(Ophelia)
***
The uneven pace of my breathing rendered me unable to keep speaking. A haze settled over us, and my weariness did not help to dissipate that darkness.
"Maybe there's still a chance," Koharu told me.
"If not,"—her voice carried with it all the hope I wished to have in such a dire situation and *would* have had if I was back in the Galaxy Kingdom—"we'll make the best of what we have here. I swear by that."
She paused to think of something to say. "You might still find gold in a river filled with shit."
I couldn't bring myself to laugh at the ridiculous comment, even with her accentuations to it. Sure, it was funny enough for my giddy self any other time, but there was such a bitter truth to it.
*Yeah, we're in a river of shit right now. Thank you for putting that into words better than I can.*
In the mess of any situation, the only thing that remained was good humor (and taxes—except for nobodies). I supposed I had nothing left besides that and Koharu at that point.
The words from a week ago about sacrifices and eternities tasted like acid on my tongue. I wanted to spit at the ground.
Fuck everyone else!
I was on the verge of throwing up while crying—so sickly that I couldn't think of anything apart from the current predicament. No amount of magic could fix that feeling unless it could mend the situation itself. Palliative measures were futile.
*So much for the fairy dust earlier.*
"Yeah," I said to Koharu with my tone resting between resignation and sarcasm. "It's like that, isn't it?"
"I'm sorry," she told me again, voice dramatically increasing in volume. "I'll say it a thousand more times that I messed—"
"I'm not mad at you. Let it go. We have other things to think about now."
The footsteps of beefy security guards clacked against the stone floor. I turned to see several men approaching with thick boots. Already feeling so defeated and deflated that my arms were limp, I did not try to resist as I had with the police.
This was what I deserved for trying to step out of my place in the castle. Nothing went unpunished.
The men seized my arms and manhandled me out of the room. I was forced to let go of Koharu's hand, which wrenched my heart even more than the rough fingers grasping my shoulders.
Roslynn and Aries could not say anything, knowing the rules were predetermined. They were innocent children who had only wanted to help, and they had finally had the honor of seeing how happy endings were only guaranteed in books. I wanted to apologize for being part of that smack to reality, but I really didn't want to get gagged or slapped in the face.
*I'll save that for if I see you two again, but I'm only a dirty crook who stepped too far over the line.*
King Dakota watched with a blank expression. He was probably amused somewhere on the inside, watching peasants—scum of the earth—getting carried out of his pristine little fortress. I guessed I was sorry for dragging the dirt in.
The ticking of the broken clock faded as I stepped away from it, and the ceiling caved in due to its arch shape. There was no future, no place forward, no hope anymore…
I then grunted, shocked into place by a sudden uproar in my limbs.
Some tingling burned my fingertips, and it was a sensation beyond that of normal touch. It spread throughout my whole body until it seared the security guards who touched me. They let go in a rush with confused looks as I felt like I was being grilled alive over a fire—a crude vivisection of sorts.
*If that's the case, how long will it be until this kills me? I never said I didn't want to live!*
Yet I could not sweat under the warmth, and I wondered if it was all an illusion. No body reacted to stimuli like that otherwise. The cocktail of failed magic spells preceding my second arrest was the only explanation to me as my mind tried to pinpoint the blame while being overheated like a machine.
My first thought was to glance over at Koharu to see if she was undergoing the same thing, and I quickly regretted that decision, stiffening instead like I was frozen.
I was about to shout when I saw green lenses fall out to reveal earthy brown eyes of equal beauty to their predecessors. If anything else fell off her, I had to have been in a nightmare—the grotesque pieces of human limbs desecrating my mind in some sacrilegious ritual to reveal the nudity of bare bone dressed in only the scanty remnants of blood.
The dots of color swirled and swirled and swirled and…
*Shit. I'm dizzy now.*
A blinding light sheathed my vision as I reached out, unable to get my bearings in front of me.
Everything was golden. Everything was peachy.
It was like the sun descended upon me in its brightness, but the moon now covered me in ice and cold. Koharu was no more than a shadow cast beside me, somewhere beyond the wheat fields. In that setting, her screeching was drowned out by the distance and wind.
"Koharu! Roslynn! Aries! Someone!"
I was so scared that I wanted to bend over, but my knees locked as if by a metal key.
*I can't handle this alone.*
I tried running around; however, the glow sucked me into its center like a vortex, tangling my feet like garden weeds. Yet I could not fall over either. My base was like that of a megalith, but I was a boulder on the edge of a cliff.
All weight and blood soared to my head, making gravity seem as if it reversed itself. The draping of my clothes and hair told me otherwise, though, and I was left in a cyclone of confusion—both a physical and mental tornado.
Nausea hit my stomach, but I still couldn't keel over. It became an insidious heat in my torso as it grew like a firework until something would burst and soar upwards.
Through blurred vision—though I would never know for sure—I spotted a pair of icy blue eyes blinking at me without a face before turning around until a pastel feather dropped in front of my vision, and then, everything became so overwhelming that it turned black with no traces of colored light.
*The yellow curtains close, and I'm done for!*