The Dark Heir (SHORTLIST - Open Novella Contest 2019)

Unintended Consequences

Onyx Rose awakened first.

She wasn't sure what was going on, but there seemed to be an awful lot of noise coming from the town. Which was odd, because everyone in the town was supposedly dead.

Arien, who seemed to have morphed overnight into a burlier and more rugged man, had his head pillowed on one of the werewolves, who slept in wolf form. Another one was curled up next to his feet making cute little dream noises and rapidly twitching its paws. She wondered for a moment if werewolves dreamt differently in wolf form than in human form, or if they dreamt of chasing rabbits regardless of their shape.

Gerald seemed to have disappeared under his cloak, which she had a feeling was more than it appeared (it was), and the architects were spooning in a line. Her mother and the others who appeared with her slept in odd positions, which is what comes of being trapped in a tiny space with too many other people for centuries.

The noise which woke her came again and she set of toward the town, letting the rest of the group sleep.

As she drew near the town she realized the sound was actually a chorus of calls for help, followed by someone shouting.

"Help!" Multiple voices called together.

"Help is anyone there?"

"Can someone help us please?"

"NO, NO, STOP! We're never going to get help this way. We need a uniform call for help all at once. Meredith this isn't time to assert your individuality, join with the group please! Now on three, one..."

"Help!" A call interrupted the count.

"DAMMIT, LAURA!"

"Sorry, I got carried away."

"Don't apologize to him Laura, he doesn't have any authority over us anymore."

"SHUT UP, MEREDITH! You're out of the cult.  Now on three, one, two, three..."

"HEEELLLLP!"

Onyx Rose knew the voice yelling at people to do what he said. She turned the last corner and entered the square. Everyone who had previously been dead seemed to have magically* come back to life, and were now in an extremely unpleasant situation.

"Hello, Oren," Onyx Rose said, cocking her head.  "I see some good things aren't meant to last."

"Rose!  My dear, so good to see you.  Do you think you could help get us down from here?"

"Yes, help us!" Someone called.

"We promise we won't try to kill you again."

"WITCH!" The baker yelled, "It's the WITCH!"

Everyone else turned to stare at him.  Antagonizing the one person who could get them down was an extremely poor idea.

Onyx Rose turned around and walked away from the pitiful calls for her help.  Assuming she was just going to leave them there, which would have been completely justifiable, several people began to weep pitifully. In reality, she was going to get help, because she had no intention of doing all the work by her self.

About twenty minutes later Onyx Rose reappeared, this time with the others in her group, and they set about releasing most people from their scarecrow-like state, and introducing them to the new King.  Some, however, they decided weren't worth the effort. Oren was one of these. The baker was another. They decided to leave them to Fate, if she ever got around to reappearing.

Even the baker's wife, who had actually been doing ninety percent of the work in the business for years, was fine with leaving him there. 

"Gladice please!" He begged.