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In front of Ollie, lay a vast and gloomy hall.

A scarlet carpet stretched between marble columns, guiding him between two braziers that fought against the darkness. Their insufficient light revealed the cracked walls, adorned with their torn paintings. At the end of this abandoned and desolate room, stood a grandiose and worn stone throne.

Siting at the throne, an imponent and proud shadow, awaited him.

Ollie walked through the hall cautiously, his bare feet alternating between the comfort of the carpet and the cold hard stones that dotted the floor's cracks.

“You're late,” said a Pig with a serious and somber demeanor.

A red cloak covered half of his body, draping over his feet. His bare chest displayed the rigid muscles of a warrior, while his majestic crown and cold demeanor revealed the imposing and authoritative presence of a king.

Ollie felt compelled to justify himself. “I was at the Blue House.”

“Look at me, soldier, not the ground.”

Ollie swallowed hard and lifted his head. “I am not a soldier,” he spoke firmly.

The Pig King arched his lips in an almost smile. “Then who are you?”

The question seemed so simple, yet the more Ollie thought, the more he searched for an answer, the further he found himself from what to say.

The Pig King looked at him impatiently.

Ollie had to say something, anything but remain silent.

Unable to define himself, he sought in others the description of who he was.

To his mother, he was a ‘useless’.

To his father, a ‘disappointment’.

To the teachers, ‘troublesome’.

To his peers, a ‘joke’.

In the echoes of his thoughts, he could hear and feel each word.

Unfair, offensive, and untrue words.

Yet, also accurate, deserved, and true.

“I don’t know." Ollie spoke, lowering his eyes. “I guess I am nobody, then.”

“Look at me, soldier.” The Pig commanded him authoritatively.

Ollie raised his snout, he had survived the first house, he would survive this one, never again would he lower his eyes to the ground.

“I am not afraid of you.” Ollie spoke, gazing into the ice blue of the King's eyes.

The Pig nodded in approval.

“What is your name?” Ollie asked. “You call me soldier, what do I call you?”

“You call me King.”

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“King is not a name, King is a title.”

“My name is not a name either.” he spoke definitively. “Call me King.”

Ollie nodded. “So, King, why do you call me soldier?”

“Because that is what you dream of being.”

Ollie shook his head. “I don’t have the strength to be a soldier.”

“In fairy tales, many heroes start weak.” The King pulled a hidden sword from his red cloak. “But in the course of the story, they always find their power.”

Ollie stared at the blade with fascination and palpitation. A magical sword would be the solution to all his problems, he would never fear Rabbits if he had a weapon with powers, a weapon capable of killing his monsters and enemies.

He almost smiled, almost believed, but now he knew some of the rules of this place.

"I can't take anything with me," he said with disappointment. "You can't offer power or magical objects, and I know that anything I find here, I can't take with me."

"That's not true," the blade glinted in the fire of the braziers. "What I have to offer, you can take with you."

Ollie pricked up his ears skeptically. "Can I take the sword?"

The Pig King sighed with impatience. "Of course not," he threw the weapon at Ollie's feet. "It's not the sword that makes the soldier, it's the will to fight against those who wish you harm."

Ollie appreciated the idea, it was clear that he wanted that power.

"That's not how it works in my world," he sighed. "I can't hurt anyone, I can't get revenge and fight whoever I want."

"In stories, heroes always triumph in the end."

"I hate fairy tales."

"Why?"

"Their stories lie," Ollie said, not hiding his frustration. "Heroes are always stronger, smarter, always with destiny on their side," he lowered his ears. "In the real world, it's never like that. In the real world, you are the weakest, the dumbest, the least fortunate. If you fight in the story, you get the princess, but if you fight in real life, you just get beaten."

"How many times have you fought?" The Pig King asked reproachfully. "How many times have you tried to be the hero of your life?"

Ollie couldn't tell the truth, he couldn't say he had never fought, but nor could he remain silent and let his silence validate the lie of his words.

