Don't You Fret, My Dear

The Party (2/2)

"....the party..." 

I hear a voice whisper.

"...the partytheparty...theparty..." 

Multiple voices, they begin to overlap. 

Not scraping, painful voices. But I still feel paralyzed. There's this urgency to the voices. 

"...THE PARTY! THE PARTY! THEPARTYTHEPARTY!"  They begin to shout. It feels like a warning.

I see a bright light, it gets bigger and bigger. Then it's all I can see.

Hot, bright light...

I wake up in a cold sweat for the first time in weeks. After getting my bearings, there's only one though in my head. 

"The party...it's today..."

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During breakfast, I can literally feel the excitement in the room. Queen Arianna is gushing to her husband, he's looking at her with a gleam in his eyes. 

Rapunzel and Eugene are holding hands, and whispering to each other happily. Then she recognizes me walking into the dining room and gestures me over.

"Hey Katt, come sit down. Today's the day!" 

I fumblingly sit down. "Today's the day!" I answer, and begin filling my plate. Eggs, ham, and orange juice; it's delicious. Especially after that dream I had last night, what I need is some warm food to fix me up. 

"...my dream..." I think. "WAIT!" 

"So, Katt, how did you sleep?" Arianna asks, as I'm realizing I might have had another nightmare. Well, it didn't feel like a nightmare, but it felt like....something.

"Oh, okay I guess. Nothing bad happened, really."

I feel everyone looking at me. 

"Well, I had another dream...but it wasn't like the others. There was nothing dark about it. It was like a bright, hot light." 

"Did you hear any...voices?" King Frederic asks. 

"Yeah, but they weren't the same either. They just kept talking about the party. That's all I remember, anyways. It didn't feel like a threat, though. It felt...like a warning. Like they were trying to alert me of something." 

Every face at the table fills with worry; Eugene looks the most concerned, in fact, he looks a little sickly. 

The king clears his throat and turn to his daughter. "Rapunzel, did you have any strange dreams last night? Anything at all?"

"No, father. Strangely, I slept all night." 

"Eugene? What about you?" he asks. 

"Oh, me? I, uh, I slept fine, yeah. Like a baby, all night." He fumbles out. I sense he's lying, but I don't push it. I look at King Frederic's face, and I don't think he buys it either. But he just sighs and moves on.

"Very well then. Well, we've got plenty to do today so let's finish up here and get to it. I've got  meeting with the guards about security today. Katt, I'll be needing you to come with me for that."

"Yes, your highness. Right away."

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