The majority of our world's heroines have had it easy. The problem arises, the girl sits quietly, singing or reading a book or spinning straw into gold (or some other such nonsense) as she waits contented with the fact that her prince will save her and she'll live happily ever after. Even outside of fairy tales, heroines are either incredibly dense or under massive amounts of stress and wait until the very last second before realizing that they've actually had it easy so far. The ending scene? The go skipping off into the sunset, and probably are on their way to a flight down to the Bahamas.

Jessica Arden wasn't about to get it that easy.

…

Jessica Arden, born April 16, 1993; Jessica Arden, reported missing sixteen years later. Her family assumed that she drowned in the lake they were visiting, but the police weren't so sure. It was if she had vanished off the face of the Earth: no footprints, no fingerprints, no blood… no nothing. They had searched the lake for days, combing through every sandbar, but the answer was still the same, and her body was never found. The family mourned for years, going in and out of psychotherapy and family counseling, but nothing helped. Jessica's younger sister, Emily, turned to drugs. Her father became an alcoholic. Her mother divorced her husband, took custody of Emily, and soon sent her daughter off to rehab in Nevada.

It had been only eight years since Jessica had died. There had only been one problem with this tragedy:

Jessica Arden wasn't dead.

…

Jessica didn't think as her mind floating somewhere between conscious and subconscious. Her head ached, and her entire body felt heavy. With her eyelids closed, she could faintly hear a voice—the most beautiful voice she'd ever heard—from far away. The voice was saying… something. It was beautiful, whatever it was, and Jessica found herself being lulled into a sense of security as blackness washed over her.

WHUMP! Something heavy bounced on her stomach, making her gag; water spilled out of her mouth like a torrent as her eyes flew open. She turned on her side, retching until finally all the water was out of her and the air around her echoed with her frenzied breathing. A warm hand pressed itself onto her forehead and Jessica got a whiff of leather. The fingers of the mysterious had pulled the wet strands of her hair of her forehead as another hand—this time with an arm attached!—snaked around her belly. Jessica could only breathe all the harder as the arm supported her shaking body.

"Oh my God," Jessica gasped, a little shriek of hysteria escaping her throat. 'I might have died just now…!' Unable to control herself, she started to sob from her brush with Death. 'I-could-have-died-I-could-have-died-I-could-have-died!' Her breath came out in little squeaks as the arm pulled her backwards and pressed her tightly against the chest of a kneeling figure. A man, as far as Jessica could tell, from his flat chest and incredibly broad shoulders. One of the man's gloved hands started stroking her sopping hair, and she heard him trying to shush her as he rocked back and forth. The man started speaking to her quietly between hushes, no doubt in an attempt to calm her down; however, whether due to the considerable amount of water Jessica swallowed or the fact that her mind seemed to be slipping in and out of reality, she couldn't understand a word he said to her. A new bout of sobbing arose:

'I-don't-understand- I-don't-understand- I-don't-understand- I-don't-understand!' Her eyes were squinting shut and her nose was running. Desperately, she sniffed, wiping her eyes and nose on her sleeve, swallowing against her sandpaper throat. It was useless.

"Oh, G-god," she managed to say before another little shriek escaped her throat. Here she was, in the dark, with a man she didn't know, and her parents nowhere around. Where was she? Why was it so dark? Obviously, she was still at the lake; could she be on the other side? She should have known better to go swimming so late at night, but it was just twilight, after all. And it wasn't as if she hadn't gone to that lake, year after year, and swam around it alone. She used to compete with her father to see who could swim across and back the fastest. How could she have nearly drowned? How could she be here, with a stranger, and—and—and—! Her arms moved to instinctively cover her chest.

Jessica swallowed again, forcing herself to take deep breaths of air. The man, whoever he was, had not hurt her yet. He was still stroking her hair and murmuring incomprehensible syllables against the crown of her head.

Jessica pushed the stranger's hands away, attempting to turn around to face him. The stranger, however, had different ideas, and tightened his embrace. Jessica started seeing images from the news about girls who disappeared from their family and were never heard from again. She struggled harder. The man hissed out a few syllables. 'What on earth?' thought Jessica. She couldn't make sense of what he had said.

"E-excuse me?" she asked quietly, holding her breath in fear of the answer. She immediately felt the man tense against her, then relax suddenly.

"You speak English?" he asked quietly. Jessica involuntarily gasped at the sound of his voice; it sounded like those opera singers on her mom's old CD's. She could feel the man chuckling at her reaction, his body shaking up and down against her back.

"Uhhh…" Jessica said brilliantly, her head trying to turn around to look at the man. "Yeah, I guess so. I mean, yes, I do speak English. Who…? That is, where…? Um…" Jessica couldn't form a coherent sentence. The stranger said something in a glut of syllables. When Jessica didn't respond, he said something else in another glut of syllables.

"Wait…" Jessica started. "Was that Spanish?" She had had a few years of Spanish classes, but it wouldn't be enough to get by if this man didn't speak more than a few words of English.

"Latin, actually," he said quietly. "Miss, can you stand by yourself?"

What a stupid question! She had been trying to stand by herself and get at least five feet away from whoever he was for the last five minutes! Eagerly, she pushed herself up, throwing his arms off her. She turned around as if to dare him to challenge her ability to stand, when suddenly all the blood rushed to her head. Her knees wobbled beneath her, and she toppled head-first to the ground. If it weren't for the gentleman there, she would have gashed her knees on the rocks.

"Let's see," the man said as he lifted Jessica into his arms, as if she weighted no more than a feather. "First, you can't understand my native tongue, and then you can't stand by yourself."

"It was just the blood going to my head," Jessica gurgled, still feeling the effects of the head-rush.

"You were nearly dead when I found you," the man continued, "and your clothes are all wet. I shall take you back to my house and give you proper replacement clothes there."

"NO!" Jessica screamed, thrashing against the stranger. To his house?! Not bloody likely! That's what happened to girls her age all the time! They're picked up by strangers, and ever seen or heard from until they find the girl's body floating face down in a river or chucked over the edge of a highway!

The stranger was confused. He had just offered this girl a warm place to stay, and a chance to get out of these wet clothes. Perhaps, he reasoned, she thought him to be one of those dangerous sorts of chaps. Well, no matter. He would soon put her straight.

"You shall be perfectly safe with Erik," he said calmly, and even ventured a smile, though he knew that the girl would barely be able to see it in this darkness, and half of what she saw would be covered up by a mask.

Jessica stopped thrashing long enough to ask, "Erik?"

"Yes. I am Erik!" The man—Erik—chuckled to himself. Jessica had just decided that not only was this man a predator, but he was also insane. She started to fight off Erik again.

Erik rolled his eyes. What a child. Couldn't she see that he meant her no harm? He got a steadier hold on her, and started walking in the direction of his home. The girl's arms were pinned at her sides, and all she could do was yell and futilely kick against Erik's frame, and Erik was used to people screaming at him.

Out of a scientific curiosity, Erik started singing under his breath. Most people were intoxicated by the mere sound of him speaking, yet this girl seemed to not notice his voice. Erik soon found, however, that the girl, though she obviously didn't want to be, was enchanted by his voice when he sang.

Jessica found herself being lulled against her will into a sort of daydream state of mind. She stopped struggling against Erik and started listening—really listening—to his music. She had friends who sang—after all, who didn't?—but none of her friends could sing like this. This… this was beyond words.

"My name's Jessica," she told him sleepily, resting her head against his heart, its own beats in time with the music. "I don't think it's fair that I know your name, but you don't know mine."

Erik nodded, stopping his song very briefly to murmur, "Goodnight, Jessica." The girl was asleep seconds later.