"I don’t have a magic sword," he said, looking at the blade on the ground with antipathy. "I don’t have powers, nor are there prophecies claiming I'm the chosen one," he sighed with despondency. "In my world, actions have consequences. If I fight, I might be expelled from my school, become an even bigger outcast, or cause my mother to have a heart attack," he flicked his snout. "I can’t simply confront someone stronger. And what if I get beaten? What if I lose for nothing? How can I endure a life even worse than the one I have now?"

The Pig King gave a near smile. "You don't want to be a hero, do you?"

Of course, Ollie wanted to, but that was precisely why the notion was so repulsive to him.

What's the point of desiring the unattainable?

"I'm no longer a child," he said earnestly. "In the real world, there are no heroes. In the real world, there are only..."

Ollie lost his train of thought, caught off guard by the implications of his own conclusion.

"In the real world..." The Pig King echoed his words with a slow, deliberate delight, "In the real world, there are no heroes," the ice blue in his eyes reflecting a faint glow of triumph. "In the real world, there are only soldiers."

Ollie nodded, silent in the realization that the King's vision obscured his own.

"Soldiers don't fight because they know they will win," the King continued. "Soldiers fight because not fighting means death."

"How can I fight?" Ollie flapped his snout. "Knowing I will lose?"

"How can you know you will lose?" The King offered an almost smile. "if you don't fight?"

“If I was strong, I would fight.” Ollie lifted his ears. "Can you make me strong?"

The Pig King gave a slight nod.

Instinctively, Ollie touched the candy through the fabric of his pajamas.

He remembered the words of the Smiling Pig.

You have no good dreams, you only have nightmares.

"Are you my good dream?" Ollie asked, wanting and not wanting to believe.

"Tell me." The Pig King spoke with authority. "How do you judge a dream where your enemies pay for all the pain they've caused you?"

"Good." Ollie spoke quickly and without hesitation. "I would say that's a good dream."

The Pig King gave a brief smile. "Then tell me, who do you want to be?"

"I want to…" Ollie hesitated for an eternal second. "I want to be a soldier."

The Pig King stood up. "Come with me."

"Where to?"

"To your good dream."

Ollie smiled and nodded. However, when he took his first step, the Pig King raised his hand. "What is it?" he asked.

"Don't forget to bring your sword." The King said, turning his back.

Ollie stared at the sword, then picked it up with reverence and caution.

The sword was simple, nothing like those described in fairy tales, it had no runes, jewels, or aura of light, it was just an ordinary weapon, but its handle was firm and its blade sharp.

It was a weapon, a weapon with the power to kill.

The King vanished into the darkness of the hall.

Ollie stared at the way back, but the weight of the sword brought him comfort, he saw his distorted reflection in the metal, it didn't look like the contours of a child wearing a ridiculous pajama with a blue cape with yellow stars, in the reflection he saw a brave knight, a soldier.

Without fear or hesitation, he followed the Pig King into the dark darkness of the hall.

***

Ollie followed behind the king through the narrow corridor.

The King carried a torch, Ollie expectations.

Finally, they reached a dark chamber, where shadows around them moved, but his snout could smell their stench, and his attentive ears could hear the mute whispers of their pain and the clinking of chains.

He grasped the pommel of his sword. "What is this?"

The King let go of his torch, it fell into a cold brazier, flames awakened, unveiling the mysteries of the darkness. Ollie couldn't believe his eyes, a sight so inconceivable that a storm of emotions burned in his chest. His feelings fought within him, oscillating between surprise, pity, pleasure, amazement, and confusion. All but fear, that he felt no longer.

Before him, there was a dungeon. A dungeon with walls of twisted stones, dirty with dark mold and mosses. Long rusty chains hung from rings, imprisoning several filthy and mistreated Rabbits, wearing torn rags that displayed the protruding bones of their malnutrition. As much as what he saw was frightening, it was what he saw beyond that made his heart freeze.

