(Here’s the culturally adapted, surreal, dreamlike version of your story, rewritten with English names, settings, and idioms while preserving the original tone and structure. Currency has been converted to pounds, and all cultural elements are anglicised.)
You are Alice. From this moment, you live inside a film.
Helen had been wheeling her daughter through the dusky streets of Manchester for over an hour. They’d drifted in and out of shops—not to buy anything, just to pretend, for a while, that they were an ordinary family. They only bought ice cream and lemonade. Later, they settled on a bench beneath a blossoming hawthorn tree near their flat. Emily adored these evening strolls and never rushed home—here, under the open sky, she felt closer to something like freedom.
Then, without warning, a van marked “FILM CREW” pulled up. A tall man stepped out, scanned the square, and strode toward them with a grin. He stopped directly in front of Emily.
“You’re Emily?”
“Y-yes…” she stammered.
“I’ve come for you.”
“For me?” Her heart thudded wildly.
“Fancy being in a movie?”
Emily glanced at her mum, then back at the stranger, her voice trembling with suspicion:
“Why are you joking?”
“I’m not. I’m Daniel. A director. We’re casting our lead. You’re perfect.”
Helen hesitated—until she saw the flame ignite in her daughter’s eyes, the raw hope on her face. She nodded.
“If this isn’t a wind-up… let’s give it a go.”
And just like that, they were on a film set. Emily was wheeled into the centre of a vast, glowing studio—cameras, blinding lights, silence. Then, a boy appeared. Tall, charming, with a grin straight off a cinema poster.
“Hey. I’m Oliver. Your co-star. And you—you’re Alice.”
Emily said nothing. This couldn’t be real. She wasn’t an actress—just a girl in a wheelchair, suddenly pulled into a story.
The filming began. They coached her, guided her. Scenes with parents first, then with Oliver. Line by line, take by take—but Emily wasn’t acting. She was alive. She cried when her character was abandoned, laughed when Oliver cracked a joke. And when he lifted her into his arms, gazing into her eyes—her heart raced like a runaway train. This wasn’t just a film. It was her life, framed in celluloid.
Daniel, the director, adored her. “You’re real,” he’d say. “You’re my Alice. You’re not performing—you’re breathing it.”
She bloomed like spring. Every day had purpose. Her first kiss—scripted, but real to her. Even when stunt doubles handled the wilder scenes—leaping into water, being swept into embraces—Emily didn’t mind. Her soul was on that screen.
Weeks passed. Filming wrapped. The crew scattered. Emily was back under the hawthorn tree, but now she had a credit to her name. A heart full of sensations.
Helen beamed. “You’ve earned nearly fifty grand, love. We’ll get you anything.”
“I’m not a princess, Mum…” Emily sighed, looking down at her legs.
“But you were. And you will be again.”
Then—another car. A cab. Oliver stepped out. With flowers. Real ones. No cameras. No script.
“Are these… for me?” she whispered.
“For you, Emily. I want you. Properly. No more films.”
…Meanwhile, in a doctor’s office, Daniel raised a glass.
“Cheers for Emily. She didn’t just change the film—she changed me.”
“Happy to help,” the doctor smiled. “What brings you back?”
“In the sequel, Alice walks out of that wheelchair.”
“How long have I got?”
“Two years.”
“We’ll manage.”
And in that moment, fate was already drafting a new script—not on paper, but in the life of a girl who’d stopped being just “the one in the chair” and become the heroine of her own story.
