Page 12 of Barbie: Dreamscape

Everyone is leaving.

Boxing Day is over.

The Fates make no mistakes.

This is the true nightmare. Not being assigned a future I don’t want—

But having no future at all.

Fateless

No one has ever been Fateless before. I’m the first.

It’s the one time in my life I don’t want to be first.

I rip the #1 sash from around my chest and throw the pink banner across the glitter-dusted room. Before, it was an emblem of success. Now it feels like a cruel joke. What am I going to do?

Fireworks reflect off the gleaming stone of the building in front of me in endless rainbow ruptures. I hear the music filtering in, only a courtyard away, a merry melody played only for celebrations. But it might as well be worlds apart.

“Barbie,” a voice says, and I turn around.

Robin.

When I see her standing in the shadow of the door, I jump to my feet from where I’ve been curled into myself and race toward her, going almost limp with relief.

Finally.

I throw my arms around her. “Tell me—tell me this is a mistake. Tell me you can fix this,” I murmur into her shoulder. Now that the initial shock has worn off, Robin must have thought of a solution. She always knows what to do.

But her expression is sad when I pull back, and that’s when I know. That’s when the final piece of my heart breaks, the last bit of hope crumbling into ashes. “The Fates don’t make mistakes,” she says, her voice uncharacteristically quiet.

Right. Of course.

I must have done something wrong. Or maybe I was never as good as I thought I was…

Instead of feeling chastised, or ashamed, or full of regret… a wave of unfamiliar anger flares through me.

For years, I tried to be perfect in every single way. Every. Single. Day.

And this… this is what I get.

I stumble away from Robin. Her birds are silently flying above her head, circling in a ring. Ready to be sent to do her bidding.

“I don’t—I don’t understand,” I say, my voice sharpening. “I did everything right.”

Robin nods. “You did. And I know you must be thinking of this as a bad thing… but look on the bright side. It means you get to stay here at Swancrest. With me.”

I blink.

Maybe I’m unsure of what I want, but what I don’t want suddenly comes roaring to the surface.

I don’t want to stay here.

I love my dreamlike existence… but I don’t want an endless life of monotony, of getting woken up by singing birds, and having breakfast in Robin’s office, and being trapped within these walls that are beautiful, and magical, but are the only thing I’ve ever known.

Robin frowns. “Barbie? It’s not so bad… right?” Her voice hitches with something like hurt.

And all that flaming anger goes cold. “Of course not,” I say quickly. What’s wrong with me?