The dungeon hid another place, one with the same proportions. Two prisons similar in feeling, but alternating in smells and decoration. However, in the cell of his world, Ollie was the prisoner, but here, it was his taskmasters who decorated the dirty walls of their well-deserved punishment. The prisoners here were his schoolmates.

The dungeon, in his world, was his classroom.

None of them laughed, there were no faces of disgust and superiority, they were all trembling and shriveled, all just staring at the filthy ground. As in the classroom, they were divided into two rows, chained in the order of their seats, but here stuck to the moldy walls.

At the end of the dungeon, in the place that in his world should belong to the teacher, was one of the students who received the distinction, he was alone, tied on his knees with his head exposed on an execution block. Despite the shadows, Ollie recognized him.

It was his enemy, it was Godofredo who occupied the place of honor.

"What is this place?" Ollie asked trying to contain his guilt.

"You know." The Pig King nodded. "You know very well where you are."

Ollie wanted to deny, to say that he never asked for any of this, that he was a good person, and good people don't dream of doing bad things, of committing terrible evils. But how to refute a secret once revealed?

He approached the execution block, with ebony wood and gray ropes, it was identical to the illustration in his history book, it was on this block that the last descendant of Lacrimoz was judged, thus marking the end of the White Lion Dynasty.

The chains on the dungeon walls were also familiar to him, in his imagination, that's how he saw the shackles of the Debtors' Cells. The Gorillas were anarcho-merchantilists, in their private prisons their captives paid for their incarceration and their food.

Those who labored in the mines eventually died of exhaustion. Those who could not pay or work, died of hunger in the Debtors' Cells. This dungeon had been built with the fragments of his obsession. His best-kept secret. His fascination and his repulsion by the injustices of the world.

Ollie stared at Godofredo, smelling the stench of urine, lost in the details of where the gray rope, where various abrasions colored with red the dirty white of his fur.

"Aren't you going to say hi?" He couldn't resist repeating his words.

The Rabbit did not answer, just trembled at the sound of his voice.

"How many times has he already died in your dreams?" The King's voice inquired.

Ollie didn't know how to answer. Hundreds? Thousands? After the first, the deaths started to blend together, all were lost, all but the last, all but the first.

It all started at the Skhargora museum, when Ollie came across the mural depicting the execution of the God-Emperor of the Pigs. His giant body being dragged by metal hooks to the center of his arena. Hungry beasts surrounded him, covered him, devoured him.

Edrik, the Kind was a monster who deserved to suffer.

But the justice of the mural hid the injustice of his world, where petty villains could practice their evil with impunity, where right and wrong had no meaning.

That day, Ollie imagined his own justice, seeing in the mural Godofredo in place of Edrik.

Every debauchery and brutality, all sadism and torture, every evil became good, his pleas melody, his agony beauty, his tears joy, a pure joy that allowed him to laugh.

On that first day, he kept the image, after he lost Seffia, he came visit it again.

When he finally grew tired of the made-up memory, he searched tirelessly in history books for other wars and moments of torture and tragedy. In the worst of the world, he found his way back to the feeling that comforted him.

The joy of his make-believe revenge.

For the only justice a weak coward like him could experience.

"I lost count." Ollie confessed without remorse. "I didn't know it was a dream."

"Of course, you didn't," The Pig King spoke harshly. "You deny the power of your will."

Ollie turned to deny the idea, to explain to the King that in his world, his dreams and desires didn't matter. However, as he turned, all the prisoners around him moved away to the limit of their shackles, then shrunk and swallowed the low moans of their mute screams of terror.

The visceral dread was palpable, infinitely greater than in the history books.

"They are afraid," Ollie spoke with confused appreciation. "afraid of me."

The King looked at him surprised. "Isn't that what you wanted?"

How could Ollie say yes to that revolting idea?

"I'm not a monster," Ollie gestured to the spasms of the prisoners. "I just wanted to feel what they feel, I just wanted to understand the pleasure they feel in hurting me."

