Chapter 1 - Is that you…?
Heavy rain poured over the city, the slightly outdated streets puddled in some areas, and the crowds of people walking the streets were in a rush, with a few people carrying umbrellas and taking their time getting around. The neon lights cast a glow on the wet sidewalks and streets, and within the shops there are people talking, laughing, and simply being loud. In contrast with the outside world, these neon signs act like gates into other worlds, small ones, where you can be someone else with a whole bunch of other people acting as someone else. Walking past all these different worlds provides different people with different feelings.
As a kid I was curious, I looked into every shop, at the faces, what they were eating, drinking, and I tried to understand the jokes they made that made them all burst out laughing. It was as a child that I started to believe that these shops were other worlds, especially in contrast to the regularly gloomy Capital City. These days these other worlds merely serve as background noise, these shops I never plan to step foot in exist in reality, but there are about as real as any other temporary pleasure, the curiosity is gone, the jokes they tell are all shallow and easy to get, people guzzle beer and wine all night, and the food are simply side dishes to compliment their alcohol.
As I pass by these shops on my walks home I always find myself thinking that I never want to enter these “other worlds”. I have no reason to, no friends, no urge to drink with people, and I am just too tired to be around a crowd. These other worlds are simply one aspect of my nightly walks to my apartment, which have a certain ambiance on rainy nights like tonight. All the noise, laughter, and the red and blue lights soon disappear as I get into the residential areas containing all the apartment buildings, homes and hotels.
Within the residential areas it is hit or miss, some days you’ll only hear the sounds of the night. You know? Owls, bugs chirping, the light wind, and on nights like this, the sounds of rain showering the trees and ground. On other nights you’ll hear people, they could be arguing or having a good time; it could even sound like both at times. On those nights I wrestle with the thought in my mind, the thought that says I am creeping on these people, that I should block out the sounds of “their world”, because I exist in a completely different one.
The world I exist in is new and dreadful, it leaks out into all the other worlds in the form of blood curdling screams at night, with spontaneous public freakouts, acts of needless violence with no explanation. This is the world of the returned, the men like myself who made it out of The War, for some reason we brought all of it back with us, whether it was intentional, or if it just seeped so far into our skin and bones that it became impossible to wash off; the reason isn’t clear but it doesn't matter. For all the out-worldly aspects of this “new world” we brought back with us, there are a thousand more aspects that only us, the citizens of this world, experience fully.
As for the wailing and screams, I hear those as well, and they are almost always followed by exclamations from entitled civilians. Things like “Shut up you crazy old man!”, which is funny because old men are not the ones who came home.
My nightly walks home as a result of all these factors always become needlessly complicated, at least in my mind. But this only lasts for the 30 minutes it takes to get home. When I enter my home, that being a small studio apartment, gracefully issued to me by our government, I am greeted with a string, the string hangs from the ceiling, and when I pull it light beams throughout the doorway and room, in the form of a nearly spent, dim bulb, conspicuously screwed into the ceiling.
The first thing I do when I enter my government issued home is grab a can of beer, and today is no different; I open the small fridge and grab one can of the many in the fridge. This is the only thing in my routine that never changes, no matter what. When I crack open the can I can't help myself from smirking ever so slightly. The first gulp feels like pouring acid down my throat, but it is always the biggest gulp, and the pain is a form of satisfaction that can only be felt after another long day at work, no matter the job. This daily routine has become so integral to my life that I bought a fridge specifically for this reason, and I put the fridge at the entrance of my apartment.
With half the can of beer empty, I finally slip my shoes off. The only light in my whole apartment is the one at the door, but it is enough to provide me with a path to my couch, which also acts as my bed. I stumble over to my throne, grabbing the TV remote on the way, and when I finally crash down onto the soft cushion I can feel my body loosen up.
“Finally.” I say while letting out a long exhale, as if I were holding my breath all day.
There is nothing like relaxing on the couch after a long day at work. It allows my mind to run free, even more so than the walk home. What did I achieve today? Who did I talk to? Was today fun? I ask myself all sorts of questions, and I answer them wholeheartedly.
“Nothing. No one. No.” I say aloud.
