Beyond Shut Doors

Character Arc 1: Prince Syphilis | Chapter 5

With a rather irritating, slowly fading ringing in my ears my eyes slowly opened the following day. Still I felt unable to open them completely. The sunlight hurt, my vision was strangely blurry and no matter how many times I blinked, it would not help. After a few seconds passed by my mother entered the room with our doctor, which caused me to be rather confused. He sat down next to my bedside as he carefully put the back of his hand against my head, to which my eyes closed by reflex. Then he began to speak.

„Good day, my prince. How are you feeling?"

It took me a moment to respond and realize what he said.

„... Hurt."

„Hurt? Can you tell me where it hurts?"

Aside from my slow reaction time, I was able to articulate where my pain came from. My head pounded the more I moved, it felt as if the earth would be shifting every second and still, my eyes could not take the sunlight. The doctor took some notes and used some of his tools on me to help analyzing what could have happened, since in that moment, I myself had no memory of the incident whatsoever. Father later on joined the room as well, questioning the situation. A moment later the doctor looked at both of them.

„I fear your son suffers from a concussion, your highness."

My father crossed his arms.

„A concussion? How did that happen?"

„I have no answer for that, however my assumption is that he may have fallen from a tree, since he was found near the forest area."

„I see... despite my words you still would not hesitate to return to the mud, is it?"

As my father looked kind of upset with me, mother held onto his arm, silently signaling him to stop speaking to me that way. Then she faced the doctor again.

„How long will it take for him to recover, Dahlian?"

„I cannot determine that with certainty, my Queen, however it may range from a few days to months of recovery. We can only hope for the best. However I can tell you that majority of people recover from all of the symptoms, including the amnesia surrounding the event."

Relieved mother took a breath and nodded understandingly.
For me, luckily it only lasted for about a week of healing. Doctor Dahlian would check on me daily, always making sure I would eat and drink enough. He also reminded me to rest up for the majority of time, yet I was not able to constantly sleep. On the night before I was able to roam around freely again, mother sat at my bedside once again, yet I was not able to fall asleep. My eyes focused on her.

„... I just wanted you to stop fighting."

With a surprised face, mother kept looking at me as I faced the ground with guilt.

„You and father did not look happy when you talked with each other on my birthday. So, I wanted to get you something, both of you so you would be happy again, but it was so high on that tree... I'm sorry, mother..."

As I lost a few tears, she gently took me in her arms and caressed my back carefully. She apologized as well and told me not to cry, for it wasn't my fault.
Despite being able to walk again, I was supposed to take part in calm activities only, which didn't bother me, since I was usually rather calm either way. During this time, I decided to pay a lot more attention to the piano that stood in our hallway. Father had noticed that and soon after I showed interest in learning how to play, he would start playing it with me. Sure he was still rather strict with his teaching, yet for some reason I preferred this time with him more than any other. There had never been a moment before in which he seemed as delighted as he was during the time we played the instrument together. He may have even smiled once or twice. Within the year I was also allowed to meet up with Eirian to spend some time together. She would always teach me randomly useful things and also helped me understand that commoners speak differently from us royals. Fascinated I listened to everything she offered to share with me. It did not seem to bother her in the slightest that I was rather a listener than a talker. And yet, not even she was able to help me with learning another language. Either I pronounced the words wrong or questioned everything. The overanalyzing that began during these episodes put a wall between me and foreign languages. Not even only foreign. The language of viruses was so complicated for me to understand that I ended up crying about it. As the winter arrived, Eirian was not allowed to visit me, since her parents became concerned she'd get sick, so we kept sending each other letters instead.
One morning then, I noticed it to be awfully silent and as my feet took me around the castle, nobody was to be found. Concerned I kept on looking everywhere until Yersinia accidentally bumped into me with tears in her eyes. Yet as I was going to ask what is wrong, she simply ran upstairs, crying. My confusion was almost visible. However, father soon appeared, staring at me almost hallow.

„Father, why is Yersinia crying?"

Silently he kept looking at me before kneeling down and putting his hand onto my shoulder.

„Syphilis, your mother has been taken to the heavens."

My heart hurt after hearing these terrifying words he said. I was frozen and simply stared at him, kind of looking for answers inside of his eyes, yet there were none. In disbelief I took a few steps back from him and shook my head. My eyes slowly filled up with tears as I as well ran upstairs and into my parents room, which was empty. I cried for mother, yet she didn't appear, no matter how many times I called for her. She was not there. Nowhere. Broken-hearted my feet brought me to the big bed as I climbed up onto mother's side and hugged her pillow before bursting out into tears.

„Mama!"

She didn't come to me. And slowly I realized, she never would return to me again...