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"If this is the end, I want to die with you"—the lyrics of a Helloween song echoed in her head and through the headphones she wore. She walked, or rather ran, down the sidewalk, oblivious to the late hour or the cold wind that was increasingly picking up. She simply ran, her thoughts constantly racing through her parents' argument. Another argument because of her.

Her wealthy parents wanted an elegant, intelligent daughter they could brag about to their friends. Unfortunately, their only daughter, Nadia, was far from ideal.

They considered her a rebel because of the combat boots and black clothes she wore, and because of the, in their opinion, bizarre metal music she listened to.

Their dream Nadia was supposed to be completely different, and they often wondered where they had gone wrong in raising her. Most often, their thoughts ended in arguments. They blamed each other for their daughter's moral decline. And Nadia always had to witness their arguments. She always stood in the kitchen doorway, watching her father shout at her mother.

"If you had devoted more time to her, if you had focused on the child instead of her career, maybe she wouldn't have grown up to be such a freak! "

Her mother always said the same thing.

"She never lacked for anything. She had everything she wanted, so leave me alone! It's not my fault she's different!

Different." That word had haunted Nadia for as long as she could remember. That's what they called her in kindergarten when she wasn't playing with blocks and dolls with other children, but instead sat alone and made up wonderful stories full of beautiful princesses, brave knights, and mysterious creatures. She had always been fascinated by the world of fairy tales and dreamed of writing her own wonderful fairy tale when she grew up.

She wasn't popular in elementary school either. The girl, always lost in thought, as if absentminded, wasn't the best friend. Nadia didn't make any friends during her six years of elementary school. It was the same for her three years of middle school. This worried her parents, who imagined their daughter would invite her friends over to their house to chat about fashion, cosmetics, and boys.

Nadia, however, was uninterested in fashion, cosmetics, or boys. She preferred to spend her free time pondering the fairy tale she would one day write. She invented characters, places, and events that would one day come to life. Back then, she still harbored the reputation of a loner, an outsider.

"She's different," her friends whispered, hoping she didn't hear them. But Nadia did.

Her parents hoped that at the prestigious private high school, their daughter would not only gain knowledge but also transform herself. Imagine their surprise when one morning, Nadia, who usually dressed in nice, light-colored clothes, emerged from her room in a long black skirt and a baggy black sweater. The next day, Nadia asked them for money for new shoes. Her mother handed her 200 złoty, convinced that her daughter intended to buy another pair of Adidas sneakers, which she loved so much. She only grimaced when Nadia returned home with a brand new pair of combat boots, and that evening, she informed her husband that their daughter was slowly sinking into the depths of her being.

The music Nadia began listening to topped it all off. A stack of heavy metal albums began to pile up on her desk. One day, when Nadia left for school, her mother came into her room and began flipping through the records. Band names like Lux Occulta, Immortal, Death, Helloween, or Children of Bodom meant nothing to her. She knew, however, that the music her daughter listened to was bad.

"A little longer and she'll start bringing us animal carcasses!" she shouted furiously to her husband the next day at breakfast. Nadia heard everything perfectly because she stood in the kitchen doorway, unnoticed by her father and mother.

It was over. According to her parents, she had hit rock bottom.

Her classmates mostly ignored the quiet girl, always dressed in black, who spent every break with headphones on. However, there were days when Nadia was dragged out into the class.

"She's a lunatic. She's always listening to some howler, she doesn't talk to anyone, she doesn't meet anyone. Besides, who would want to hang out with a freak who always dresses in black, baggy clothes and doesn't wear any makeup?" her classmates would say, their colorful clothes resembling a beautiful meadow full of blooming flowers.

Nadia began to believe she was a freak, that no one would ever like her, but at the same time, she didn't try to change. She loved her style of dress, the music she listened to. And she loved her fairy tale; her ideal, imaginary world, to which she increasingly escaped. Eventually, she became a part of it, as she placed within it the heroine she modeled after. This heroine was beautiful, noble, and wise, surrounded by the love of her parents and loved ones. Over time, Nadia realized that this was precisely what she had been missing throughout her childhood—parental love. Sure, she had everything she could want, but she couldn't remember a single time her mother came to her before bed, cuddled her, kissed her, and told her a bedtime story. She did, however, remember that until she was ten, she had been cared for by Mrs. Jadzia, a nanny hired by her parents. She was the one who was there for Nadia when she was sick. She was the one who took her to elementary school on her first day. She, not her parents, was too busy with their careers to show even a shred of affection to her only child.

