The last thing Snow remembered was being out in her typical cove of flowers, the little clearing surrounded by a thick wall of ivy that she called her 'secret clubhouse.' Few people knew about it. Father, Phillip, and a few of the children from the village were the chosen ones privileged enough to share her secret. It was the place she went to escape, where she could do anything and be anything she wanted unhindered by criticism and staring eyes. It seemed like no matter how long people knew about her, they still stared like they had never seen anything like her before: the faerie without the wings. It wasn't her fault. She hadn't asked to be born crippled, she just was by some cruel force of nature. But she tried not to think of all that as she awoke and came back to her senses.
Her first thought as she groggily propped herself up with one hand and rubbed her eyes with the other was, "Oh no, I fell asleep again. Father is going to be worried." It was something she did often. It was almost a weekly routine to spend all of her free day hidden away with the animals and plants before accidentally falling asleep. But as she blinked herself awake and took a look around her, she realized the forest was not where she was. Instead, she was in some sort of hallway; it was unlike the stone and wood cottages from her home world. This was very different, cold cut and forever long. It was awash in soft light, but it was certainly nothing like where she had fallen asleep. Was it some sort of hospital? Had Phillip come looking for her and thought something was wrong? But she would have woken up, since she was a light sleeper. So what was this?
She stood up and took a better look around the room, finally noticing the endless paintings that lined the walls. That made absolutely no sense. There were no art museums anywhere near her village, and the one in the city didn't look like this. And where were all the people? She slowly walked towards one section of the wall and stood on her tiptoes to look at one better. She blinked twice. The image was weird. It showed towering buildings the like she had never seen before, all awash in a thousand different colors of light and clustered together with not even a blade of grass in sight. It started to make her a little sick, so she turned away and kept moving down the hallway in hopes that she might find something useful to help her figure things out, her bright blue eyes moving from picture to picture as she went.
Finally she came across one that looked more familiar to her, a large, beautiful painting of a clear lake surrounded by thick berry bushes and dressed in clustering water lilies. In a way, it felt so...real. She timidly brought a hand to the surface and breathed in a sharp breath when it went through like through water. Was this some sort of joke? A dream? That's it, she was just having a very vivid dream. Curiosity took her over. She took a deep breath and put her foot through, then her arm then, as she began to put her face through this strange new doorway, something happened. A small brown rabbit hopped into the portrait, a rabbit that wasn't there before. Snow stopped in her tracks, frozen in fear and amazement at the fact that the picture had moved. But it was short-lived when the rabbit suddenly jumped forward and through the picture, almost hitting Snow in the face before disappearing into another picture. She yelped and jumped back. However, something else shocking happened. Instead of falling onto her butt on the floor, Snow fell up. Another gasp. She craned her head to see a pair of light blue wings, almost clear and seeming to be made out of air.
"Wings!" she cried out in shock. "How?" They were beating quickly and on their own, a pair of beautiful wings that Snow hadn't had before. Finally, she stepped back on the ground and sunk to her knees. She tried to become conscious of them, but it was so surreal. She was sure now, this had to be a dream. From the room, to the paintings, to the wings, it was one impossible surprise after another. But oh, she wished it was real! How easy her life would be if she had wings. Her mother would love her like her father, the other faeries and humans her age would want to be friends with her...she could be accepted and loved. They wouldn't just want to be around her when she sang and healed, or cooked her special cookies. If only they could see her like this...
But her dreams were short lived. Suddenly, she heard a scream from somewhere deep inside the reaches of the room. Scared, but curious at how there could be another person in her dream, Snow stood up and walked briskly towards the direction that the voice came from, both forgetful and scared of her wings. As she walked, she noticed that everything looked the same, but different. Halls gave way to other halls, but their walls were all filled with portraits of so many different things. It seemed like she wasn't making any progress at all. She took a deep breath before calling out as loud as she could, "Hello? Is anybody out there?"