her on his journeys. But this time, their ship had been in a terrible storm, out of course and trapped in heavy currents, it had shattered against the cliff. She told me she’d been carried to shore by the waves, and somehow managed to climb up to the top of the cliff, hoping there would be someone there.4
That night, I let her sleep in my bed, as I walked down to the shore looking for other survivors. I found none, not even bodies. The only evidence of there ever being a ship was a single piece of wood that carried the inscription “Ophelia”, said by the girl to be the name of the ship. She seemed to be the only one left, the sole survivor. When I returned home, she was still sleeping. Unable to sleep, I scraped the bottle of my inkwell for the last drops of ink, continuing my story of the shipwrecked girl, as I suddenly realized that the events of the day were actually quite like what I’d written earlier. I took it to be an odd coincidence, but was inspired by my own acts to continue the story. I wrote about how the man went looking for other survivors as the girl slept, but found none. That’s when I started wondering… how did I want the story to turn out in reality? So I wrote a couple of lines about what happened the next day in the story, but in the end I had to realize that the ink wouldn’t hold much longer, so I decided to stop for the night, and try to get some sleep.5
When I woke up the next day, I realized that I didn’t know the girls name yet. When she woke up, I sat by her side and gave her breakfast, asking of her name. She said her name was Cassandra, and that she was 10 years old. Cassandra… It was the same name I’d given the girl in my story… And she was of the same age. I left her alone to eat her breakfast… I had to go out. I walked along the cliff and enjoyed the ocean air for a while. The things I wrote about Cassandra seemed to happen. I had suspected it the day before too, so I’d written a test. I wrote that after breakfast, Cassandra almost choked, but the man walked in and saved her. So I waited a while, before walking back into the house. As I opened the door, I saw Cassandra, she stood coughing and crying and her face had turned blue. I had neglected to write any details about at what point I’d walk in, so she seemed to have been choking for some time, and it looked painful. I cursed myself for the idiotic test, I could’ve written something completely different, but I chose this. I ran over to her, hitting her back with my hand. She coughed up a large chunk of food. I hugged her, and told her to be more careful from then on. Knowing she was all alone in the world, and that I somehow had to be her creator, I asked if she would like to live there with me. She said she’d like that, and she smiled at me. I hadn’t written that smile, and I remember that smile very well, and very fondly.6
Later that day, I went to the village, bringing home some ink. When I got home however, I didn’t write. I wanted to know what happened if I didn’t write. I wanted to see if she’d react at all, or if she would just go on as if I had never written a word. I hoped for the latter, that she would just go on as a normal kid. But of course, I was wrong. The next morning, I went to check on her. The room I’d given her was empty, and I couldn’t find her anywhere in the entire house. I went outside and looked for her, shouting her name into the forest and down the hillside. I called at her for hours, but couldn’t find her. I rushed back to the house and opened the book. After a little while, I’d written that she had been out picking flowers, coming back in the evening. And as I wrote, it happened. In the evening, she returned with a lovely bunch of flowers that she gave me. I had written that she came back with flowers, that we both had some supper, and then went to bed. Everything that happened in between, our conversation and the fact that she gave me the flowers, seemed to be under no influence by the book, and I was glad.7
The next couple of years, I didn’t dare to stop writing about her, even for a day. One thing I could never control was her emotions. But luckily, she grew to love me, and I loved her. I considered her a daughter, but I kept the book hidden from her at all times, to prevent her from being scared. She found it once, but it was before I’d written about the next day, so to her it appeared like a journal or diary, just like I’d told her. But as the years went by, so did the pages. Even though I’d write as little as possible about every day, leaving the blanks for us to fill out, the pages were filled too fast. And as I had only one page left, I knew I’d have to do something. The only problem was that I didn’t know what. However, I tried the only thing I could think of, namely starting a new book. So I went down to the village and bought one, price wasn’t an issue this time. It was almost ten years since I had first met Cassandra, and so I wanted to celebrate. She had become a beautiful young woman, and I loved her immensely. 8
I wrote in the last page of the book as I sat up that evening. I wrote about a wonderful day, a day when we both laughed and talked about the last ten years. We re-lived all the good times, and we went picking flowers. We went down to the village for the fair, feasting on the delicious food they had there and playing all the silly games they arranged. Then I baked her a cake when we got back home, and we read some old fairytales at night. I know she was a bit old for it, but she still loved it when I read for her. But then, as she went to sleep after that wonderful day, I had to go to my room and start the new book. As I wrote about the next day, I shivered. I had no idea whether or not it was going to work. I wrote that she woke me up in the morning, and that we both walked in the forest picking berries, having a fun day. As I was finished writing, I smiled. I was almost sure that it was going to work. It felt good.9
But the next day, I woke up when I heard her scream. That was just a few minutes ago. The new book wasn’t working. She was gone…10
Oh god how I missed her already. I could still see her red dress floating in the water. I thought about how my life was before Cassandra entered it. I was a lonely writer, out of ideas and with no reason to go on from day to day. So I did what I felt I had to. I followed Cassandra, the light of my life. I jumped. For a moment, I thought I saw her standing by the window above. She was waving at me, as she faded away. Then I hit the water.
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