There she sits quietly leafing through her newest obsession.

Chai-tinted skin,

A mess of tangled black hair waving in every direction,

Faintly fiery embers, dual crevices of her face, bore into the book cradled in her arms.

The expectations, the crushing weight of hopelessness and helplessness,

The desperation to contribute were chipping away at her resolve.

For every kind support, two questions bombarded her regarding her future,

Though innocuous in nature and the questioners easy to convince,

None were more disbelieving in her success than herself.

Her love of books,

That fiendish bibliophile,

Reminded her of that feeling of old:

The crisp pages against her skin and endlessly vivid possibilities.

A couple pages of text provided her the stability and self-assurance she so greatly needed,

Inspiration to continue.

The safe assurances of the books,

The promises of old,

The safe haven of what she used to be:

Young, carefree,

Lost in the moment,

And for once, not in the future or the past.

The books reminded her the world was hers to sculpt,

As hope became the sole sustenance and the product of her generation.

Her dark mane settles.

She opens the book and starts anew;

The world fades to black, as her mind kicks into gear.