I usually have the same thing to say about every other day, and that sounds terrible, but those kinds of things don't matter when the days I live only serve me so I can live the next day in the same fashion. Over and over again. But I do get tired of saying “No” all the time. I am not clueless to my pessimism, or my self-destructive way of life. I mean, I have a fridge full of beer at the entrance of my apartment and it’s the only thing I look forward to all day. That kind of life where we live day by day, where we are counting every single day subconsciously, where the small things, self destructive or not, are what we look forward to beyond all else… It's the kind of life me and people like me, the people scarred by war, are forced to live, borrowed time they call it
…
Anyways there are more important things to worry about, like what will I eat tonight, or what's on TV today? Will it be another “Memorial for the ones we lost” in a beautiful font, with sad music playing as they spout bullshit about a 30 second moment of silence, as if that somehow pays off the debt this country owes the dead. Will it be the royal family making a speech about our freedom? In their high castles? After their grand balls and daily feasts? They preach to us, the people, and the soldiers about the freedom that we paid for.
I shake my head before getting too lost in thought; I click the power button on the remote and the nightly news channel appears on the screen. The same channel I had on this morning.
“Breaking News huh…” I say repeating the words on the screen
A woman reporter appears on the screen, “Youngest Princess Angela, who rarely made any public appearances, has been reported missing…” the woman reporter says.
My eyes widened slightly. “Huh, a princess? I thought that was just a rumor; she has the same name as Angy too.”
Before the war ended there was news that circulated throughout the country and later our camps that a girl was discovered to be an illegitimate child of King Harold, that small tidbit of information was all we heard about this supposed princess. This caused most of us to think it was just a rumor, that coupled with the fact that news like this simply isn't broadcast often, due to it being a “scandal” I assume the royal family silenced the people who reported on it after it broke, as they do with everyone else that aren’t kissing their boots.
“For those of you who aren’t aware of what the Princess looks like, please look at this photo.” The woman reporter says with an attitude, as if she is referring to us who don’t know as gleefully ignorant.
I scoff, “How the hell are we supposed to know, lady?” At that moment the image on the TV changes.
The TV program displayed an image of a young woman, her hair is jet black and her bangs go down to her brow, her eyes are a deep blue and her lashes are long, and her skin a kind of pale I thought only achievable through malnutrition, but her cheeks are full and slightly chubby in contrast to her skinny figure, by all accounts this woman is the embodiment of beauty.
Something catches my eye, something familiar about this girl. I get up to my feet and almost trip on a can as I sprint to the TV screen. On the Princesses cheek is a scar, it looked jagged like whatever cut her in the past was not something sharp and clean, almost completely covered by makeup, that's why it was so hard to see it at first.
“That looks just like the one Angy had.” I mutter.
“Just months before the ‘Madly in Love Couple’, that being the Youngest Princess and Prince Dane of Artenia, were to be wed on the Isles of Arden. ” The woman reporter says. “Whether she was taken or is on the run is unknown at the moment.”
“M-married?” I stutter
For some reason I felt an urge to shut off the TV, and did so subconsciously, leaving me in silence. Even though I wasn’t doing anything I started to feel sweat start to form on my scalp, and I felt as if I was out of breath. This feeling isn’t new, it is the same feeling I felt when the Brigadier General would announce the soldiers killed in action, and I would hear the name of a friend. But why do I feel this now? The princess surely isn’t her. The princess cannot be MY Angela.
~
Angela, or known to me as Angy, the name of an old friend of mine, who I spent my time writing to when I was in the military. Before that, we spent every hour of every day together. We played with each other and went to each other's houses. She was about two years my elder, but that didn’t get in the way of us being friends. Things remained that way until I was 12, when probably the most significant point of our friendship happened, and that's when she suddenly disappeared. By that I mean literally, one day she was just gone, never to be seen again. I went to her doorstep and all that was left was a note with an address to a supposed post office, and a simple goodbye. I asked her father where she went but he wouldn’t tell me. All he would say is “She’s gone.” and “She probably won’t be back.”, statements that left me with no hope of her return.
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Soon after that I was drafted into the military into a program called “Early Deployment”, which put kids like me into classrooms to learn about war, and trained us to be elite soldiers. Despite being in a classroom a lot of the time, we were still considered “military personnel” and had to do physical training with the grown ups. No matter what, the moment we were 16, we were sent off to war, thoroughly brainwashed, believing we were fighting for a grand cause against the “Evil South”. This meant that we would say goodbye to our older friends often, and eventually to our younger ones too. During my years in training I wrote letters to Angy, and I sent them to the address she left me, not really knowing if she received them.
I still continued to send her her letters periodically after entering the war, we definitely didn’t have an influx of spare paper, or time, so I wrote only 49 total letters to her including the ones I sent during training. Things continued that way until The War ended, I sent her my 49th letter when we were put on hold amidst peace talks. Then I came home, where I have been placed into housing and a job by the government.
