What is real, and what is not.

They told him this world wasn't real, that everything he lived never happened, that it was just a dream, a fake world, created by the wish of a princess who just wanted to escape from her fate.

And he believed them.

They told him that, for sure, the second they would be gone, the second they would be back to their world, the real world, as they called it, well, this world would just vanish, and it would be as if it never existed.

And he believed it.

They asked him to build them a portal, and so they would flee from this realm which wasn't their own (so the queen would have to face no consequences for her crime, for the queen's and the king's murder, but Pinocchio still didn't know it at this time. Even if she thought they weren't real, it didn't justify what she did).

And he accepted.

And they left.

But nothing happened.

And life just continued as it used to be.

§§§§

Well, it wasn't true.

Not about some details.

He wasn't the same anymore.

Not after what they told him, not as he was still here, alive, breathing, as he shouldn't be, as he was not supposed to be real.

It was supposed to be a fake world, after all, right ?

This was what they told him.

But he was still here, the world was still here, real, or it seemed to be, and he couldn't understand what happened.

Did they lie to him ?

What if they were the one who weren't real ?

In fact, what was real, and what was not ?

When he learned what happened to the queen and the king, it became far worst for him.

He knew the princess was missing, before Emma found him, but he... he hadn't heard about what happened.

About what the queen did.

She killed them.

And he let her go.

And now, the princess was gone, and the kingdom was in flames, and it was falling, because of him.

And Henry, prince Henry, the one he was supposed to protect and take care of, as he did in the past with Emma, had lost everything, in part because of what he did.

His grand-parents were dead, and her mother was not here anymore, and he had no idea of the reason why, thinking that she had been abducted by the queen.

He had the answer to the questions the young man was asking to himself, and he could say nothing, because no one would believe him.

No one here was ready to believe that this world was fake, no one would accept it.

Because it would feel just absurd for them.

And no one wants to hear that he or she is not real.

(For himself, it was different, he used to be a wooden boy, a puppet, animated by magic, and who was not human for a time, before he became a real boy.)

In fact, he did not himself know what was real.

Was he real ? Or was he just the product of a wish, as these people who looked like Emma and the Evil Queen (were they themselves real ?) told him ?