Illusion and Reality

Cursed kingdom

I woke up with a heavy head, lack of sleep was messing with my head but I decided to stay in bed for a few more minutes.

It was around 10 am, when I decided to finally get up. I took a cold shower to get rid of the headache that was building up with every passing minute.

I wore the first thing my hands touched without putting any effort which happened to be a lavender sundress with white polka dots on it, put my hair in a messy bun, and put a heavy layer of concealer under my eyes.

Walking towards the dining room, I looked at Lucius’ chair at first but sighed in defeat when I saw it was empty. 

Putting some fruits in a bowl I started eating quietly. Unconsciously my eyes went towards the window, I stared at the part of the garden visible from inside.

My hunger died thinking about last night.

Taking one last bite I went to see Astrid. I knocked on the door of her bedroom and waited outside. After a few seconds, the door opened, revealing Astrid with bags under her eyes. 

I greeted her with a small smile, “How are you?”

“I am fine, thanks, but in the need of some tea.”

We went towards the living room, where Astrid poured her special herbal tea for both of us. I picked the cup and inhaled the warm aroma of mint. 

I looked at her sipping tea, “Lucius did not come back last night,” she answered without looking at me.

I bit my lip and took another sip before speaking, “He needs some time I guess.”

She did not say anything in return just continued sipping her tea silently. Her hair was neatly braided, she was wearing her usual long dress, but did not try to hide the bags under her eyes. 

She cleared her throat, “Are you alright? A lot of things have happened suddenly.”

“I am trying to soak in the new information and trying to be positive.”

She nodded.

I thought about last night, “Astrid?”

She looked at me.

“If someone enters from any area of the house you would know about it, right?”

“Yes, absolutely, if someone tries to enter our property I would know about it. Why are you asking this?” she asked.

“Just curious. What about the garden?”

She raised her eyebrow, “I suppose it is also a part of this property.”

“Right,” I smiled.

After drinking tea silently she went back to her room. I sat there for a while and later decided to see the garden just to provide myself some peace. 

It was a beautiful day, the sun was shining brightly. Everything in the garden was full of life, just like always. There was nothing out of normal there. I walked towards the willow tree and sat under it silently. 

No matter how much I tried I could not stop the restlessness of my heart. Maybe it was a dream I had last night, my dreams had started to feel real anyway. 

When I could not find the peace I was searching for I went inside, Lily was in her room. I understood she might need her space and went into the living room to find a book about the queen. I wanted to know about her, about the resemblance in our faces and about her death. But there was not a single book about the royals let alone the dead queen.

Disappointed I went back to my room. The rest of the day went by normally, we kept waiting for Lucius to come back home but there were no signs of even his shadow.

I was standing in a garden filled with flowers radiating different colors of happiness, love, positivity. I smiled and started admiring the beautiful scene in front of my eyes.

A soft breeze was blowing, spreading the fragrance of flowers with it. I started walking, admiring the scenery of joy in front of my eyes when I heard laughing. Looking in the direction I noticed some women were talking and laughing with each other. One of them noticed me watching them and in return waved at me with a smile bright like the flowers. Her smile was precious but the most fascinating feature was her eyes, she had one amber and the other blue eye.

With a smile, I waved back at her. I continued walking and she went back to chatting with the women happily.

I inhaled a deep breath and looked at everything. 

I stopped suddenly when my eyes fell on the dark cloud in the clear blue sky, which seemed to be getting bigger slowly. I squinted my eyes and tried to get a better look at it.

My eyes widened when I realized it was no ordinary cloud.

A large flock of ravens was coming in our way very quickly. I turned around to run and warn those women about this, but it was too late. Someone pushed me from behind and as a result, I fell to the ground. I got up with a groan, but the scene in front of my eyes made me froze in my place.

Sudden darkness had replaced the brightness of the day. The colorful flowers were no longer filled with joy they were colorless and wilted with death. I managed to run towards those women but no one was there.

I started running here and there to search for them, for some reason I wanted to make sure if they were fine. Just when I was about to give up, I heard some shuffling. Without my control, my feet started moving towards the sound.

I covered my mouth with my hands to prevent myself from screaming. Those happy women were lying in the pool of their own blood. The woman who waved at me was lying there was well with tears on her pale cheeks, throat slit opened mercilessly and blood pouring out from it covering her pale white dress in bloody red. I could not look at it anymore, tears welled up in my eyes, I looked away but the metallic smell was prominent in the environment. 