~
Seeing this Princess Angela on TV has no doubt shaken me up. In the military we just heard of a princess, no image or name was ever associated with her. She does look just like Angy, from her black hair, to her blue eyes, and even that scar she was always so self conscious of, it's all the same. But how can that be right? A princess? Beyond that, if she is Angy then where has she gone now? My mind continued to race with these questions, all without any definite answers. I have begun to realize just how clueless about the world I really am, all I have is my childhood and then The War, and that's it, that's all I have experienced, all I know.
With no end in sight to these questions, I took a deep breath in an attempt to calm my mind. Taking two steps backwards and sitting back down on the couch, I look up to the ceiling.
“Angy huh…?” I say resolutely, yet still questioning my reality.
I feel my consciousness fading, the adrenaline dump from all this stress seems to have hit me hard. Before I fall into unconsciousness I think one thing.
“Aw man, I still have some beer left…” I thought as I fell unconscious.
…
*BANG*
A loud noise pries my eyes open as I shoot up immediately. My eyes dart around the room to find the source of the loud noise, sweat begins to pour over my face and into my eyes, causing my eyes to sting and forcing me to blink repeatedly. Nothing, there is nothing in my room that could have caused that. I rolled off the couch, confused and still dazed.
*SMASH*
Another noise fills my ears. Glass? There is no mistaking it, the noise came from the street outside. I crawl to my window and crack it open without peeking outside.
“Ya damn fool!” A scratchy voice says in a whisper-like shout. My eyes squint in confusion, I haven’t ever heard this voice before.
“S-s-sorry bro I’s n-nervous!” Another voice stutters loudly.
“Shut. The. Fuck. Up!” The voice of the first man is now in a full shout, “What are ya crazy?! Are you's trying to wake one of these God forsaken psychos up?!” He shouts, referring to us who have just recently returned from war.
“S-sorry bro I’s really am!” The second man's voice says, still in a shout.
“Oh my God are ya kidding me?! You’s kidding me!” The first man yells as a smacking sound echoes through the streets.
“Y-Yeowch!” The second man exclaims.
As soon as the second man was seemingly slapped, hurried footsteps approached where those two men were standing.
“Eppie apologize to Hippie!” A woman's voice exclaims, her voice exerting a strength that the first man's voice lacks, sending a shiver down my spine.
“Miss I’s gets ya concern for my’s dumbass brother, I’s really do, but his fuck ups are gonna end up… well… fuckin us. Heh.” The man Eppie seems to chuckle at his phrasing.
I glance over at the clock sitting amongst a graveyard of smashed beer cans. The numbers on the clock read “3:00am”. I scratch my head in frustration “Only 2 hours… really?” I say quietly. At this point it is more frustrating that some weirdos who have no sense of time are waking me up at three in the morning. I begin to rise slowly, and as I finally get a glimpse of the people I only heard up until now I stop, now only peeking out of the window.
“Stop with that language, Eppie, this is no joke.” The woman shouts, now visible to me. “Now apologize.” The woman stares Eppie down.
My eyes widen, dark hair, blue eyes, even the scar, in full view! The woman standing outside of my window is without a doubt the missing Princess Angela! She is wearing commoners clothing, my guess is she is in disguise. This would mean she was not taken, but she ran away. I still am unsure on whether or not this princess is MY Angy, but in contrast to the self conscious girl that left, this woman stood tall, and I don’t just mean figuratively, she towered over the two men. If I were to guess I would place her at just under 6 feet, maybe even surpassing it. The inclination of her being Angy has slightly sunk into my doubtful heart, but people change, and Angy may have gone through a massive change.
“M-m-miss Angela I’s sorry! Tis all m-my’s f-fault!” The man Hippie stutters his way through an apology.
“Ya dumbass! Why’s ya screamin her name out in the open!” Eppie yells.
The man, Hippie is a lanky man, Eppie in comparison to his apparent brother, is almost a complete sphere. They look similar, kind of… cartoonish? Even their outfits are similar, raggedy tuxedos, with Eppie’s jacket unbuttoned fully. Their noses protrude about 3 inches off their faces, and their eyes are naturally squinted under their brows, which also protrude a couple inches off their face, and their skin looks slightly gray and inhuman. They look entirely bizarre to say the least.
“Enough!” Princess Angela shouts, “This foolishness is getting us nowhere. We must make haste, Dane is awaiting our arrival.” The princess says, and they begin to rush into an alleyway.
