Ruthless

↠ Epilogue ↞

"And I'd choose you;
in a hundred lifetimes, 
in a hundred worlds,
in any version of reality,
I'd find you and
I'd choose you
over and over, again and again."

---

THREE YEARS LATER

HER eyes begrudgingly opened and squinted in the darkness. But it was all in vain, everything around her was hidden under the cloak of darkness more black than the midnight black sky. It was just darkness around - just darkness and nothing else. Akira tried to feel things around blindly and realized that she was suspended in mid-air and all around her was nothing other than a nerve-jolting abyss of nothingness.    

Before her mind could comprehend the mystery of where she was, she felt a pull from down below. She looked down to locate the source of the unknown pull but before she could even minutely understand whatever was happening, she fell down. She fell and fell and fell, screaming her lungs out, burning her throat until she fell harshly on a eye-burning white marble floor. 

Akira stayed on the cold smooth ground for a few minutes. Her body was surprisingly still intact and not broken into a million little pieces from the terrible fall. She looked around, shielding her eyes till they got adjusted to the bright white around her.  

"You could have saved me" A familiar voice greeted her as she looked up - still traumatized from the fall - to find her mother's life-less face.

Her mother looked Akira in her eyes as her face contorted in a strange mix of pain and accusation. Her mother started crying, repeating the words as if they were the only thing she knew, "You could have saved me." The former queen managed to say through violent sobs, "You let this happen to me."

Akira managed to swallow the fear and scrambled backwards slowly, "Maa- I..." Her stomach churned uneasily as her mother walked towards her and she tried to move back, "I- I am sorry." 

Akira's back came in contact with something hard and a voice behind her seethed, "You're sorry?" 

The queen looked back at the stone-cold face of her baba. Akira stood up, her heart beating erratically in her chest, "Ba- baba?" 

This is not how she wanted to meet her parents again.

"You have failed me Akira" Her father said, her once-loving eyes were poisoned with disappoint and accusation, "You have been nothing but a disappointment to both me and your kingdom." 

"Baba-" Akira pleaded, her voice choking up, too shocked to even say something, "I- I don't understa-"

A venomous laugh from her right filled her ears and she saw her brother laughing, his head tipped back as he laughed his heart out, a bloody sword still in his hands, "I told you I would be doing the kingdom a favour by killing you, sister." 

"No" A small gasp left her mouth as she tried to back away, away from her 'family'. 

Veer laughed again, "I told you Akira, we are the two sides of the same coin." He stopped laughing and met the queen's gaze fiercely, raising the sword at her, "You're just as much of a monster as me, heck, maybe you're worse."