A menacing laugh filled my ears. I looked curiously in the direction from where the laugh was coming. A man was standing under the tree with folded arms, his face completely hidden under his black hoodie.

“Who are you?” I asked in a strong voice.

“Don’t worry love we’ll meet soon,” he replied in a croaky voice.

“Who did this?”

“You are looking at the artist of this fine art,” he replied with a dark chuckle.

A shiver ran down my spine. He started walking towards me taking long steps. I turned around to run away from him, but he was standing in front of me as I turned around. With a gasp, I looked towards the tree where he was previously standing.

I tried to take a step away from him but he held my wrist tightly with one hand and gripped my throat with his other hand. He started gripping my throat tightly, I tried to remove his hand with both of my hands while gasping for air. My vision started getting blurry.

“I love seeing the fear on your face. I can’t wait to slit your throat and see the life escaping from your pretty eyes.”

I woke up gasping for air, my heart was pounding in my chest. When I touched my throat I winced slightly and ran to look in the mirror. A black mark, which resembled the fingers was on my throat. It can’t be happening, I said to myself.

Wiping the tear away, I washed my face with cold water and looked at my dull brown eyes in the mirror. I wiped my face and went back to my bedroom.

I was too scared of sleeping, so I went to see if Lucius was back, to my disappointment his room was empty.

.

.

.

I opened my eyes and looked at Lily who was staring at me curiously, “Why are you sleeping in the living room?”

“I didn’t get much sleep last night so I thought about reading a book,” I got up and closed the book, I was reading before I fell asleep.

With a yawn, I stretched my arms.

“Oh my goodness,” Lily exclaimed loudly.

I stared at her in confusion.

“What is that on your neck?” she asked, pointing her index finger towards my neck.

I touched my neck but winced when I felt the pain and suddenly remembered everything that happened in my nightmare.

Without saying anything she ran and came back with a bowl in her hand. 

A very weird smell was coming from the bowl she was holding in her hands, it had the smell of every bitter and sour thing I could think of.

“What is that?”

She tilted the bowl slightly to show me a gooey green-colored substance, “You will feel better after applying it, trust me.”

I scrunched my eyebrow but did not say anything. She started applying it to my throat, I tried my best to hold my breath, the smell was enough to give someone a headache.

“Are you going to talk about it?” she raised her eyebrow while applying the thing.

I bit my lip, thinking how could anyone believe it, “I had another nightmare but it was so real.”

She put the bowl down and looked at me with a worried expression on her face, “Sam, this is getting serious. We have to do something about it asap.”

I shook my head immediately, “We do not have time for this, Lily. We need to find the witch, we are running out of time.”

She gave disapproving look.

“This is happening because of this place, once we get back home everything will be fine again,” I tried to convince her.

She did not look convinced though, “I am not so sure about it Sammy, what if something bad happened in the meantime. It was just a bruise earlier, but right now your neck has a huge black mark and it is swollen.”

“We will think about something later if it happens again, but until then promise me you won’t mention anything about my nightmares to anyone.”

She sighed, “I promise, even though I think it is a very bad idea.”

“Me too,” I whispered.

.

.

.

There was no news of Lucius and we did not have time to wait for him any longer.

I was sitting in my room when I heard a knock on the door, I covered my neck with a scarf and opened the door.

I sighed in relief and removed the scarf, “Is she back yet?”

“No,” Lily replied and passed me the bowl of green substance.

I looked at her skeptically, “Why do you even have this thing?”

She rolled her eyes, "I can't get through the day without falling somewhere or hurting myself. After the first week, I fell in the garden so I asked Astrid for something for my wound and she gave me this magical herb, then the next day somehow I got a bruise on my leg. She was getting sick of me asking for this magical herb that smells like poop every day so she gave me enough for a month.”

I shook my head, amused by Lily and her adventures.

I started applying it on my neck, “Any news about him?” I asked looking at her through the mirror.

"I am not even sure if he will come back. He knows we don't have much time and yet he decided to go who knows where,” she said in annoyance, "I will talk to Astrid, we need to think about a plan now."

I nodded in agreement as I put the bowl of medicinal herb on the table.

"What was the dream?" Lily asked hesitantly looking at my neck.

I sat next to her, taking a deep breath I started telling her everything about the nightmare, "I have never seen those people before in my nightmares Lily, it was always that woman and the different man."

"Do you think these people belong to the real world or are they just a part of your nightmare world?" she asked.

"I don't know.”

"Maybe you are right this is happening because of this place. I think this is a cursed kingdom,” she said thoughtfully.