Prologue
The moon shone into the large room, toys lay on the floor, scattered like corpses on a battlefield, a teddy bear, an action figure, a stuffed dragon, they all stared blankly at the painted eggshell ceiling. A man stood at the doorway, his yellow eyes locked on a bed at the far corner of the baby blue room. He had two bloody daggers in hand. Thick crimson fluid dripped to the wooden floor, breaking the eerie silence with a soft rain-like sound, accompanied only by his triumphant footsteps as he neared the king-sized canopy bed, dark wooden columns held up a sheer veil that hung down, encasing it. He watched over a tiny body, drowning in the sea of comfort. He absorbed the sight of the faint rise and fall of its chest, the only sign of life, the sign of his impending victory. He drew a dagger and pricked his finger on the end, it was still sharp, a tiny bead emerged from his finger. He winced and brought the wound to his lips, the subtle taste of iron making its way to his buds. Slowly, he raised the blade above its torso, letting the satisfaction of his success sink in. The rush of adrenaline, all the lives he’d taken to reach this final step to glory, it fueled his slashing motion.
“The king and queen are dead!”
Only inches from the child, the dagger hung in the air, the weight of it as heavy as that of his loss. He sheathed it with a tsk, grabbing the sleeping body, throwing it over his shoulder and striding confidently to the half-open window.
“Go check on the prince!”
The boy didn’t stir or wake, he slept calmly in his arms even as they burst into the cold of the night, as though he trusted that only his mother would carry him in such a way.
“The prince is missing!”
Their screams echoed through the air, castle lights brightening the clearing he’d only just escaped. He wouldn’t let this boy be an inconvenience, he imagined it couldn’t be as big of a trouble as his parents would’ve been had they been awake when he’d come to end them. He stopped to look at the boy in his arms, his pale face was round, the soft flesh overly perfect for the man’s liking. He wondered how fulfilling it’d have been to cut and sighed miserably at his failure.
Gentle laughter echoed through the empty streets, the moon cascading down on the emerging shadows. The man froze as the figures grew near revealing a young couple, dressed in rags. He looked them over and noticed a little bundle in the woman’s arms. Their eyes met his and they froze in terror at the sight they saw. Holding the child with one hand, he pulled out a dagger.
The father put his hand in front of his wife, “don’t hurt us.”
“Don’t worry this won’t hurt a bit,” he grinned, slowly walking towards them, the sound of their shaking breaths like a lullaby.
“Please just don’t hurt our baby! She’s innocent.” the mother cried, holding her baby to her chest.
“Fine, put her down.” the man said and nodded to the stone street.
The mother slowly walked past her husband’s arm, and placed her baby down, giving her one final kiss, as she started to stand the man quickly plunged his dagger into the back of her neck, her blood splattering on the cool stoned path. Her husband cried in pain at the sight of his love plopped to the floor, a pool of red forming underneath her limp corpse. The child in his arms started to stir as it woke, he gently placed him down and quickly slashed his dagger across the man’s chest. He fell to the ground, and he watched as life escaped him, disappearing into the abyss. The man sheathed his blade and walked over to the awoken boy.
“Shh, go back to sleep, it’s all a nightmare.”
He lifted up the boy and grabbed the bundle on the floor into his arms, and walked into the darkness of the night.
