The Day of the Banquet
"Ellanious, stand on this thing again. I need to check your weight," The duchess forced me again.
I was not even coming out of my room, but they pushed me out of the room as if they were putting batteries on me and making me move with the help of a remote control.
"Ellanious, didn't you hear what I said? Or do you need punishment?" The Duchess's eyes went wide, but the eyes still looked so dull.
"I will do as you say, Mother," I agreed and did as she said, but the weight scale wasn't as she expected. I was still at forty kilograms, and I only lost five kilograms these days.
"You disobey me?" I flinched.
"Mother, I did as you said," my voice was still calm until a harsh slap landed on my cheek. It made my blood boil. I had a feeling growing inside me as if it kept on telling me, "What are you waiting for? Why did you let this old hag touch you? Why don't you just hold her neck and strangle her to death?"
I didn't hear those voices but touched the blood coming out of my cheeks making a harsh scratch on my face.
"Mother, you know what it means right?" my eyes went dark.
My eyes grew even bigger than I usually look at a person while my pupil is still fluctuating.
"Ella, I didn't mean it."
"Forgive your mother, ha. All I did for your good. You understand me, right?" she still hasn't come to her senses, but her begging near me didn't make me feel bad at all or good. I didn't feel satisfied. It's the feeling which is temporary. It felt as if the feeling I'm having now is just a makeup trick for the duchess to get rid of this situation.
"Mother, didn't you say I'm going to be the crown prince? Then how could you make this big scratch on my face? Or you don't care what I feel?" My voice is too dark. I wonder if it is my voice.
"Ha, are you forgetting your place, Duchess!!!!!!"
I snapped as I said this sentence. No, I can feel this voice is not at all mine. It is so creepy as well as cold.
"I d-didn't," the Duchess stuttered.
"Duchess, what are you doing on the ground?" Yeah, the Duke arrived too.
"D-dear, I have made a grave sin."
"How could I even think of living in this place?"
"No, yeah I made such a grave sin which has the only way to come over and that is death."
"Yeah, I need to kill myself."
"This is so shameful."
Has she finally lost her mind? What the hell is she saying? She is speaking like those psychiatric patients which we only found in the psychiatric ward, but she is even more insane than them.
I kept thinking while the Duke slowly came toward me, but as he saw my face, he didn't bother to look at the Duchess.
"Yeah, you did a grave sin."
"You have no place in the place."
"You should go and die because you have become a traitor to this empire."
What the hell am I even hearing? The duke is telling his wife to kill herself because she is a traitor. How?
"Father, what are you saying?"
"She has made a mistake," I spoke. I'm panicking. I'm not sure why when I don't even share blood relations with them.
"No, she did a sin."
"And the only thing that can return her sin is death."
"She needs to kill herself." I kept on flinching hearing their conversation.
I couldn't process my thoughts any longer. The entire conversation turned into an argument with them, but still, I tried to stop everything. I tried to do everything I could do until a loud noise made my body shudder.
What was that?
I kept hearing many people yelling behind me.
I slowly turned toward my back. I never realized that there was a large window behind me which was covered with dark-colored curtains but now it is drenched in blood. Yeah, blood. The glasses were shattering while my tears were falling. But it is not that I'm hurt but the Duchess who was telling me as if she had committed a grave sin has thrown herself from top to down.
I gathered my courage. I took my steps forward. Yeah, I took, however, I could, finally reached the window trying to look down to find the Duchess's entire body filled with blood. Blood splashed here and there. The scene was so scary that my head rang.
***
"Ella, what are you reading?" My friend asked.
"Oh this, it is a fairy tale I got from my little cousin," I replied.
"Is this even the age for you to read fairy tales?" She laughed at me as well but the more I read into that I found the most gruesome, painful deaths that children are not supposed to read.
"Ella, why are you looking as if...
She didn't even finish her full sentence so I ran to the washroom. My stomach is clenching again and again. I couldn't hold what was happening inside me but as I finally reached the face-washing basin I threw up. I threw up so badly, but the gruesome feeling is not coming out of my mind.
"What made you feel this way?" My friend came to rub my back but how could I say what I read in the book?
The part I read is where the Duchess throws herself from the top floor. Her entire body was poked with sharp glasses which were placed in the window. Her blood kept on splashing like a water pump. Blood came out from her eyes as well as her nose. The mouth was not an exception.
The scene was so brutal.
But when the princess ran down to see her mother, she found her mother's eye poked out, lying on the ground.
I puked again.
"This is too disgusting."