Every girl has made the mistake of coveting perfection and with perfection comes acceptance and no one desires the role of the outcast. Not one girl can deny that they have not once gave the slightest glimpse at their own reflection and saw that there could be something more… something perfect. I am guilty beyond all charges and it is a fault I solely regret to my grave. When you’re perfect… you’re one of them. You don’t want to be like them. Like me. Me.
***
Three years prior…
Every morning, my want to attend my prison of a school weakened and the more I just want to shrivel under my sheets and never come out to see the light of day. But, there is one thing that kept me going, that’s the fact that the people around me hated to see me attend the school as much as I did. So, I continued with a grin as fake as my peers.
I ripped open my eyes to the gloomy shine reflecting into my room. My chest pulled upward toward the ceiling like I was attached to a string. With that fluent motion, floated a smooth note to the floor. I dragged my body out of the bed and bent to the floor. My fingers pinched the note and flipped it open. It read…
Darling Bailey,
We look forward to your inauguration; you should be a joy to our society. Your pain ends here like you have wished! All you must do is simply answer the phone at exactly seven a.m. Your instructions will be given then along will your eager questions, but you must ask the right ones.
-K-

No word could have described what petrifying horror I felt. I knew not of whom, “K” was or why it wanted me in their society so badly, but all I knew was what I was told. I sank back on my bed and dug my head deep within my palms and without any time to breathe, rang the phone. I jolted off my bed like a lightning bolt and all in one swish; I whipped the phone up to my ear and answered, “Hello?”

“Oh, good, you answered! I give you my greatest thanks for doing so. Many do not and we have to result to a more forward approach, but that will not occur with you, so just listen carefully and-“said a soft and gentle voice.

I stopped the voice and spitted, “Who are you?”

“Now, dear it is rude to interrupt.”

“I give you my deepest apologies, ma’am.” I popped my hand over my mouth with a gasp of air. I have never said that before.

She then continued, “Good, it is working as expected.”

“What is working?”

“Our deal, honey, what you have been asking for!”

“I have not asked for anything.”

“Not directly, but deep inside you have and we know. We know everything,” she took a pause and then started once more, “Now; here is your next instructions. Listen carefully. You do not leave your home at all! You stay in your home and stay there until we come.”

“How will I know it’s you?”

“Time will tell. Then, you let us do the rest. That is all you have to do is stay at home, but if you do disobey, we will start the procedure immediately and we will find you. We are everywhere. You have been warned. See you soon, darling.” The phone goes to static.

I hoisted without movement and I stood so frail and muddled. I was struck with trepidation that it took over. I had no sense of direction or sanity that I did what I thought was right at that moment and as time tell ticked on, I now see it was the rashest thing I have ever done. I ran.

I burst through my front door and straight into my friend, Jenny’s, house. I began screeching my terrors to her, “Jenny! They’re coming for me! I don’t know who! They’re going to do something to me! You have to help me! I don’t know what they’re doing!”

I then took a second out of my crisis to focus on her position. She rested directly across from the front door as if she was expecting me. She sat in a bleached gown with her russet coils rested on her shoulders. She had a soft grin printed on her face and she just stared at me without reply. Her crusty jade scribbled eyes were locked on my eyes. Her appearance looked unnatural and almost eerie as if she was lifeless. Her name shivered out of my throat and she finally interacted with me.

She slowly rose from her chair and said, “They want you perfect. We want you perfect.”

My eyes swelled and my body tensed and so did hers and in a split second and angel turned into a devil. She gritted her teeth and strained her eyes. Her hands clutched together so tightly that her knuckles just about busted through the skin. She articulated through her teeth, “You were not supposed to leave! You were told to stay home! Were you not? Don’t answer that because you were! Why would you force me to do this! You forced this upon yourself! I have no need to say I’m sorry.”

She screamed at the top of her lungs and pounced towards me. I screamed back to her and leaped the other direction and sprinted as fast as my legs could go. She ran after while shouting, “Don’t go! You have nowhere to run! Come back and face your fate!”

I just kept running, but the more I ran, the more I felt slower and in time, I come to a halt. My feet were pasted to the ground below me. I cried for help and frankly, I just cried period. She ran behind me and whispered in my ear, “You are now all you have asked for, you are a Kindly Girl.”

I knew not of how she did it, but I collapsed to the ground and choked on the air I once breathed and took in the sight around me. I could not believe such betrayal. Life made so much sense then. Around were the ones I considered perfect and without sin. They all smiled the way Jenny did and slowly slipped into the darkness. When I reopened to my new world, I was shown who I have become and I loved her. Before, I was the girl in back who refused to excel in everything I did. When I looked in the mirror, I did not see the ashy black hair that flopped behind my back or the shallow grey eyes the sat in my head. Nor did I see the stick-like figure or the freckled complexion. I saw difference and I hated it. I hated me.
Now I was thick-figured and healthy with height that could touch the clouds. I had not a freckle in sight except one on my marriage finger to remind me of who I was. I had no longer grey eyes, but eyes blue as the sky above our eyes on a perfect day. My hair had no longer resemblance to ash, but the golden rays the beat down from the sun. I loved who I saw, but not how I became her because of that, I hated her even more than before. I was one of them. I was a Kindly Girl.
***


This was not a fake tale, but something true, whether; you believe or not. You are told to learn from your mistakes, but now I can’t fix this one. I am haunted with it every day for as long as these lungs pump air. Perfect is something you don’t want to be and take my warning please. I don’t want to be the one who has to behold this curse upon you and believe me; it I am forced to, I will. I am here, have been for years. Right there, just across the room; smiling, waiting, watching.