Illinois [#wattys2016 Writer's Debut]

Chapter Twenty

"Are you sure this would work?" I whispered to my brother.

"Nope." he smiled at me before waltzing in the castle.

We all followed his lead.

"No one is in here! This is amazing." Lara muttered to herself.

"The Royals' bedroom are all on one floor, the highest one so we're gonna have to be super stealthy." my dad said. "And remember, we're here for the Royals'. We're not going to kill anybody else. Maybe just make them pass out. That should be good enough."

"Geez, dad."

We climbed up the first few floors and have been greeted by the people who passed us by.

"These uniforms are terrifyingly identical and this mission seems to be horrifyingly easy. Are you sure we're not missing something?" Flint questioned in a hushed tone.

"Probably not. I helped Cole run over this a million times and we found no flaw." Dustin reassured.

We finally got on the floor where all the Royals' bedrooms would be and it's very tranquil. It's so serene I'm pretty sure you can hear a pin drop.

And it did.

We turned around to follow the source of the sound and there she was standing in the hallway, doing an awful job at hiding.

Matt ran up to her and tackled her.

We all walked to Pearce calmly.

She was dressed in a beautiful gown and everything about her screams "I'm a Royal".

We tied her up and got in her room.

Matt untied the cloth we tied in between her mouth and said, "Explain all this."

Pearce smirked and started talking. "The Royals have surely changed a lot since then. Did you know that there are five queens married to our ruling king now? I'm just lucky to bo one of their princesses."

"You disgust me," I muttered.

"Watch your mouth, peasant," Pearce spat.

"Yeah, so mature," I sarcastically remarked.

Matt shook his head. "Tie her up and lock her in the closet. We can't deal with this right now."

"Let's go find the boiler room where they keep the serum," Cole suggested.

"Aren't we supposed to kill her?" I said, mustering my courage.

Dustin got his sword out and was going to open the closet before Matt stopped him.

"We can kill her last. She's not worth it," he reasoned.

We all know he's going through a hard time so we went along with it. We exited the room and locked every Royal up in their own closet.

We finally came across the boiler room. Two people from our crew stood guard in front of the room and the rest of us figured out how to operate this thing. Once our mechanic was able to figure it out, we poured our cure in the big tub and cleaned up.

"Guys, I can't help but feel that this is easy. Almost too easy. It's unsettling," Flint opinioned.

I nodded, agreeing with him.

Tubes attached to the tub started changing color as the cure worked its magic.

I exhaled the breath I didn't know I've been holding for so long. "So, this is it?"

Flint looked at me and smiled his toothy grin. "This is it."

"Wait!" my dad roared. "Something's not right." His voice is being accompanied by a whistling sound.

It came from the tub where the liquid started bubbling up, turning into goop.

"This might just be a minor side effect!" I tried to keep him on the bright side.

The liquid started getting sucked up through the tubes much faster.

"This isn't good. We just made it less dense. The tubes are sucking it up too fast. It might-"

"Who's in there?!" a voice from the door roared.

"Oh no..." Lara muttered, turning to face my dad for further instructions.

"This thing might blow up if it reaches the bottom with nothing else to process. In this case, we would get buried down here and the castle would set up in flames," my dad said quickly. He looked me in the eye. "Sierra, go home with your brother."

"What? Dad, no!" This all doesn't make sense. My dad's not thinking straight. That must be it.

"I need to make sure our work here is done," he said.

"You said it's gonna go up in flames!" I screamed.

"I can try to stop it but it's too much of a risk for you to be here when you can go back!"

The door started banging, and it's getting louder.

"No..." I whispered, a lump forming in my throat.

My brother rested his hand on my shoulders.

"No!" I shrieked as the guards burst through the doors, me and my brother disappearing into thin air.

.

"Sierra?" my brother called on me.

I looked down at my feet as tears continued to stream down my face.

"Let's go talk to mom. She must be worried sick," he suggested.

I walked ever so slowly to the door, knocking on it.

"Mom?" my brother called out.

I heard a shriek before Cole kicked open the door. I ran in and fled up the stairs to my mom's bedroom where the shrieking was coming from. I opened the door wide enough to show my brother the mangled remains of my mother.

My stomach turned as I looked towards the window where a creature with black feathery wings perched itself.

"W-what did y-y-you do to her?"

The creature extended its human arm and tossed its big meat knife on the bed before flying away.

My mom's guts were tied from one bed post to the other, like some kinds of play decoration. Her blood soaked the sheets. She was skinned, and a pile of it was on the floor next to the bed. And on the nightstand sat my mother's lolling head with its hollowed out eye sockets.

.

"Ms. Sierra? Hello?"

I jolted in my bed, scrunching up my hospital clothes.

"So what happened?"

I turned to my doctor. "Well, like I told you, I..."

"Ms. Sierra?" He snapped his fingers. "You've been here for three years. Do you really want to stay longer?"

I shook my head. "Like I said, one night, my parents were fighting, and I had this excruciating pain surging through my body."

Author's Note: Oh my god it's so bad, I know. I've been procrastinating for so long and I couldn't stand it anymore. I had to do something about it. Well, I didn't say that something was good-quality. Anyway, I'll have the whole thing went through and edited. I'm sorry for the sucky ending.