The Pig King gave an almost smile. "Now you do."

Ollie stared at the prisoners, his classmates, those who laughed, those who spoke behind his back, those who pretended he didn't exist, all who made him feel small. In his dreams, he thought the pleasure came from torture, from pain, and from blood.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Now he understood how wrong he was.

It was so obvious, so simple it made him feel stupid.

"Yes." Ollie stared at the King. "I feel strong, I've never felt like this before."

The Pig King nodded, the ice blue of his eyes shining with approval.

"When you stay silent and lower your eyes, when you smile while they laugh at you." he waved his stern countenance. "Every fear that you offer in exchange for pity, that's the food of their strength, the real reason why they will never tire of hurting and humiliating you."

"No." Ollie spoke angrily. "You want to blame me for what they did to me."

"You are to blame."

"No, I had no choice. Godofredo is stronger than me."

"How many times have you fought him?"

"I..." Ollie couldn't answer, how to say none without admitting he was a coward? How to explain that he never defended himself without making it seem like his submission was the reason his classmates despised him? "I know I will lose."

"Consequences." The King spoke in an almost laugh. "Well, here we are in the dungeon of your dreams," he gestured towards the Rabbit. "There are no consequences here."

"What?"

"You said yourself, in your world he can hurt you back."

Ollie stared at his sword, then at the execution block where his enemy awaited him.

“You want me to hurt him?”

“No, his sentence is death.”

"If I kill him here?" Ollie asked in a sigh. "Does he die in the real world?"

"No." The King waved his hand. "Maybe he'll have a nightmare, nothing more."

Ollie breathed a sigh of relief, but then perked up his ears confused.

"What difference does it make then?"

"The first time you hurt someone, it's the hardest." The King's voice was calm and cold. "That sword in your hand is a toy, until the moment you use it."

Ollie stared at the sharp gleam of his blade in the darkness, the weapon he had wielded with pride, that had lent him a feeling of strength and power. The sword that had made him a soldier, now weighed in his hand as if he were unworthy to bear it.

All the confidence the weapon had given him, now it felt like it was pulling back. He wasn't a soldier, he was just a kid dressed in blue pajamas with yellow stars.

A stupid kid playing soldier.

Ollie, who in his imagination lost count of the times he had killed Godofredo, walked towards the Execution Block as if he were the one to be judged.

With each reluctant step, the prisoners around him moved away and shrank, blind to the ridiculousness of his pajamas, their eyes closed seeing only terror.

Ollie stopped, suddenly the weapon in his hand was no longer a toy.

His final steps were firm and confident, his shadow covered the Rabbit and passed through it, climbing the stone walls, creating a giant dark silhouette.

It wasn't a child he saw in the darkness.

But rather a god, a mighty god of vengeance and retribution.

"Do you think you can do whatever you want?" Ollie asked without curiosity, without pity or bitterness, his voice was calm and cold, full of authority. "Do you think there's no limit to what I can endure?" he arched his lips in an almost smile. "It wasn't me who put you here." he searched in vain for their eyes. "You deserve to be here."

Godofredo struggled in his gray ropes, his dirty wounds opening, but in his desperation, he ignored the futility of his pain.

"You're only making it worse." Ollie spoke without pity. "You know you're not escaping."

Instead of stopping, the Rabbit twisted even more, bleeding even more, hurting himself even more, it wasn't the pain he feared, it was what was to come that he couldn't bear.

"Stop now!" Ollie shouted. "I want you quiet."

He touched with his blade the Rabbit's long ears, sliding down to his tearful face.

Godofredo immediately froze, not even daring to breathe or tremble.

Ollie placed his snout close to his long dirty ear.

"Who's the cowardly Pig now?"

In his dreams, Godofredo always apologized, begged, and promised he would never repeat his mistake. Ollie realized that his words made no difference, he was weak, one who would say anything and everything he wanted to hear.

"You were never strong," Ollie spoke with melancholy. "I was always stronger than you."

