Beautiful
In the quiet town of Omi-Ala, beauty was never a blessing.It was a warning.
Seventeen-year-old Aderinsola knew this better than anyone.
She was beautiful in a way that made people stop mid-sentence. Skin like warm honey, eyes that shimmered like rain after sunset, lips curved as if they knew secrets. Strangers stared. Teachers paused. Even women twice her age looked at her with a mix of envy and fear.
Yet when you looked at her family, nothing made sense.
Her father's face was rough and scarred from years of farm work. Her mother had dull skin and tired eyes that never smiled fully. Her brothers were ordinary—plain, forgettable, invisible.
And then there was Sola.Unexplainably beautiful. Painfully different.
From childhood, her mother warned her:"Cover yourself. Don't draw attention."Her father never looked at her for too long.The elders whispered when she passed.
"She doesn't look like them.""Beauty like that never comes without a price."
At sixteen, strange things began to happen.
Mirrors cracked when she stared too long.Flowers bloomed where her tears fell.Men who desired her too strongly fell sick with unexplained fevers.
And every night, the same dream came.
A woman dressed in white, face hidden, whispering:"They traded you."
The truth revealed itself on her seventeenth birthday.
Her grandmother, on her deathbed, finally spoke.
Years ago, when her parents were desperate for wealth and favor, they went to a shrine. The priest offered them a choice: prosperity in exchange for their first daughter's fate.
The child would be blessed with beauty that could bend hearts…but cursed so that love would never stay.People would desire her, fear her, envy her—but never truly choose her.
"She is not beautiful," the grandmother whispered weakly."She is marked."
Sola's world shattered.
All her life, she wondered why no one stayed. Why friendships turned sour. Why admiration quickly became hatred. Why love always ended in pain.
Her beauty was never a gift.It was a cage.
But curses thrive on silence—and Sola was done being quiet.
On the night of the full moon, she returned to the shrine alone. Not to beg. Not to cry.
But to choose.
"I reject this beauty that destroys me," she said, her voice steady."I choose myself."
The wind screamed. The shrine trembled.
At dawn, Sola walked home.
She was still beautiful—but softer now. Human. Real.
For the first time, someone looked at her and smiled without fear.
And Sola understood something powerful:
The real curse was never her beauty.It was the belief that she didn't deserve more