Howl Your Appellations

Queen's Imaginary Kingdom

BOEN OPEOR

The final forbidden room, is the only room without any doors, from the outside and the inside. It’s the room that I was most curious about since I know it existed, but I just didn’t know how or why there wasn’t, isn’t, an entry or exit way. It’s enclosed to both those from the outside, and those who are inside. I would have forgotten all about it if it wasn’t for the mysterious lone window it harbors. The single circular window, right now, is covered by a thick layer of vines, bushes, and different types of flowers that both exist and doesn’t in the outside world. They crowd next to each other as if there wasn't enough space for all of them.

On a white stone pedestal, is a thick, open story book. In the middle of the book is a large piece of wood, almost as large as my head. It’s shape, almost resembles a flower with sharp petals that’s about to bloom. It’s not a pretty sight, it’s melancholy. It’s like everything’s shrouded in a filter of a lonely spring sunset.

Coming from the gaps of the wood already darkened, are tears, or what seems to resemble tears. It flows like a three-colored waterfall: rose, aquamarine, and black that’s similar to the gemstone Onyx .Down to the pages of the book, to the bottom of the pedestal, and finally, the vegetation on the floor, the peculiar water spreads and becomes nourishment to the unique verdure. I was waiting for insects to scatter about, butterflies or ladybugs, bees, to pollinate the flowers, but, the room was devoid of that kind of life. There are only little particles of light like bubbles, bumping into one another, not fireflies, just little balls of light; their glow, mindless and indifferent. The spheres rotating above us also resemble the smaller ones, only there are confetti like objects inside them. The vines and flowers near the pedestal, is pulsating slowly. Soft doesn’t seem to want to touch them and just stares at the crying wood in front of us.

I feel like crying as well. I’m stuck in place, wondering what the right thing to do is, what to do first, what to say to a crying mother who’s lost her family, people, and kingdom. What right do I have to console her? When even the cool night breeze can’t reach her?

I don’t have the right but I do have the responsibility of bringing her back. I could give her and her son closure among many others. There are many ways for me to approach her, many phrases I can tell her but what’s most important is that I don’t allow her to hurt anymore. I don’t need flowery words, I just need to be gentle. I take a step.

I take my first step and immediately, all the plants inside the room wilted as if a wave of fire ran ablaze among the leaves. Nothing remains alive, only the light balls, if they’re even considered to be living, continued glowing.

I can feel myself lose all color and my lips turning pale. Not one good emotion remained inside me when the plants died. I feel that I’m about to lose all bodily control and I’ll cry and wet my dress.

I look at Soft, she didn’t move an inch and is still staring adamantly at the display in front of us. I trust her enough to look and shockingly, the page is slowly being turned. It’s slowly phasing through the crying piece of wood and all I can do is stare at it until it’s done.

I didn’t think it would be easy to retrieve the Queen but I don’t even think this is the hard part yet. The page finishes turning and the room rotates. Soft and I tumbles to what once was the right wall. I fall on my back and Soft lands perfectly on her feet and walks towards me.

We’re now somewhere, in front of a tall glass tower. The building resembling a terrarium more than a tower. It’s glass tower is made up of colorful enamel glass, and a few dormers can be seen sticking out of the terrarium. I can’t see the inside of the tower clearly because it’s all fogged up. I don’t understand what’s going on at all.

The pedestal is still in the same spot but the world of the room has changed. It’s probably likely that the Queen is somehow making the book into reality. The page turns and the scene changes. Is she doing this intentionally, using her last bit of ‘consciousness’ in this world? That she’s now only capable of doing what was once natural to her? What happens if I pick her up? Will this world vanish too? Thankfully there isn’t anything in this world that is alive. I need to get to her as soon as possible.

I take another step, and the scene wilts again. The page turns whenever I take a step forward. Now, if that’s a good or a bad thing, I don’t know, but so far nothing seems to be happening. Everything’s just places you imagine while reading a book.

I’d risk running to her, but I’m afraid that it might startle her and it would case an Airy. I still don’t know all the proper rules for these creatures and magic but I’m, without a doubt in my mind, convinced that, if I make a wrong step, I’ll stop being alive.

The world is now a place so dark inside the forest, deep, deep, deeper than the Inner forest and deeper beyond that. The trees are almost sky length and are robust and everywhere. Obscured by some of the trees, I see the pedestal and it’s trophy still dripping with fae tears. Only a few droplets of light manages to penetrate from the forest’s ceiling. Soft jumps on my shoulder and we wait for a moment.

