Madeleine's Eternal Passion

The first thing I felt was the warm sunlight on my skin. It almost felt like a hot blanket. Previously, I had never felt anything like that before. I had always been in dark rooms with only a few candles to light my path during my entire life. I didn’t even know what sunlight looked liked until I went outside for the first time. I guess it was the same for everyone who had been living in the underground caves all their lives, but it still felt strange to me.

As I slowly opened my eyes and saw the blue sky above me for the first time, I could hear everyone around me talking about what had happened yesterday.

“I can’t believe it...”

“The Goddess has given her blessing to one of us!”

“She chose Madeleine!”

Everyone around me was talking and saying how happy they were for me, as if they were all my friends. However, most of them were actually just people I didn’t know at all. They were all trying to get close to me and praise me for my beauty, or rather, praise the Goddess for blessing me with such an amazing body. The truth was that everyone in the underground cave was treated equally, and no one really cared about anyone else, so this sudden change was very surprising to everyone. Some people even started questioning whether or not it was true that the Goddess had chosen someone from our community to be blessed by Her divine presence. It took a while before they finally realized that she really did choose someone, which made many people wonder why she would choose someone as ugly as myself. No matter how much they tried to deny it, I really did receive a blessing from the Goddess herself and it changed my life forever.

I didn’t mind being treated differently by everyone else though; after all, now that I looked like this, I couldn’t help but think that maybe there should be some positive changes in my life as well. After all, who wouldn’t want to be beautiful? However, despite how different I looked from before, nothing changed inside of me at all. Who am I kidding? Of course nothing changed! Everyone thought that I became this way because of some divine intervention from the Goddess Myself! They were worshipping me and praising me for something that wasn't real! They probably wouldn't even think twice about blaming me if things don't go as they expected! Maybe they would even try to kill me! After all, who knew what these crazy people might do?! Maybe they would even blame the whole thing on me if our community failed to survive in these harsh conditions! After all, an ugly woman like myself wouldn't have any other uses than being a sacrifice... Wait... Am *I* being used right now? Have they made use of me so that they could survive? Have they tricked me into thinking that this is real so that they would be able to use my body in exchange? Is this whole thing just fake?! Are they laughing at me behind my back?! Has everyone already accepted that I'm here to stay or are they waiting for an opportunity where they can make use of their situation? Even though nobody has ever said anything bad about my looks so far, why is it so hard for them to accept what's happening? It's not like we can just go outside and let nature take its toll on our looks... What should I do...? Even though everybody thinks that this is real and treats me like a star, there's no guarantee that everything will end up alright...

Even if everything went completely fine though... What if this is all real? What if everything goes according to plan and we start living normal lives again? Would this feeling ever leave me? Would I still feel special no matter what happens afterwards?

As a child who lived in darkness her entire life without knowing anything beyond those walls of rock surrounding her own home, could I even survive outside? Could someone like myself ever interact with others without looking down on them because of their appearance? Can anyone live like this without feeling ashamed of themselves every second of their lives? Will my new look ever fade away after a while or will it stay with me forever? How long will it take before everyone sees through it?