Seriously, I did not find any better title to go with this story. But that's what it is - a figment of my imagination. Here goes...
The beautiful paradise was her home. Lush greenery, overlooking mountains with the most breathtaking waterfalls one might have ever seen. The flora and fauna of her home was marvellous. She lived as if it were a fairy tale, a magical land where one would wish to stay on for hours together. She enjoyed spending her time there. Adore herself with the beautiful and fragrant flowers, make friends with some wild creatures. The fawns, birds, bunnies seemed to like her a lot and wouldn't mind coming as close.
Suddenly dark clouds gathered as if from nowhere and with a deafening thunder, started pouring all they had. As darkness befell this paradise, the flowers withered, trees shed all their leaves and the animals ran helter-skelter for some shelter in the rain. The girl did not know what was happening but all she knew was that when it happened she would be left with no food or shelter until the sun shone again. She would not know how long to wait. As the rains started pouring more heavily, flooding the brook, she took shelter in a hollow bark of a tree. Fear gripped her and all she did was pray she had the courage to wait it out.
As she fell asleep in this land engulfed with rain and storm, he woke up. Disturbed, distraught and unable to find her. He knew he had to find her. He would cross mountains and rivers, search the forest for her. But the only place he could ever find her was in his dreams. He would spend days searching for her far and wide in the treacherous lands and when his feet would no longer carry him, he would sleep and lose himself in his cherished dream. So he slept that day too.
Lucky for her, the weather was beginning to change. The floods, the thunder, the eeriness of the place had given way to blossoming flowers, lush trees, lazy brooks, twittering birds. Life was all beautiful again. She left her place of refuge in search of some food.
He knew he would find her in his dreams. He dreamed of her in the woods, talking to the birds. The animals of the forest were her best friends. They brought her some sweet fruits and flowers. He followed every detail of the dream and hoped to take that path to a place where he would find her. After all she was his priced possession.
The truth that he did not realize was that in reality he would never find her. She was but a figment of his imagination. Her existence was because he dared to imagine and let the dream grow. The girl was a prisoner in his mind. When he dreamt of her, he imagined all the beautiful things about her, but when his dream ended, his upset mind turned the whole world for the girl upside down. The madness to find her was taking its toll on him. He wandered around the forest for days, taking the paths he saw in his dreams, hoping to find her. He did not have food for many days and grew feeble as time passed by. But the urge to find her kept pushing him ahead.
As he scrambled along a cliff, he slipped and crashed on the jagged rocks below. Pain shot through his body. He cried out to her. But no one was to answer the cry. In her entrapped world she could not understand why the sun and rain were paying this frantic game of hide and seek. She wished thats it would all end soon and the old paradise would come back again.
The pain would take his life away. He knew it. And as life ceased to exist, the mind that trapped the girl was willing to let go. Free her of the prison she wasn't even aware of. The sun shone again in wonderland, the girl could see the clear skies above, see the full bloom of mother nature, feel alive again after all that she had been through. She saw beautiful angels come down. It was unbelievable, but after all that had happened so far, they knew she would believe. And as he breathed his last, she held their hand and flew away. Free.
