The Reaper King

Chapter 7: Son of The Terror pt. 1

Damien sat on the green and yellow, massive carpet embroidered with black roses.

The night had been uneventful after dinner, but that wasn't necessarily a good thing. Damien had been left to the mercy of the one thing that always seemed to wake up bright and early to hate on him and his entire existence, his own thoughts.

A petrified mess, wrapped in the snuggly comfort of a straight jacket while being taken on a grippy socks vacation, would be Damien taking the last few hours before biologically his destiny would start lightly. He might as well start swaggering around like the freakish love child of Napoleon and Alexander.

The longer he fought sleep to remain awake, the more Damien knew for certain, he was going to be dragged to the next day, whether he was actually ready for it or not.

Tick,

tock,

tick,

tock.

It was standard practice that the imperial crown prince be given respite from his royal duties after he had taken his evening meal. And so it was the only brief but blessed time that should've been where Damien could find requiem from his daily duties pretending to be a perfect, tranquil, idol. He could relax behind closed, massive double doors, to just be a 13 year old.

However, as reality often disappoints, Damien's free time instead became the time where he would be held captive by his own thoughts, tormented with no one to desperately cry out to for help.

It had only been a 9 hours since they'd left the orphanage and arrived at the D'Amorn family manor, but Damien had begun to learn that he was now a beacon. A giant and bright one. One that, against his wishes, would arrest the attention of every room he was in, drawing in looks ranging from manic radicalism, to gracious loyalty, to distrust, indifference, fear, and ... hate?

The crown prince shuddered as he curled into a huddle on the soft, gigantic red carpet that lined the spacious, overly extravagant, cavernous suite that he had un-ironically been told was meager housing for the likes of he.

***

11:30 PM.

Damien stared at the time on his alarm clock.

Thinking.

Again, thinking.

He'd eventually been called by one of the 6 courtiers the imperial palace had spared to ease the prince's journey home. Thanks to them, the brooding boy, manically undergoing death by anxiety, was finally spared his torment, freshly showered and put to bed.

And yet, there the prince sat, staring at his ornate alarm clock, because of course even the alarm clock had to come studded with more precious metals and rocks than he knew what to do with, and his name embossed upon its heavy brass chassis with emeralds. Damien snorted with disgust. It was as if being an imperial crown prince meant that suddenly if he wasn't constantly wondering whether a thing he was staring at would bankrupt a country if it was sold, then that item wasn't even worth being brought before his eyes in the first place...

Damien sighed.

"And what are you gonna do about it Mr. Self Righteous?" he asked himself aloud in a bored voice. "You gonna sing the blues and wail about how rich you are now for the umpteenth time? What, are you gonna ask them to take it all away?" he asked himself sarcastically, rolling his eyes into the pillow he was clutching.

As the young prince sat there, shoulders slumped, he could feel sleep was almost upon him. His consciousness was beyond tired of being jerked around from being afraid of to being proud of whatever he was supposed to fully become, to only eventually turn back again to fear.