Surviving a Cruel Fairy Tale

1 – Act 0. Failed Fairy Tale Writer (1)

Pastel with a brush add color to

The work of inscribing a picture on a piece of drawing paper as if squeezing it into the background, and then adding a story to the finished piece.

He exhaled lightly, controlling his breathing.

How many days have passed since I hung the canvas in front of me here?

As I remember, more than 15 days had passed, but I sighed as I looked at the still unfinished picture.

How many years have passed since you dreamed of becoming a children’s story writer?

I’ve spent time close to wasted time, but I still draw a picture that will not be evaluated by anyone alone today with a lot of lingering lingering feelings.

“…… Ha.”

I let out a sigh.

My mother was a famous modern children’s story writer.

It would be unreasonable to say that she drew such fairy tales that everyone knows because the modern fairy tale market is full of classic masterpieces, but at least she was the one who drew many of the most famous fairy tales among modern fairy tales.

When I was young, I liked the stories that were spun by those delicate hands.

When her mother always drew fairy tales, she mainly used stories that could never happen in real life. Literally, a world where fairies fly and sing of hope, and flowers whisper dreams.

It may be a childish story that makes no sense in reality, but the power of the story is more than enough to lead me to the path of a children’s story writer.

Ten years passed like that.

A few years after my mother, who was the beginning of my dream, passed away.

As a result of working hard alone without anyone’s advice, the evaluation that came to me was harsh.

I don’t feel humanity.

It doesn’t sound like a story that children would read.

I felt lost.

I would have understood if I had simply been told that I had no talent, but when I heard that I was failing in the emotional part, it felt like I was put on a treadmill where no matter how much I ran, I couldn’t see the destination.

Even people who are kind to me because of her mother’s connections always express disapproval of her work.

He was even asked if he would rather go to modern art, but he had no reason to hold a brush and pastel unless he was going to become a writer of Grimm’s fairy tales in the first place.

I was so stubborn that I grabbed hold of the canvas today as well.

Even though no results are produced.

Even if it’s just stubbornness, even if it’s just a wandering thought obsessed with following mother’s back.

“…… It’s a bit dark, too.”

The picture I finally drew over the course of 15 days was a scene of a forest dyed in rather deep and dark colors.

It should be bright and colorful.

I know, but at some point, when I left the drawing paper and added colors as I went, my painting was dyed in a gloomy color at some point.

Obviously my mother’s painting was not like this.

The picture I loved as a child, the bright and colorful fairy tale is definitely…….

I stood up from my seat with a sigh to cool my head.

I’m sure the director won’t like it if I show you something like this.

I know that lately I’ve been blatantly avoiding visits, but I couldn’t help it because there was no one to show me the fairy tale I’d drawn if it weren’t for him.

Creative works that are discarded without being seen by anyone are like the emotional remnants of the creator’s delusions.

At least I didn’t want to make my creations like that, so it was the moment when I moved my body sulking and took a step forward.

“…… Uh?”

My body leans.

It felt like the ground was approaching, but it was me who was falling.

Without even knowing English, I felt the change in my body slowly crumbling and I closed my eyes tightly.

I can’t breathe.

I felt a crushing pain inside her chest. In the midst of time that passed slowly like a kaleidoscope, this body finally fell headlong to the ground, knocking over objects around it.

“Ah, ugh… ….”

It’s strange.

I fell often, but I was able to get up again.

Why, my heart.

Can’t you feel the pulsation?

I couldn’t even speak because of the sudden pain.

I tried to call someone, but my body wouldn’t move, so I had no choice but to wriggle on the ground.

In a place like this.

To die without achieving anything yet?

I don’t like it.

I hate to intuit death in this way, but I haven’t left anything yet. I couldn’t achieve anything, and I couldn’t even get one step closer to my dream.

A mother’s dream.

And my dream.

I couldn’t die in a place like this.

That can’t be…….

* * *

I love fairy tales.

At least I liked stories with dreams and hopes. Even though I couldn’t draw something like that until the end, the feeling of liking it doesn’t change.

I had a dream.

The dream of a world where the fairy tales I saw as a child were distorted.

I saw a twisted fairy tale where everything changed and went in a completely different direction from the original story.

Rapunzel built a tower.

She built more and more towers and released the old dragon to rule the sky.

As if challenging the sky, the tower continued to grow taller and higher, rejecting everything that approached it.

Snow White took away his freedom.

Freedom does not exist in the snowy land.

The role of the people was simply to praise the most beautiful princess and dedicate it all to the embodiment of beauty.

Tinkerbell created a children’s paradise.

It’s a world that doesn’t allow you to become an adult. The word eternity is good, but human beings will someday become adults.

A world that does not allow it is simply a closed world that refuses to grow.

The Little Mermaid wanted to cover the land with the sea.