"Maybe they love me?" Nadia wondered through many sleepless nights, listening to her beloved song "The Departed" by Helloween. "They worry about me, they wonder what's happening to me. They must love me.

Did they love her? It's hard to say. They wanted her to be the perfect daughter: beautiful, carefree, dressed in colorful clothes, with a rich and handsome boyfriend at her side. In short—FOR SHOW. The perfect daughter from the perfect family—that was her parents' dream. A dream that never came true, because Nadia was a sensitive girl, locked away in a world of her own making, to which no one was allowed access.

However, there was one person who desperately wanted to get in. It was Maciej, a boy Nadia's age who lived in the same neighborhood as her. He often saw her from his apartment window. He was fascinated by her. One day, he decided he had to get to know this beautiful, delicate, and incredibly mysterious girl.

Unfortunately, Maciek's attempt to connect with Nadia ended in failure. He approached her as she was walking home from school.

"Hi, I'm Maciek. You know, I've been following you for a while, and I really like you. Maybe I could invite you for coffee?"

Maciej had anticipated the girl's every reaction. Well, almost every reaction. He hadn't expected Nadia to look at him like he was crazy and run away to her house. But that's exactly what happened, and the surprised boy was left alone on the sidewalk in front of his apartment building, with only the sparrows hopping across the lawn watching him in surprise.

Later, Nadia wondered what this Maciek wanted from her. She only knew him by sight. She'd seen him walking his magnificent husky more than once. But she never would have thought that this tall, dark-haired boy, who always wore worn-out black corduroys, could be interested in her, Nadia. Nadia quickly dismissed thoughts of Maciek and transported herself to a fairytale world where her heroine awaited her next adventure.

And so Nadia reached her senior year, unaware of Maciek's feelings for her, who was falling deeper in love with her each day and trying to get closer to her.

"If this is the end, I want to die with you"—the lyrics of the song "Departed"—broke Nadia from her reverie. She noticed it had started to rain. She glanced at her watch. It was 7:30 p.m.

"My parents probably didn't even notice I wasn't home," she thought, and her mind immediately flashed back to the day's argument. She remembered her father, shouting at her mother, accusing her. The pattern was the same as always, but this time there was an extra element. Her father slapped her mother across the face, furiously shouting,

"It's all your fault! Because of you, she was born different! You gave birth to a freak!" This

was too much for Nadia. She grabbed her jacket and the bag that always held her beloved Discman, and ran out of the house. In the yard, she collided with Maciek, who was walking his dog and thinking about her. When he noticed she was crying, he asked anxiously.

"What happened?"

But Nadia was no longer with him. She ran along the sidewalk, quickly putting on her headphones. She wanted to hear the music as soon as possible so she could escape with it to her beloved world.

"If this is the end..."

She stopped. Suddenly, she felt a great sense of regret. She knew it was all because of her fairy tale, that it was the one who had drawn her into itself, taking her away from the normal world. It was the fairy tale that had made her a freak, an outcast, different.

Nadia cursed the fairy tale at that moment, cursing herself, because she had invented it. She was a part of it.

"This is the end of the fairy tale. I have nothing to live for anymore. I am DIFFERENT. Unfortunately, I can't say 'happily ever after.' The end is different..." she whispered and threw herself into the street in front of an oncoming car.

She felt pain, heard Maciej's scream, and suddenly darkness fell around her...

"Wake up, princess, wake up."

She opened her eyes. She was in her beautiful blue room, in her four-poster bed, and her beloved husband, Marek, was leaning over her.

"Did you have a bad dream, Natalia? You were screaming, so I decided to wake you."

The nightstand lamp was burning. Natalia glanced at the clock beside her. It was two in the morning.

"You won't believe what I dreamed!" she exclaimed excitedly. "My name was Nadia, and I was eighteen, and... you were there too. You were Maciek and you went for walks with your husky. I... I had a difficult childhood, and... and..."

Marek looked with emotion at his wife, who, with a flushed face, recounted her dream, waving her arms in all directions.

"And I committed suicide... Besides, I have to write this down!" Natalia jumped up abruptly, jumped out of bed, and ran to her desk. She sat down beside it and turned on the lamp on top. After a moment, she pulled a thick, squared notebook and a pen from a drawer, put on her Discman headphones, turned it on, and began writing.

Marek turned off the bedside lamp and lay down. In the semi-darkness, he could see his wife's silhouette leaning over the desk. He knew she shouldn't be disturbed now, and it would be difficult to distract her from her work.

The room was quiet. So quietly that Marek heard the lyrics to the song Natalia was listening to:

"If this is the end, I want to die with you."