The Real Villian

Year: 4055; Day: 281

{Song of the chapter: Pity Party - Melanie Martinez}

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One day.

I only had one day to find some method for protecting Lake. The dingy and dank smell of our City's prison brimmed the atmosphere around me. With heavy heart beats and steady steps, I descended towards the annpyingly perpetual receptionist.

"Oh! Our Queen is back again, I see!" The elderly lady beamed in her honey sickle voice.

I forced my photograph-ready smile towards her. "Yes, um, I'm seeing the same person as last time. What's the cell name, again?" I said.

She smiled, forming more wrinkles in her already rugous face. "Of course," she said, searching through her gramlet. After seemingly finding his cell, her dancing eyes darted towards me. "Cell EXA689, Your Highness."

I murmered a "thanks." Already dreading the endless maze of hallways, I started down the left side of the first fork.

Over 1,000 seconds later, I finally reached the hallway of his cell. He's just a few feet away! I thought to myself in a late realization. Last time we talked, it hadn't gone very well.

He said, "I don't think we should talk anymore."

And then I said, "Fine. Goodbye."

It wasn't my ideal conversation, if I were to be honest.

A shiver travelled down my spine at the memory. It'll be different this time, I attempted to convince myself. But, really, how different could it be? He probably hadn't gotten any less angry.

He probably still wants nothing to do with me.

I exerted the thought to the rearmost of my mind. Inhaling steady breaths, breath in, breath out, I strode down the hallway. Similar prisoners ran to the glass wall upon seeing their Queen. I avoided their eyes at all costs-- in two day's time, they'd all be dead. That apprehension came to me with a shudder and a qualmish feeling in my stomach.

All too soon, the two doors into his cell stood in front of me. As ridiculous as it sounded, they seemed to be mocking me, daring me. I desperately wanted to shrink back in fear and run off to the Port. His five guards I had ordered to protect him stood loyally in front of his cell. None of them spared me a glance. Accumulating a bit of flimsy confidence, I used my key and opened the first door. It slid open. The sound made my nerves flare even more.

After the small thump of the first door sliding shut, I turned towards the second one in the narrow and tiny in-between space. My hand dithered in the air with my key in hand. In a moment's poise, I finally pushed the small key in and out of the small hole. The door slid open. I rushed through, it automatically closed behind me.

Bright green eyes darted towards me immediately. He was sitting on the ground in a criss-cross of legs. After nearly a hundred days of imprisonment, his face was nicely scruffed and his dark hair was ears-length.

A weak, pitiful smile reached my face. "Um, hey," I whispered.

His already cold expression grew harder and icier. "Hello, Your Highness," he spat the entitlement out of his mouth like poison.

Groaning, I muttered, "Galaxies. Please don't call me that, I hear it much too often."

One of his eyebrows quirked. "I think it's just part of the job, sweetheart."

I immediately winced at the old nickname. Once it held adoration beyond compare, now it held only animosity. "Yeah, but that doesn't make it any less annoying."