The Dark Princess

Milo

When I woke up, I was in a prison cell in the dungeon, and I felt like I'd been run over by a horse. I groaned, and opened my eyes. It was dim in the cell, so my retinas weren't completely destroyed, although it did hurt.

A young blonde girl came down the stairs, yelling "K, YOU GET TO DO IT TOMORROW!" Then she looked at me and froze. A sly smile crept accross her face. She turned around and yelled up the stairs, "NEVER MIND, YOU GET TO FEED THE PRISONERS TODAY, I'LL DO IT TOMORROW!" She ran upstairs. That was wierd, I thought. Then Brooke, as my mother had called her, came downstairs, grumbling. I stared for a second, but then I remembered myself, and replaced the gawking look with an impish grin. Or at least I hope it was an impish grin. She hadn't seen me yet, so I decided to gloat, even though I'd passed out in the end, she didn't necessarily know that, right?

"So," I said, " you still moping about my beating you, 'cause that would be understandable." My voice was a little hoarse, so it didn't come accross exactly as I had planned. She straightened and turned around, a smirk on her face.

She didn't reply to my comment except to say "The zombie awakens."

I laughed once. "Why do you say that?"

Now it was her turn to laugh, "You've been asleep for a week!" I'll admit, I might've faltered. Or more like I went a little pale as my thoughts turned to what my mother would do to me now that I not only lost a duel, but passed out for a week because of it.

"You know, I've never lost before," Brooke said, "and I would like to know exactly why I lost." She was staring at me, her brow wrinkled. I could tell she was changing the subject because of me.

"Sorry," I replied, "but 1, you won, and 2, I can't share that secret with anybody."

All she had to say to that was "I definately didn't win."

"Really? 'cause you could've fooled me." I had been silently hoping she wouldn't bring the subject back to that, but that's not how my luck goes, obviously.

"Okay," she said, "I can't stand it anymore, why are you so devastated about being asleep for a week?" I sighed and started to sit up. Immediately my head started to pound, but I sat up anyway.

"You want to know the truth? Fine, I'll give it to you, but only if you promise to let me go." I looked at her expectantly.

"No way."

"That's what I thought." I started to lay down again, ready to go back to sleep until next time.

"Wait," Brooke said, "at least answer me this," she hesitated, "Are you a warlock?"

"They don't exist anymore," I said, glad my eyes were closed so she couldn't see my lie.

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Brooke didn't come down to the dungeon for the next few days, so the only notable thing to mention for those few days is that I got sick to the point of trading my meals for a barf bucket. I spent less and less time awake, and I nightmared often, always about what my mother would do to me if I ever returned without Brooke. Then one day she woke me from a nightmare. Pouring ice water on my face. I sat up reflexively, a little too fast. I immediately threw up over the side of my bed and laid back down, groaning. Then something occurred to me.

"Why are you in my cell," I whispered hoarsley.

Brooke leaned against the wall and sighed."You absolutely have to tell me why you turned pale last time, and how the heck you beat me."

I would've grinned, but I knew it was too late. "You here to set me free?"

"No way," she replied, "I'm here to offer you help from the physician in exchange for information."

I was going to die, and I knew it. More importantly, I knew why, and that made me want to punch a hole in the wall. "Well," I said, "I would be glad to give you the information, but that physician's going to do nothing helpful for me." An angry tear escaped my eye. "This isn't a normal sickness that can be cured with some medicine, it's a magical sickness that can be cured by you letting me go, but you aren't going to do that. Which of course means that I'm going to die." Brooke just looked at me, not believing anything that I'd just said. I ignored her blank stare and kept on going. "I just woke up one morning to find her standing over me, eyes closed, chanting. It freaked me out, so I tried to make a run for it, but I couldn't move anything except to breathe and blink. Soon the chanting was over, and she looked down at me, the same unhappy glare as usual on her face. She told me that she had detected a full witch, and needed me to go fetch her. She said that if I completed the task, I would likely be spending my time in my cell while she played with her new pet, but she also said that if I failed to come back in two weeks, I would start to die because of the spell she put on me. I hate her, but she keeps me fed, she lets me sleep in an actual room most of the time, and she will kill me if I ever fail her. That's why I turned pale when I found out I'd been asleep for a week, it took a full week just to get to the outside woods, and now here I am, dying, just like she said." I ended up talking through clenched teeth.

Then Brooke asked, "and who, exactly, is 'her'"

I gritted my teeth. "My mom," I said, "Sasha, the evil sorcerus and Dark Princess." She just rolled her eyes and walked out of my cell.

I got better over the next few days, but I was still going to die. I could tell this was still true when one of the servents was serving lunch. The kid slipped as he passed my cell, and the spoons went flying. Strangely enough, all of them came flying at me. If I hadn't made a nose-dive off the bed, they would've embedded themselves in me instead of the wall, and I'm not kidding, two of the spoons actually got stuck in the stone wall! The nose-dive left me with a nasty lump on my forehead.

Another time, the food was bad, and if the princess hadn't been so curious about me, I would've died of food poisoning. By the time Brooke was serving food again, I had broken two fingers, four broken toes, and countless bruises. Not to mention three near death-by-tripping-into-cell-wall experiences. I had learned to just stay on my bed unless it was an emergency.

When Brooke looked into my cell, saw the splints and the bruises, and the indents from the pans and spoons in the wall, she couldn't resist laughing.

"I don't think it's that funny," I mumbled, smiling anyway.

"You look like you've been run over by a horse and carrige," Brooke gasped.

"Well," I replied, trying really hard not to start laughing myself, "I told you I was gonna die. These are just the failed attempts."

Brooke's laughter died down a little bit, and she asked me, "How many times did you almost die?"

I thought about it for a second, "About thirteen," I replied. Brooke started laughing harder than ever. I gave in and started laughing, too. "Three times it was because I almost tripped into the wall," I gasped.

Brooke actually snorted. "What was the first one," she asked. I told her about the spoons, and tears of mirth came to her eyes. "Oh, this is just too good!" We both eventually stopped laughing, but both of us continued grinning. "I can almost believe your being cursed now," Brooke finally said, chuckling.

"Believe it," I replied. "The ways I've almost died over these past three days have been so ridiculous, you wouldn't believe it." She gave one last laugh and poured the night's porrige into a bowl, carefully placing the spoon in there as well. I reached over to pick it up, and the howling of the wind outside got louder. I turned from my bowl to look out the barred window just in time for a stick to come between the bars and right into my eye. I cried out, clutching at my eye, and fell to my knees. I faintly heard Brooke running back down the long hallway to my cell to see what was the matter. My vision was completely obscured, all I could see was red. I could barely hear anything but the ringing in my ears, but I could just make out Brooke asking what happened, because I was facing away from her. I tried to scream "THERE'S A PIECE OF WOOD IN MY EYE!" but all I could get out was a groan. Black started crowding my vision as the red started to go away. I tried to turn to her, but the pain was too much, and I passed out.