His Prophecy

IV

I feel myself screaming so loud and so much that I'm sure I will never talk again.

My brother and my mother are laying on the marbled steps of the courtyard, bathing in their own blood. Their eye sockets are merely pools, overflowing with their blood. Their necks are sliced open so much I can almost see their throat through all the blood.

We are the only ones here, the palace guards nowhere to be found. One would think the palace steps were intricately dyed red during construction based on how bright red they glisten beneath my family's dead bodies.

I fall to my knees on the hard steps, hearing the splash as I get covered in blood. The air is so thick with death and blood that I can't breathe. I am sobbing harder than I ever have before and I can't help but throw up over the side of the steps.

I feel myself growing dizzy, my vision rapidly getting darker.

In some distance I hear my brother's voice call out to me: "Lia. Lia!"

Oh how cruel the Gods are being to taunt me so. Isn't it enough that I've witnessed the murder of my family by the pestilence that I caused?

"Lia!" There it is again...

"Ophelia!" I jolt awake. I'm soaking in my own sweat, my dark hair has come out of its braid and is now sticking to my face and neck. I look around and see that I'm not on the bloody palace steps, nor am I on a forest floor. I'm in my... bedroom? I hear songbirds singing from my open window and my crystal chandelier is glimmering in the sunlight. Across from me stands Atti, with a look I've never seen on him before. Is he angry?

"Wh- what happened?" I ask my brother, my throat groggy from sleep.

"That's funny, I was going to ask you the same thing," he says with anger. I've never seen Atti get more than mildly annoyed before, so this is just adding to my confusion even more.

"How the hell would I know? I've clearly been sleeping," I respond, growing aggravated.

"No, you've been screaming, Lia. Loud enough for Ma and I to think you were constantly getting murdered. We were this close to calling the head priestess so she could do a ritual on you." Well thank goodness I woke up when I did. I'd rather get constantly murdered than have her grimy "pure" hands on me.

Atti squints his eyes at me as if he knows what I'm thinking.

"Not to mention the fact you were brought in two days ago, being carried by some guy claiming he was "just passing through the woods on a wee little stroll" when he happened upon a "wee little lady taking an afternoon nap," he recalled, mimicking the "guy" with a high pitched foreign accent.

Wait. Did Sun Man carry me all the way home? No. Atti is using an obnoxious accent, and his voice felt like gold.

"The guy," I say, "what did he look like?"

Atti starts walking closer to me, taking a seat on my bed, a frown on his lips.

"I...don't remember exactly. I just remember his eyes," he says with a far off look on his face.

"And what'd they look like?" I urge, on my metaphorical edge of my seat.

"Gold, I guess." No. Fucking. Way. Hot Sun Man carried me all the way from the middle of the woods to the palace! It must've taken a lot of strength for him to not sell me on his way here.

At the look of familiarity on my face, Atti grows suspicious.

"Why do you ask?" He says, crossing his scrawny arms.