Ollie looked at his sword, the manifestation of his power, it could have been anything else, a knife, a stone, even a cruel joke. His strength wasn't in the weapon, but in the will to use it.

The courage to hurt him before he could ever hurt me.

Holding the hilt of his weapon with both hands, Ollie aimed the tip at his enemy's neck. But at the moment of judgment, the Rabbit opened his eyes. In the red of his iris, there was no longer contempt or mockery, his look was a farewell and also a confession.

A reminder of the days when they were friends.

"It's too late now." Ollie spoke without pity. "Now it's your turn."

The Rabbit lowered his head and his ears in acquiescence, relaxed his body and with a sigh, accepted the inevitability of his execution.

Now it's your turn, you deserve it, you deserve to suffer you cowardly Pig.

Ollie found in hatred the courage to use his sword.

As he lowered the blade, he shuddered. In the dark countenance where the Rabbit had been, now it was his own face that inhabited his bound body.

Blinking his eyes, the Rabbit was back, waiting for his justice. Everything had returned to its rightful place, everything but the hatred pulsing in Ollie’s heart.

What happened?

What did it mean?

What changed?

Ollie didn't know the answer.

He tried to raise the sword again, but this time, it was too heavy.

Drawing his ears back, he looked shamefully at the King.

"I can't."

"This is your dream."

"I know, I want to, but I can't."

The cold blue of the King's eyes judged.

"Why not?"

The sword weighed heavy in Ollie's hands.

"I don't know, I swear I don't."

There was no pity or compassion in the hard countenance of the King.

"Lies."

Ollie rested the sword on the ground, unable to bear its weight.

"Because I don't want to become like him."

"Lies."

"Because it's wrong, it's wrong and immoral."

The Pig King dropped his head.

"Lies."

Ollie had nothing more to say, with no excuses and untruths, only one thing remained.

"Because I'm a coward." Ollie shouted. "I'm a damn coward."

The Pig nodded, his eyes twinkling in victory.

"I'm the worst kind of liar." Ollie continued, trading his fury for the relief of confession. "I lie to myself, I dream of things I know I'll never have the courage to do." he looked at his prisoners on the wall, this time finding their eyes instead of fear. "I hate them, I hate all of them, but not for what they do, I hate them for what I allow them to do to me."

Ollie lowered his head, without the courage to face his enemies.

In the dungeon of his dream of revenge, he had become the prisoner.

The Pig King approached in slow steps.

Ollie lifted his eyes, as the imposing figure stood between him and the brazier, blocking the light of the fire. The King's shadows fell over his face, covering his body, the execution block, taking possession of half the dungeon in the eclipse of his darkness.

"You," he spoke as a sentence. "You are your true enemy."

Ollie recognized the truth he had spent his life trying to hide.

"Help me," Ollie pleaded in a whisper of supplication. "Help me to be strong."

The Pig King nodded with gentle understanding.

"You are strong." with his finger he lifted the young man's chin. "You have the strength of your hatred."

"It's not them," Ollie's voice trembled. "It's not them that I hate."

"No one despises weakness," The King's voice spoke calmly. "more than the weak."

Ollie tried to pull away, but the Pig King's hand held the back of his neck.

"Who else deserves to suffer more," The King continued. "than the one who allows himself to be hurt?"

"You're right." Ollie lowered his ears. "I am a coward that deserve to be humiliated."

"Yes." The Pig King spoke in an almost smile. "You have to pay, pay for it all, you cowardice, your silence, your shame and your meekness." He pulled Ollie's snout to his hot nostrils. "For there is no justice without punishment."

"I know." Ollie confessed once again.

"If you want to be strong," The Pig King turned Ollie's head, forcing him to see the Rabbit on the execution block. "Your weakness will have to die."

The King released Ollie, but he continued to stare at the bound Rabbit.

"But my weakness is not in him."

"The weakness you carry," The king spoke with judgment. "can only die, after it is given."

