[tw; slight suicidal ideation. hope you enjoy!]

Before I open my eyes, I know exactly what this day entails. After I get ready, the bell by the window will ring. I will fetch my food, and wait by the window. Then the bell will ring midday for lunch, I eat my food, I wait and watch. Once more in the evening I feast and sit patiently, observing that single hole in my room. And when I go to bed, part of me wants to stay up to sift through the forests below the towers.

Between meals I read and reread the books provided to me, paint and sculpt faces from those books, glace at the stars, and maybe I’ll rearrange my furniture or change up my look, if I’m bored. And this may sound boring, but it’s not. Not when I am most happy.

I’ve been trapped in this tower for 21 years, is what I’ve been told, through letters in my food baskets.

But I will be saved.

I don’t know when, but it’s okay. I will know when I see my Prince Charming riding upon his horse towards my tower. He will call upon me, carry me out my window, and ride with the sunset to the castle where we will be married the next day.

So I wait for him, because when he comes, I will be even happier.

Nine years later…

Some days I don’t feel bothered to get up. But knowing how much worse it makes me feel after, I tell myself I will only lie down for 10 more minutes.

My earlier days in the tower, from when I could barely reach the higher shelves, would be spent reading the more grown-up books. I didn’t know what those words meant, but soon learned to consult the dictionary. After reading all the books, I’d read them again. By the fourth time I’d begun analyzing the stories and characters. It kept me occupied, and gave me my paramount belief:

I will be saved by a prince.

In all stories with a weak, hopeless main character, she (always she) is saved. Why wouldn’t it be different for me? I’m even trapped in a tower.

So I would be glued to the window, in the same way a moth is drawn to light. Spending so much time by the only access to the outdoors, I had noticed the changes in weather. Bright, sunny days that moved me to the point of stripping down to my undergarments and lying down on the floor, persperating heavily. Gray and rainy mornings and how it would bring a chill into my room.

On those latter days I would ponder. I thought about how rainy days were perfect weather for pondering, and wondered why that was. Maybe the cloudy sky buffered any wild thoughts. But how would the rain affect my dear prince, who was to save me heroically. Would he get cold being out in theses conditions? How would his horse gallop in the muddy grass?

It led me to think more about the prince and how he would save me. No ladders were tall enough to get into my window, that I knew. He could bring a rope, but where would it latch onto? If I held it, there would be no way for either of us to move up or down. Would I have to jump out and have him catch me? Was he strong enough? Who was the prince and how would he save me?

I lingered on that one. Who was the prince?

I knew of no nearby kingdoms. I hadn’t even seen any people in the forests below me in the 30 years I have lived here. And 30 is a long time. Shouldn’t this prince have been here by now?

What I have come to realize is this: I only thought a prince would save me because of fictional stories. The only real thing here is that I have been stuck in a tower for 30 long years with no explanation why.

That’s what I’ve been trying to figure out for the past few months. I searched every corner of my room looking for secret crevices for an enterace, because how else would I have entered? After removing all the books from my shelves and nearly breaking my table, I found the only door in the room. Locked and, surprisingly, painted over. Someone must have been able to exit without using that door. And someone else (or maybe the same someone) painted over it.

Thinking back on my latest discoveries, I sat up in my bed. I didn’t need to look around my room, because who ever put me here clearly didn’t want to think about it.

If I want answers, I’ll have to go out.

I may be dozens of meters up high, but someone has done that escape before.

Scrambling out of my sheets, I reach for my slippers. Then I walk to my kitchen, grab some food, and create a makeshift satchel. No other belongings. I’m tired, so tired, of this room. I will not miss it a bit.

Theoretically, I should be able to jump down, land on a tree, and hopefully not be too injured. And if I am…Well, I’m tired of this life anyways.

I climb onto the windowsill and shimmy until my legs dangle out. I brace my hands against the brick exterior (it feels cool) and take a deep breath. And then one more.

“I can do this,” I whisper, “I can do this…”

My hands and feet push—

—I’m falling, the air is cool—

—My hands barely grip the branches—

I hold onto the tree for only a milisecond, then fall down.

When I finally land, the scream I’ve beend holding in comes out in a deep exhale. My heart beats like never before. I’m scared, but so much more exhilirated. I am free.

“Oh my goodness,” is all that comes out of my mouth.

I did it. I finally found my Prince Charming.