Princess of Victory - Guardians of Forewood [1]

Chapter 7: Despair of Past

Day 13of the Fourth Month, Year 1016

Nighweald Village, Goldburg Province

IT was a struggle to get out.

The darkness they were in was truly, utterly, dangerous. It was like a maze designed to kill hapless victims that fell into it. Victoria couldn't count how many times they both pulled each other back from falling into traps. Thankfully, they were very alert to danger, otherwise... Victoria shuddered remembering the perilous slicing machine they just went past.

When they walked slowly past another section of their path, there was a sudden spray of air from above her. Startled, she almost fell down to the sharp spikes in front if Dev didn't stop her. Were there even sharp spikes?

"Hey, are you okay... Hey!" The voice sounded so far away...

Victoria blinked. The Major looked blurry in her eyes. Where was she? Huh?

No, where was that dark maze basement? She was now all alone, with nothing in sight. She looked around frantically. It was just white. The white was so bright that she almost couldn't help but cover her eyes.

When she opened her eyes again, she was somewhere else. The familiar place... No. No, it can't be. She closed her eyes again, refusing to open it. It must be a dream. It must be...

"Help us!" Someone screamed.

She held her fist tightly. No one was holding her back now.

Without meaning to, she moved.

When she did, though, someone hold her back. She saw no one. The castle garden was empty. Where were those who screamed for help?

"...cta! Victa!"

She suddenly opened her eyes and felt her whole body shaking. No. Not real. Definitely not real. The face of someone who should be a stranger to her felt comforting, but she couldn't move. She couldn't move and it scared her. Something gripped at her. The pain. The fear. The...

She widened her eyes. Behind you... She wanted to say, but her voice wouldn't work. Her whole self was paralyzed. The air basked them over again, and this time, Major Dev looked dizzy and fell.

Something was in the air of this corridor. It wasn't good, certainly. She was suddenly in the throne room, feeling small, looking at the figure of her mother next to the coffin. The dark coffin. It was fuzzy—perhaps because her memory of it was fuzzy. She never looked in. Her mother prevented it, back then.

Back then... Is this a memory...? Was all of this not real? The sobbing she heard from her mother sounded real. She could almost smell the flowers around the coffin... The chatter and whispers of the nobles around her...

She fainted back then, and she fainted now.

Afterwards, she lost consciousness multiple times, and when she was awake, she was always somewhere else. Occasionally it was the barracks, when all the heavy training caught up to her, and she cried in her dorm, almost giving up. Before she could get used to it, the scene changed to her childhood bedroom, when she was awake and overheard the maids talked about her father's corpse—that was mangled and miserable.

All of these changing scenes started to muddle her head. Where was she really? Was she dead?

The consistent thing was the castle garden, the place where that happened. No. No, she knew. Her worst nightmare. It replayed in front of her many, many times...

When she finally resurfaced somewhere that she was quite sure was reality, she tried moving, but she couldn't. Despair filled her heart. It would be so peaceful to just let it be... After all, her life had been borrowed for so many years. Perhaps it was time for her to return it.