There is no sound, there is no smell, just the scene. I’m not sure why but it almost feels safe in here, almost like it’s a sanctuary. As I try to take another step, I hear a sound. Not too far away from us, beyond a couple of fallen and robust trees, is a woman of awesome size, more than 12 feet tall. She almost blends in with the trees as her hair extends as trunks, branches and twigs; her skin, as dark and skyblue-ish as the trees of the deep forest with darker swirls covering them. The beautiful leaves of her hair’s either shiny black, gold, or evergreen. She wears a long velvet cape that has different patterns of butterfly wings. Her head, carries six golden yellow thorns resembling a crown. So this is how she was before, the Queen of the faes.

I wait for her to move but she has stayed motionless since I heard her. Maybe this is how the Queen remembers. Might the book she’s turning actually be her life? I would not like that to be the case. Even if the characters stay motionless. We’ll have to see as we get closer to her.

I prepare to take a step again. I watch everything withers as the page turns slowly but this time, nothing’s rendering. Just as white space and the continuous streaming of the waters from what’s left of the Queen’s enormous body. As powerful as she once was, she’s but a spec of herself now. It pains me and horrifies me at how powerful and cruel humans can be. How could the humans of the past possibly manage to lay harm on a giant fairy that can manipulate space and the psyche. There must’ve been something more powerful that helped those humans. I just don’t understand why.

I take another step and it’s now the inside if a castle. Stone floors and windows, gemstones and paraphernalia strewn on top of the tall ceilings, and a banner with the castle’s sigil placed behind the two thrones of the room. I wait for the scene to be finished.

The room seems to be that of the story book’s and not of the Queen’s memories. As I almost take another step two vectors of people appear. One is a little princess with black hair and a pink dress, while the other is a King with a long dark beard with light gray eyes, indicating that he’s somewhat blind. No one but the two figures ever rendered. The King, as motionless as he was, was staring at me. I take a small bow just as an acknowledgement and reply to his bottomless stare and moved on.

I think I only need to take a couple, maybe four more, large steps in order to reach the pedestal. But I feel like I’ve travelled for a long time. Those few steps I’ve taken have shown me so much and I’m not sure I’ll ever understand. I just hope that with the last few steps I’m gonna take, it’s not going to be something that’ll haunt me for years.

This time around, I am inside a dark room, but in front of me is what seems to be a curved glass window with circular patterns, beyond it, the great blue sky with the sun and the moon closer than I’ve seen before. I can feel water rush from behind me, and it’s the same water that flows from the flower-like piece of wood. I could hear echos of wailing from behind me and the loud rustling of leaves. The window, still displays the image of the sun and moon, it’s almost as if they’re kissing. The water continues to flow until it rapidly reached my knees out of nowhere. The water feels all murky as if there’s a mixture of mud combined with it. I try my best to take another step, a much wider step than the steps I made before, and the scenery disappears again.

I’m almost at arm’s length to the pedestal but right now, I’m just floating in place as the next scenery loads. Soft holds on to my shoulder almost sinking her claws into my skin. I let her hold on as hard as she could while I support her with my hand. We’re still floating as if the soul of the water that engulfed us was still there. Only half of the scene fully materialized and it’s a grassy field with glass of many different polygonal patterns. I see who seems to be the Prince sleeping peacefully. He’s face, nothing but bliss and contentment. We’re still floating while the scene still tries to become full. Nothing seems to be changing and we’re stuck floating in place. I try to maneuver us, to propel us forward but the gravity won’t allow me.

Soft and I are stuck in place. She’s scared and I’m equally as frightened. We’re forced to only look at two things: how close we are to the weeping Queen, and the relaxed face of the sleeping Prince. I didn’t want to look at either for too long or too much, I’ve not positive experiences with the both of them. All this time I’ve been enduring and have been subjected to the forest’s rules and elements with severe casualties. If I think too much about the things that I’ve hidden away now, I think my mind would break.

‘’I’d rather die than live in a cycle of this nightmarish dream!’’ I bawl, try hard just to breath in, try to pull myself together but the tears won’t stop, breaths come and go rapidly, my body won’t stop shaking.

“S-sorry…I’m sorry everyone…I’m just so scared, I’m just so sacred. I tried my best, I tried to hide it but it’s just too much now. I can’t go on for much longer, I can’t go through this alone anymore …”

Words I never wanted to hear myself say out loud came pouring out as I close my eyes tighter and tighter so my tears would stop pouring endlessly. I cry as I slowly accept to rot in the Queen’s imaginary world.

“MROWWW!!”

Soft howls and jumps off of my shoulder and onto the the Queen’s shard.

Everything halted and then, the shard explodes into a bright blinding light, it produced no sound but the light threw me from where I was floating, to the edge of the room. Before I lost consciousness, I saw that Soft has become larger and turned completely white; her eyes were now ruby red. She places the Queen shard in my bag and I lost my consciousness.