Cynical Romantics - Chapter 1 Dreams Of Roses

Qian Meigui brushed her fingertips across the blooming rosebuds, as thorns grazed her right hand, leaving subtle scratches across her fair skin.

She lifted a fully bloomed crimson rose and smiled before ripping the stem and placing the flower petal on her right ear. “Mei Mei!” she heard her mother’s voice calling out for her.

Her family went the countryside for vacation, without prior planningit surprised her, as her parent’s did not take many vacation days due to their busy schedule.

Nonethless, Qian Meigui felt happy that she could spend time with her parent’s as it was a rare occurrencethe three of them together, but she felt unsettled by the sudden trip.

Qian Meigui began to walk as she looked over to see her a group of young, flushed and sweaty men playing a round of volleyball on a field of dark-green grass, nourished by water and sunlight.

She inhaled the earthy smell of honeysuckle, spring water, and smoke from sizzling bonfires combined together. The sky was cloudless and radiantly blue, sun blazing as to inform one of a warm day. Her eyes wandered back to her parents who smiled blissfully at her, waiting for her, as she was preoccupied with the rose bushes.

Qian Meigui smiled as she walked toward them, embracing the new memory that would be etched in her mind. She embraced her parents, and she stood still abruptly, feeling a sudden wetness over her hands, she parted quickly and she glanced at her hands, as a red liquid appeared on her palms.

She thought it may have been the pigment from the rose petals, as she checked her hands thoroughly. The liquid began to spread on her hands, and she concluded that the grazes on her hands from the thorns were not deep enough to pour this overwhelming amount. It wasn’t her blood.

Qian Meigui began breathing heavilypanting as she looked up to meet her parent’s faces whose eyes were unfocused. They were no longer smiling.

They looked somber, terrified, and lifeless. Blood stained their abdomens and Qian Meigui held out her hands once more, drenched in blood.

They fell to the ground with a loud thud, and Qian Meigui swore she heard their bones shatter. Qian Meigui was half mortified and half in disbelief. She felt her hands shake, but the rest of her body did not move and she did not cry.

Qian Meigui knelt and hovered over their bodies. She lifted her heavy mother and pushed some of her mother’s chestnut hair out of her face.

Her mother eyes were filmed grey, her skin pale with dark red blood crusted on her mustered sundress. She was too late. She looked over at her father who had an identical appearance to her mother.

She held onto her cool and stiff mother, and grasped onto her father’s lifeless hand and weptas to somehow revive them through her screams, “Come back! Come back to me!” she yelled.