Ollie remembered the second he saw his face in the Rabbit's countenance.

"You want me to kill in him," Ollie began to understand. "what is bad in me?"

"Yes." The King spoke with satisfaction. "If he dies then you live. If he is the weak, then you are the strong. If he cries, then you will be the on laughing."

"But that's what they do to me." Ollie spoke with disgust.

"Yes." The King answered with pleasure.

"That's what they do to me?" The statement was now a question.

"Yes." The King nodded. "The one who punishes is never punished."

Ollie turned to those who were prisoners and jailers.

"You punished me for your weaknesses?"

None of his classmates dared to look in his direction.

Here it was they who cried.

"Yes." The Pig King spoke with satisfaction.

Ollie lost himself in the distant depths of forgotten memories, returning to the day Godofredo ceased to be his friend. The first time, of many that would come after, where he used the word 'Pig' as a terrible insult.

The great mystery of why his friend came to hate him, one that for so many years he had never been able to decipher, was now revealed in an anticlimactic conclusion, a truth so simple and obvious that he could not understand how he had not seen it before.

Godofredo had been shy and insecure, small for his age, he went unnoticed and spoke to no one but Ollie. A week before he called his best and only friend 'Pig', he had confessed his admiration.

Then came the silence between them, a distance that happened by his side.

Then one day Godofredo finally spoke, not only to Ollie, but to everyone in the room.

The Pigs should have died along with the Lions. The Rabbit said.

The rest of the memories were not so clear, but the shame, that he still felt as if the past had never stopped happening.

How quick was the change, how easy it was to turn him into the enemy. The girls who smiled at him started to laugh, the friends who played with him started to make games to exclude him, even the teachers changed their gaze.

Thus, Godofredo became the hero, justified in the cruelty of his actions and words.

Ollie became the villain, deserving of any punishment and retribution.

But now he knew the lie of this fairy tale.

"You never stopped being small." Ollie spoke to the trembling Rabbit. "You just put me down to pretend to be bigger."

"A lie that everyone believes becomes a truth." The Pig King spoke, placing his hand on Ollie's shoulder. "Now it's your turn to lie, your turn to choose your truth."

"No." Ollie spoke, raising the sword. "I don't know if I want this."

"Now it's too late to turn back."

"Why?" Ollie turned to face the icy blue eyes of the Pig King. "What's stopping me from leaving here?"

"The place you will be, here you judge." The King nodded to the Rabbit. "In your world you will be one to be judged."

"I don't want to hurt anyone."

"Why not?" The King asked seriously. "Do they deserve your compassion?"

Ollie thought and in the blink of an eye he relived every time he was ignored, ridiculed, humiliated. There were two dungeons, this one where he tortured his enemies, and the other where he returned to relive the tortures of his days.

"They deserve to pay," Ollie stared at the King. "It's not fair that they don't pay."

The Pig King nodded with pride. "It is not wrong to punish those who deserve to suffer."

Ollie nodded, yes, he was not like them, all the bad feelings he endured, he had been forced, tricked, and subjected to bear. This pain did not belong to him.

"I'm tired of being the victim."

"Life is a war." The Pig King spoke with the authority of a god. "In war there are no heroes, only victims and soldiers."

Ollie did not want to be a soldier, did not want to use the sword, but at the same time, he could not let them go unpunished, could not continue living as a victim.

Not choosing is a choice.

Yes, that was the lesson he had learned in the Blue House. The dungeon would continue to exist even if he refused to act. It was not enough to simply cry out for justice.

The soldier and the victim lived on the two extremes of the sword.

Ollie stared into the icy blue eyes of the Pig King.

"I have to choose someone to hate, either myself or them."

The Pig King gestured to the execution block. "You have already chosen."

Ollie nodded, yes, now he could no longer deny it, the sword had to be used.