Loving her earthly things, she tried to make them her own by sinking them into the sea.

The act of winning for oneself rather than sacrificing was only dotted with self-love.

Fairy tales that were called world masterpieces.

The world of fairy tales, where all kinds of fairy tales exist and are intertwined with each other, has been distorted and lost its original appearance.

Even if it’s a dream, it’s terrible.

What is left by showing a failed fairy tale writer the ruin of a masterpiece fairy tale?

Even though it was a lucid dream, the distinction between reality and reality was ambiguous as the scenery was so realistic.

A dreamy landscape.

However, there was no dream there, and it was too realistic and terrible to be called a fantasy.

“It doesn’t make any sense. Only exists don’t you think so fairy tale writer.”

In that dream, someone talked to me.

The shape is unknown.

Something small hidden in the twilight darkness.

I couldn’t figure out the gender and age from the voice, but only the sentence was engraved in my head and I understood its meaning.

“How is it? The feeling of being dead.”

Dead?

I doubted that statement for a moment, but then I remembered my last memory and came to terms with it.

Obviously, the heart stopped.

I wondered if that was also a dream, but I’m not so stupid that I don’t know about the death that is right around the corner.

I wasn’t usually in good physical shape, and I often had seizures, but I never thought I’d die like that.

“I was surprised that the way it wriggled really resembled a caterpillar that had fallen to the ground.”

At the same time, it continued to roam around me, spitting words mocking me.

“It’s okay to mock.”

It calmly answers my simple monologue.

No, actually, you could call this a monologue.

If you think about it, now I didn’t have a body.

Even if it’s in a dream, there’s no way you won’t notice the current situation without even a shape.

There is no organ to speak out, and it is not clear where the original thinking circuit is.

People say that human thoughts are a type of radio waves that usually travel through the brain. So, if I, who have lost my body, say a monologue, how does that happen?

“Even in this situation, I was unable to succeed as a fairy tale writer because I was looking for reality.”

This is undeniable.

I don’t know who is talking to me.

It may be an imaginary existence imagined while this body was dying, or it may be something close to a god, but at least that statement is not wrong.

“People who have never dreamed cannot sing about the world of dreams. Fairy tales are like that.”

There are stories that can be written because you don’t know your dreams.

Because I long for it.

Isn’t there a delusion that can be used to envy a dream you had as a child or a dream you’ve never seen as an adult?

“So did you succeed? Did the story of you, a human being, resonate in everyone’s heart? Was it possible to surpass Andersen’s talent that was dotted with that tragedy?”

Unfortunately, that was impossible.

Far from handing over the unfortunate genius Andersen, even at her feet. No, I couldn’t even compare to fairy tale writers who produced ordinary works.

That’s because I haven’t published a single piece of my own.

A failed children’s story writer who failed to produce results. If so, does it really deserve to be called an artist?

“Do you want to write a fairy tale?”

This is an obvious question.

What I have been aiming for since childhood. Looking only at her slender mother’s back, the story she weaved with her thin hands was like a milestone for me.

As a result, it was impossible until the day I died.

“What if you could rewrite it?”

Write again?

“Now you are just a dead soul. There is no such thing as warmth. You are nothing but dregs that cannot interfere with or approach what exists, but what if even you can achieve something?”

If given such an opportunity, there is no reason to give up.

Death is like being closed.

It was similar to a void where possibilities were closed, the future was lost, and nothing could be held in one’s hands and just let it flow.

“What I showed you is a fragment of a fairy tale world. It was a terrible world that changed its appearance because the existing world was tainted with malignancy.”

Wouldn’t you like to change such a world? It suggests in a soft voice.

“If you are satisfied with the rewritten story of the fairy tale world, I will reward you. A chance to take that experience and go back to reality and start over.”

…… That is an extremely unconventional condition.

My common sense already did not work in the part where he approached me, who had already died to talk about reality, and showed me a dream-like landscape.

Just one thing.

The question remains as to why they are making this offer to me.

“Actually, anyone was fine. Even if you aren’t But it was you who caught my eye, and I liked the fact that it was related to fairy tales because it was gloomy.”

A being that grants life to lions and frees the dead.

Then is this a god?

“God is not. I have no intention of becoming anything like that.”

Is it the devil?

“That’s a little different too.”

Neither a god nor a devil.

The little one floated around me, still chattering in a playful voice.

“In some tales, a being called an imp or a dwarf. An existence that grants wishes by hiding their names. I was called Tom Tit Tot somewhere, but I personally would like to introduce myself like this.”

And I hope that being whispers a little.

Rumpelstiltschen.

It appeared in a German folk tale and remained as a passage in a fairy tale.

Basically, it is portrayed as a bit lacking, but depending on the situation, it was also the name of a demon who granted wishes and demanded something bigger in return.