Of all the people in the world there are some who are not what they appear to be. Desiree was one of these people. She often wondered the halls of her school, mostly keeping her eyes planted on the tile floor in front of her counting the squares. It wasn’t that she wasn’t pretty or nice; as a matter of fact she was often complimented about her fashion sense and good looks.

Desiree was the ideal girl to take to any dance. She had the perfect hourglass figure without looking like she was anorexic, auburn hair that swayed down to her shoulder blades, beautiful deep green eyes with hints of brown, and an oval shaped face that had little blemish. Many girls were jealous of her as she was popular among the male population, and nearly always had someone talking to her in any of her classes. She was intelligent and could hold a conversation easily and was never without a comforting word and always ready to give a hug when it was needed. So if she was so perfect what made her so strange?

Desiree was often not where the rest of us tend to be. All though she was an excellent student, she often gazed out into nothingness lost in her own fantasies. She would lose herself in books easily and didn’t always remember what she was told to do or instructions, but was very good at winging things. Her main focus was on what it would be like to live in another place and time. She would find anything she could on any other time but her own if it interested her and she could take herself away from her current location.

She wasn’t the kind of girl you would expect to have family problems either. Her father had left her and her mother when she had been six years old. Shortly after her mother had picked up habits of coming home late from bars or would sit in her room for hours smoking one cigarette after another. After repeated attempts to help her mother overcome her addictions she had given up moving into her own world where she wasn’t ignored, yelled at, or sometimes beaten. In her own worlds she was safe from everything including pain, rejection, hated, and of course the horrible truth of her reality. She often wished that she could disappear into one of her fantasies and stay there never to return.

To her despair she often came home to an empty house and today was no different. She walked through the door and straight to her room, throwing her bag on the ground and flopping on the bed. She let her eyes wonder the walls looking at the drawings she had drew of dragons, knights, griffins, and her in many different styles of clothing each from a different time period. With a sigh she closed her eyes and tried to stop the tears from spilling over the corners of her eyes, though it was a failed attempt. She curled herself up into a tight ball hugging her knees trying to keep her sobs from rising.

She looked up when she heard the door open and slam shut. There were heavy footsteps on the stairs and she felt her muscles tighten and her heart beat speed up. She put her head back down on the soft pillows and waited praying to anyone that was listening that her mother would pass by her room and go to her own. Her prays went unanswered. Her mother opened the door to her room, her sanctuary, and roughly grabbing her fore arm yanked her off her bed.

Sharp staccato slapping noises came through the house followed by the slurred yelling of a drunkard. Desiree fought against the tears that wanted to push past her eyelids as she kept her eyes glued shut, unwilling images of her once perfect skin being covered in the ugly purple splotches. She cried out to her own mind to save her, cried to one of her knights in shining armor to burst through the door and carry her away. She looked up to the ceiling opening her eyes and screamed in pure agony as she felt her very soul being shredded, her delicate skin screaming in pain as the torturer continued slapping away until Desiree felt there could be nothing left.

To her eyes the ceiling began to fall, shards flying and a powerful hot wind bursting through. Two silted, yellow eyes looked down on her and she felt herself smile. Her faithful dragon Yula had come to her rescue! Yula pushed herself through the hole her powerful jaws snapping down on the guard that had been hurting her so badly tearing and ripping until all there was only pieces of the women that had once loved her all over her room.

Desiree didn’t look back as she climbed onto Yula’s powerful back and this time yelled in joy and happiness as the dragon’s wings pushed it off the floor and out the hole.

The police responded to the call of a neighbor and arrived to a bloody scene. It was a girls room, the girl named Desiree Hunter a girl with so much promise. Her mother was slumped against the dresser eyes open and glassed over with her mouth hanging open. Her forehead was bleeding from a large gash; blood trickled from her stomach that had been ripped open leaving a yawning chasm in her middle. However in the middle of the floor lay the still cold body of Desiree. No blood touched her, and around her body the carpet was clean of blood leaving her spotless. Everyone in the room was left wondering what had happened, but they would never get the answer. They were never part of Desiree’s fantasies.