In the darkness of the King's shadows, he once again stared at the frightened countenance of the small Rabbit. In his mind, this would be the most difficult and wrong thing he could do, but as he raised the sword, there was no hesitation, no longer did he feel the weight of his cowardice, guilt, or indecision, the wrong was right, the difficult was easy, the blade fell with the sharp precision of his determination.

Without fear to restrain him, without anger to coerce him.

When the sword made its cut, there was no shame or regret, but peace, an unknown peace that was accompanied by relief, victory, and satisfaction.

The surprise on Godofredo's face, the bulging and tearful red eyes were perplexed with the surprise of his sentence. Without understanding, he rose, passing his hands over his wounds hidden in the broken ropes of his shackles.

"What have you done?" The Pig King shouted in rage.

Ollie moved away from the King's shadows, finding the light of the fire, but searching in its place for the other students, the prisoners he would free. Only the chains were already empty, on the other wall the sight was the same. He turned to the shadows in search of Godofredo, but he too was no longer anywhere to be found.

Ollie found himself alone.

Alone with the exception of an enraged Pig King.

"What have you done?" The King asked with resentment.

"I choose." Ollie still felt the power of the sword.

The Pig approached and shouted. "What have you done, you cowardly Pig?"

"I don't want to be a victim anymore." He drove the sword into the ground. "I don't want to be a soldier either."

The blade cracked the stone, creating lines of cracks that expanded across the floor, forming a web of destruction that climbed the walls, spreading and tearing the crimson blocks, which split, shattered, and began to collapse.

Ollie raised his eyes to the horror of seeing the ceiling collapse in his direction.

***

The red stone block would have crushed the Young Pig, but the ruin that befell them knew no satisfaction. Large blocks shattered into stones, which fragmented into boulders, which crumbled into gravel, which finally dissolved into a crimson cloud of dust and annihilation.

Ollie was surprised, alive in the red darkness of the dungeon that no longer existed.

"What have you done?" The voice of the Pig King asked in astonishment.

"I don't know."

"You have condemned yourself, you worm, that's what you've done." The red shadow of the King grew as he approached. "With no one to blame, you are to blame."

"No." Ollie responded softly. "There is no dungeon, I didn't just free them, I forgave, I forgave them, and by forgiving them, I forgave myself too."

"You don't deserve forgiveness." The King's voice spoke in cold fury.

"Why not?" Ollie asked sincerely. "What have I done so wrong?"

"You are what is wrong." The red cloud dispersed, revealing that they were back in the ruins of the royal hall. "You are guilted to be borned, sentenced to be you."

"Maybe." Ollie spoke without emotion. "But I can't escape the prison by being the jailer."

"Without me, you won't survive the war."

"But with you," Ollie lamented the words. "the war will never end."

"I order you to give me the candy."

"You have nothing to give me in return."

“Give me the candy.”

Ollie stared at the ruins and devastation. "I need it, to pay for my good dream."

The Pig King stood face to face with Ollie and extended his hand. "Give me the candy."

"No."

"You think I can't hurt you?"

Yes, Ollie remembered the words of the Dream Merchant, he had said something about the power of his choice, that here only he could choose his dream.

"I'm not afraid of you." He spoke confidently.

The surprise stunned him more than the violence.

Ollie was already on the ground, spitting blood and only at that moment did he feel the slap that had fallen on his face, the intense pain came later, arriving last at the party of his disappointment.

Everyone who gets beaten knows that humiliation reigns over pain, wounds heal, blood dries and scars disappear, but the feeling of helplessness and shame, those never heal.

You can be hurt here.

Ollie finally remembered what else the Merchant had said.

The pain that had come late was now the center of the party, in the decoration of his swollen face, in the burning dance of the scraping of his knees, in the toast of blood that ran in the sharp cut on his lips.

Humiliation fell silent, in its place, ignored words began to speak again.

There is the pain you endure, and the pain you cannot endure.

"Violence is not an idea." The Pig King stood over him like a sun of darkness. "Violence is the sovereignty of our will."

https://i.imgur.com/67KsVUO.jpeg [https://i.imgur.com/67KsVUO.jpeg]

Ollie crawled, his terrified body didn't care about the philosophy of his pain. Survival was now his only reason for being. He had to flee, to hide, to disappear.

