Down a dark alleyway that leads to a sunny street, through the door of a shop that only looks empty, and into the fireplace at the far end of the hall, there is a world that is only dreamed of. Brielle Waldorf first learned of this world by doing just that; dreaming. She was sitting in her fathers chair, staring at the leaves on the maple tree just outside the street. Her eyes grew heavy and they slowly closed, only to see the same picture as she dreamt. Brielle focused on the scene, seeing that the street that had once been busy was completely vacant of life. The store behind the tree seemed to stand out, now that it wasn't being covered completely by folks from the street. A sign reading Welcome to Portrige and Feriton's Candle Shop, was all that could be seen through the seemingly all black windows. She could never remember really looking at this building before, but now it seemed to be of the upmost importance. Her dream shifted and took her into a room lined with tiny tea candles, where she then walked down a hallway and straight into a burning fireplace. Heat swelled into her body and seemed to cary her away, but before the dream could proceed, she woke with a start at her father's voice from behind her.
"Not sleeping are you? I told you that you should have gone to bed earlier. As I always say, nothing good can come of staying up after twelve." Richard Waldorf, her adopted father, said. He was an amiable looking man, with splotches of grey hair on his head, and a warm, but tired looking smile that came up less and less often now-a-days due to the increasing amount of stress from work.
"Of course not. I was just taking a look outside. What's going on with that shop across the street? It looks like it's been empty for years."
"I'm not so sure. I heard that one of the original owners died a bit ago, so they've been working out some legal stuff for a while, but in this economy I'm not sure that they're ever gonna be able to put it into business again." He said, taking a sip from his coffee cup and then setting it back down again. "Actually now that I think about it, when i first started working here was around the time that they closed. I remember that only a couple people came to pack up some boxes but after that, I never really saw anyone go in there." He paused and deliberated for a moment. "Oh well, maybe they'll finally finish packing up their stuff and move out."
"Why would you say that?" Brielle asked leaning farther back in the chair.
"It's expensive to rent a building downtown, sweetheart, and we sure could use a coffee shop around here, this office coffee is starting to bore me, and that would be a particularly good location. Now we have to get home before your mother throws a fit for us being late for dinner."
Brielle stood and followed her father to the car, where she sat in silence for the whole ride home.
(Just a short part of the story) Please Comment.
"Let the world be torn apart, may our lives be ripped away, simply so that we may be broken souls together."
-Andrea Hansen
