The lost princess

The room was damp and cold, cold with marks of water dripping down the unhomely painted walls. The paving slabs were freezing and impersonally decorated, there were no carpets covering them. There was no life nor humanity in the semidark chamber. There was no door nor curtains on the tiny window that looked on to the north, making the room even more dark and mysterious. It was unhomely and unlived. No one entered the freezing cube that composed the enchanted, shadowed lodging. It was empty of life even though the passage outside was full of it.
The place was avoided by everyone. It had such a sense of emptiness… When the threshold was crossed, a wave of uncontrollable panic entered into the intruders heart. The floor boards under the feet felt as cold as ice, sharpening the freezing terror. The walls were clammy, you couldn’t lean on them…
It smelt damp. The air entered your throat and cut it like a knife. It felt dry and it was hard to swallow. The fear crept into your heart slowly but unceasingly and made its self bigger and stronger, petrifying you completely. It was like a serpents venom, spreading through your blood paralysing you vein by vein, artery by artery…

She entered the poisoned room. No sound was to be heard except for the faint drip, drip of water on the floor. For the first time in the room’s history, it all failed. She laughed. It was a delightful laugh. The type you hear when a child is hugged by her mother. She frowned as the echo slowly returned to her. She felt a sudden warmth around her. She noticed that the floor was now covered in thick Indian carpets. It all felt cosy and warm under her small feet. She moved with the glamour and gentleness of a deer, so delicate and fragile…
There was a lovely scent all over the room. It was like someone had opened a bottle of the loveliest perfume and let it mix with the air. It smelt of the finest vanilla. Looking out of the window you could see the source of that magnificent smell. There was a small garden full of small vanilla plants, starting to bloom in the night’s cold air.
The room was now painted in the finest violet. The walls had stopped the dripping and sweating, and instead of the faint drip, drip you could hear a small bird tweeting in a tiny cage at the far end of the room.
Soon she felt sleepy and noticed a current of warm air picking her up and carrying her to a cosy four-poster. There she slept for hours and hours…
As she slept the walls started to drip again soaking the silk carpets and returning the room to its old state to such an extent, that after a few minutes only the four-poster stood in the middle of the icy room. There was no sign of the tiny princess. Instead there was a little deer skipping and hopping under the moonlight in a garden full of tiny vanilla flowers.