Or at least that's how his injured face came across the shine of the cold sword blade fallen on the ground. All he had to do was grab the sword, grab the sword and get up.

The Pig King didn't seem frightened, on the contrary, the sharp blue of his cold eyes smiled, with satisfaction and confidence. His body, however, stopped approaching.

How many times had Ollie read this scene in fairy tales, the final confrontation between the hero and the villain. Without a sword he was a victim, but with a weapon, he would be a...

A coward.

Ollie stood up, with the fallen sword at his feet, he remembered that his life was not a story, and that heroes as they were called were the villains who won their wars.

The Pig King waved his stern countenance. "You are a coward."

"Maybe." Ollie nodded. "But so are you."

"Not if I beat you." The Pig King waved his snout. "Not if I give it to you."

"You can't take it from me, it needs to be an offering."

"It will be, after I hurt you, after I make you cry, you will beg for me to take it."

"I'm not afraid of you." Ollie bit his lips. "You're weaker than me."

With a long sigh, Ollie pulled the heart-shaped candy out of his pajama pocket.

The Pig King did not move, his body and countenance remained rigid like a sculpture of power and imposingness, in his eyes, however, in the cold blue of his gaze, the ice cracked into sparks of anxiety and despair, trembling and succumbing under the weight of his desire.

Ollie, steadied his fingers on the small sweet. "I have been hurt before,"

"I will kill you," The Pig King shouted. "I will kill you if you don't obey me."

"No. You are a bad dream. This this does not belong to you."

The Pig King clenched his fists, the veins of his muscles bulging across his lethal body.

Ollie braced for the worst, knowing that there would be pain, one way or another. There was always pain. The first punch was the most vicious, fueled by violence and fury, searing him with fear and agony. But he did not fall, nor did he tremble or cry. Instead, he raised his bloodied eyes to meet his attacker's gaze.

The candy was his only chance to find his good dream, he would not surrender.

The second punch was even more intense, even more deadly, with a brutality and hatred that sought his death and not his surrender. The pain was intense and humiliating, but to his surprise, it was less than that of the previous blow. The third punch was the greatest of all, this time Ollie heard the snap of bones breaking. It was a terrible and frightening sound, but one that had not come from his body. It was the King's fist that bent and broke against his chest.

Maddened with rage, the Pig King continued to pummel Ollie's face and body.

Each blow was stronger, but each hit found the soft skin of the small Pig more rigid and unyielding, it was hitting a tree, then it was like hitting a stone wall.

The King Ignored his pain, as he broke his first, he continued until, wasting every fingers of his hand against Ollie's impassive and unmovable face.

"You are a cowardly," The King screamed and roared like a rabid animal, with his broken fingers he no longer had the power to even crumple the pajama cape. "You are a filthy Pig that deserves to be humiliated."

Ollie heard the words, words that had so often had the power to humiliate him. Words and thoughts that had until now, always had the power to make him cry.

The King succumbed to the weight of his impotence and unable to bear his own pain, he fell to his knees, his red cape hiding his body like a long blanket.

"I don't care about your insults." Ollie spoke with pity. "I don't believe in you anymore."

The Pig King raised his eyes, even kneeling he was taller, tears ran down his rigid face, red lines covered the hot blue. Without saying a word, his eyes said that Ollie was the only one to blame and responsible for his suffering.

"You need me." The King spoke with the utmost loathing. "They will hurt you, they will torn your hope apart, and they will break you. Without my power you are nothing."

"You are just a king." Ollie replied with a nod. "A king without soldiers has no power."

The Pig closed his eyes and bowed, his crown fell, hit and rolled on the ground.

With a long sigh, Ollie put the candy back in the pocket of his torn pajamas.

Turning his back on the ruins of the small castle, he walked away without ever looking back.