“Dane? As in Prince Dane of Artenia? Is he in on this? The hell is going on?” I ask myself in utter confusion.
Prince Dane is the man that Princess Angela is supposed to marry, but this situation is not making any sense. Prince Dane is from Artenia, the country we were at war with all this time. The two of them were probably gonna be wed as a way to express peace between our countries… So why? Why are they running away? Together… they are running away together…?
Before I could stop myself I suddenly opened the window entirely and jumped out into the open street. I ran full sprint into the alley that the three of them disappeared into, only to find absolutely nothing. I ran further into the alley. My gaze darts around into all the other sub-alleys, no sign of her. Soon I am just running, without looking, with thoughts racing in my mind. The thoughts are saying “Why is MY friend running away from ME?”, and I know this is wrong, this might not even be Angy, and even if it is, she probably forgot about me long ago.
“Hurry up ya fool!” The familiar voice of Eppie erupts from a sub-alley that I ran past. I stop in my tracks and sneak to the corner and peek into the sub-alley.
“Ahh, I-I haven’t ever been s-so glad to hear such a-a terrible voice.” I say in a whisper and chuckle as I try to catch my breath.
*shuffle*
I hear a slight noise behind me, “That so?” a voice says in my ear.
I feel the hairs on the back of my neck stand up as I jolt upwards, and before I can even turn I am struck on the head. Instantly my vision is dazed, and I crash to the floor.
“Dane!” Angela yells, her voice muffled and barely piercing through my ringing eardrums.
“What’s up Lovely, can’t see that someone's tailin 'ya?” The man who seems to be Dane says in a smug tone.
Through the haziness I look up at the man who struck me, it is most definitely Dane, The Prince of Artenia, I can tell that much even through the haze.
Dane is a tall man, much taller than me. He has messy black hair, but it is messy in an intentional way that makes him look dashing to your average fangirl. His eyes are ice blue, with a gaze that peers into your soul and digs out your greatest insecurities. He is muscular and his legs are the brunt of his height. He is virtually the guy of any girl's dreams, aside from his smug jackass personality. I had seen him on the battlefield once, where he charged into warfare, right at the front, with his battalion at his back.
~
On a particular day, near the end of the war, we had just got done with a bloody advance, only to gain a miniscule 200 yards of ground. We were all exhausted, I was among a small number of men who were not injured. I was tending to a friend, Paul, who was shot in the knee, and suddenly all I heard was screaming and explosions. I peeked over the trench only to see The Artenian fucking Military back for another round. Before I knew it we were overrun, the soldiers laughed as they held us at gunpoint, they looked at us like we were cattle, ripe for butchering. Then I heard a voice yelling about taking prisoners, ridiculing the soldiers aiming at us for wanting to kill us, I looked towards the voice only to see the damn Prince of Artenia, Dane. We locked eyes for a moment, and suddenly, almost instantaneously I am blasted about 50 feet in one direction.
With my ears ringing and dust in my eyes I sprawled all over, trying to find somewhere, anywhere to hide, and when I did I rubbed the dirt from my eyes. A mess of body parts and I mean it, arms, legs, fucking torsos just strewn all throughout my surroundings. I was slightly relieved to be free from the grasp of the Artenian soldiers but that relief didn’t last long. I looked right beside me at something I grasped hold of in all the panic, and it was a head, one belonging to Paul, my friend.
I didn’t see Dane after that artillery shell hit us, and it turns out that the artillery shell belonged to us, and Paul had died from friendly fire. Though none of our dead comrades were ever officially killed by friendly fire in the records, I know that it must’ve happened many times before, only to be buried, and any whistleblowers were silenced before they can even get to someone to tell their story.
~
My vision drastically declines, though delayed I am certainly on my way to sleep. The four of them speak to each other in semi-loud voices, but the ringing in my ears grows louder and I am unable to tell what they are saying.
“Angy…” I mutter, unable to see and unable to hear. A commotion is happening, but it is too hard to tell for sure.
“W-wait!” I can make out a woman's voice shouting now. “Is that you?!” she shouts again, as my vision clears up for a moment.
“Zee?!” The voice becoming more clear, it calls my name, I can now tell it belongs to Princess Angela. Her voice now resembles that of a young girl, a voice I remember. My eyes widened.
At the exclamation of my name I can make out the image of Princess Angela being pulled away by the three men. I weakly reach out my arm, almost entirely sure now. My strength wanes as my vision starts to go again.
“Is that you…?” I mutter with the last of my strength, as I sink entirely into the void.
End Of Chapter