The Toils (Book One)

XVI. Dreams

A small puddle formed on the floor to the main hall of the First House, wetting Rittys bare feet as he splashed through it.
He was dreaming - or was this a memory? Had this happened before? Was this merely déjà vu?
No. He was dreaming, of that, he was sure.
The main hall was empty, sparse, even.
No furniture, no high tables, just Ritty alone with a rising puddle of water.
The sounds of chattering far off in the distance beckoned him closer.
He made his way down the corridor and entered the dining room.
He wanted to cry at the sight in front of him, sat about a table were his parents, grandparents, Maya... the two people Antonia had killed... His brothers... His uncle, his cousins... they were all here.
"Sir", Maya approached Ritty, leading him to his seat at the large round table in the center of the dining room.
The water now covered his toes, the puddle grew deeper with each passing moment.
Ritty didn't move, instead, he took Maya and pulled her into an embrace.
"I am so, so sorry", he broke.
Maya gave him a rub on the back - "it was always going to happen. In no timeline did I ever escape Randall's wrath".
"That doesn't make it better though".
"No, I suppose it doesn't", Maya released him.
"Dad", Ritty approached his father, who now stood at the head of the table waiting to embrace Ritty.
Ritty left Maya standing in the steady rising puddle, now meeting his ankles, and approached his father with tears dripping from his face into the water on the floor.
"I lost it", Ritty sobbed, "the others died, and I lost it all".
"You're fighting for it, son", King Ritty took his son into his arms and the pair hugged tightly, "you are fighting".
"I tried to hold on for as long as I could but Randall-", Ritty was cut off.
"Randall will do what Randall does...", his father released him.
Rittys mother looked up at him from her chair next to the King, her face was kind, soft and warm.
Rittys brothers took up the three seats between his mother and grandparents.
"You three...", Ritty trailed off, sobbing.
Conan looked to Ritty and smiled - "we all knew you'd cock it all up".
"It wasn't me, it was Randall", Ritty wiped a tear from his face.
"You sure? Did Randall start killing us off?", Conan shot back.
"I still don't know who did that...".
"Did you ever actually care to know?", James shot to Ritty.
"Of course I did".
"But only insofar as it could be you next, right?", Geordie chopped back, "You only wanted to know to make sure you weren't next".
"Come on... none of you know... you have no clue".
"That's not true, son", Rittys Grandfather introduced.
Ritty had never met his grandparents, and so both of them appeared vaguely, with multiple facial features constantly interchanging. One second blue eyes, the next they were green.
One minute-long beard, in the next it was gone.
"No?", Ritty asked, "you think you know what I've endured".
"You think what you've endured was worse than drinking poison so corrosive that when I vomited it up it melted my skull?", Conan chuckled, "typical selfish Ritty".
The table guffawed.
"I have no one left. You all died with your family around you", Ritty pointed to his brothers.
"Come on, son", King Ritty clapped Ritty on the shoulder and wheeled him into an empty chair at the table.
The water reached his shins now, climbing ever faster.
"So who did it?", Ritty asked his brothers, "Who killed you?".
"You really wanna know?", Conan asked.
"I really want to know", Ritty sighed, feeling the creep of water up his legs.
"Look inside your house, Ritty", Geordie chopped in.
"What does that even mean?", Ritty leaned across the table and asked.
"It was you...".
"I didn't kill you", Ritty gruffed.
"Why are you still alive?", Maya asked quietly.
"I don't know... Some kind of cosmic torture, maybe. Maybe I'm supposed to endure life without you all".
"Maybe someone's looking out for you", Rittys grandfather Richard suggested.
"Someone like who?", Ritty asked him.
"Who would kill for you?", King Ritty asked his son.
"Surely you don't mean Antonia?".
"She's done it before", James piped up.
"She wouldn't".
"She has", Maya chimed in.
"Come on", Ritty lolled his head, "she's not that stupid".
"Isn't she? She killed two villagers for what amounted to nothing", Maya pushed in.
"It wasn't for nothing, they'd've turned us over to the guard", Ritty insisted.
"Yet you got so angry at her, why?", Rittys mother asked him.
"I got angry because... because....", he trailed off.
"You got angry at her because you knew it was for nothing, admit it, just admit it", Maya pushed back.
"Fine, it was for fucking nothing!", Ritty kicked out, water creeping past his knees, rising up his thighs, "Is that what you want to hear? Jesus!", his voice reverberated throughout the hall.
With a snap, they were gone and Ritty was alone, thrashing against the current of the water rising faster and faster - flooding the dining hall, pushing against his chest.
The torches drowned but did not extinguish, instead, they floated, illuminating the dirty water as it came over Rittys head, and like that;
He was awake, birds chirped outside the cell, the sun poured in the bars in the door, and, for the first time in almost a week, it was actually warm. 
"You're awake?", Antonia asked from the cell next door.