The festival of the Golden Night was the exact same as it was every year, with no effort to hide it, really it was an excuse for people in this little village of ours to keep themselves here, because little by little, we were all drifting away. And that was not good news. Especially not for my father. He is, and always has been, an oddly influential figure, which won him the title of mayor before I was even born, which just caused more problems for me. Growing up I was constantly compared to him and my older siblings. They were all perfect and that just wasn’t me, to the dismay of my parents. In effort to draw back the inhabitants of this dying woodland home, we held the festival of the Golden Night, as we have done for the last twenty-five years. It’s the same every single year, and so I was determined for this year to be different from the others. This year, was going to be my year, no matter what. I was going to make my mark. I just didn’t know how. I mean, I never expected it to be easy, my father wouldn’t even let me out of town, for goodness sake! And there it was. I was going to leave, and I was going to see the world. Whose ever heard of a sixteen year old girl that hasn’t left her own village before? I wasn’t about to let my life slip through my fingers. I was up in my attic bedroom, ready in my silky white dress. While it sounds like it could look like a long flowy wedding dress, it was far from that. I took one last glance at myself in the mirror and whispered under my breath, “This isn’t me.” I looked over to the round window at the back of my room, where I would sit and read each night, and ran over to it, undoing the hatch to let the cold night air seep in. First one pale leg slipped through the window, then the other one followed. I ducked my head under the wall and seconds later I found myself feeling free as a bird breathing in clear air, finally I was away from my stuffy family and over-controlling father. I jumped down onto the main roof. I realised that I was slowly falling but I was a second too late, and my head took a battering from an old oak tree. Taking advantage of its presence, I climbed onto one of its branches, and climbed across it to the next tree, then the next and then the next. Soon I was beginning to see the pathway out of town, out of my boring life and out of my oh-so-perfect family. Even my friends weren’t so good, as they were constantly patronising me over things I could not control. My entire life was in shambles, and here I was, running way from it all completely unprepared and nervous, nevertheless I was doing the thing I always dreamed of. Escaping. I jumped down from the willowy tree I was standing on and carried on with the path. The trees were looking golden, and even the night sky was filled with millions of golden, twinkly stars. Maybe it was the newfound freedom, or maybe it was the fresh atmosphere but instead of feeling afraid I was excited, I wasn’t far away from the exit out of there now. I had no idea where I was going after I left, but I did know I wasn’t coming back. And with one final step, I was out of the same, old, boring village I’d been stuck in for the past sixteen and a half years. I was finally free. And then it hit me. I was also alone.