Today was the day! She was so excited! Her Prince was coming to help her escape from the tower. She smiled, packing the last of her few possessions into a bag.
"Rapunzel! Rapuzel! Let down your hair!"
He was here! Rapunzel ran to the window, looping her hair over a hook above the window and letting it fall. Her hair cascaded down the wall like a soft, golden waterfall. The Prince climbed it quickly, hugging Rapunzel tightly when he climbed through the window. "You ready to go?"
She picked up her small pack and the Prince slung it over his shoulder. "Ummm..." Rapunzel said, looking through the window nervously. "I guess there is something I should tell you first."
"Yes?"
Rapunzel walked over to her wardrobe, gripping the handle tightly. "Well, actually there are two somethings." The Prince looked at her expectantly, waiting for her to continue. "Number one..." She opened the wardrobe and Rapunzel's mother fell out, collapsing into a heap on the floor. The woman's face was purple and bloated, her eyes open wide with fear.
"She was going to follow us." She looked at the Prince expectantly, waiting for his approval. "S-so you strangled her??" He backed away from Rapunzel, scared of what she might do.
"What was I supposed to do?"
She stepped forward, reaching for and then holding his hand. He looked at her, shocked at how calmly she was speaking of her mother's death. "You could've tied her up or something! She didn't have to die!" Rapunzel walked back over to the body, shoving it back into the wardrobe.
"Oh yeah. The second thing. I can't climb." The Prince stopped staring at the wardrobe for a moment. "Wait...What?" She walked back to the Prince again, looking at the floor, not wanting to see his look of disappointment. This time she whispered. "I can't climb."
The Prince thought for a while, pacing. Finally he spoke. "I will go down first. That way if you fall I can catch you." He slowly climbed down her hair and she waited patiently for a little while. Suddenly, she felt all movement in her hair stop. "Are you down yet?" she yelled.
When nobody answered she looked out of the window only to see her Prince hanging in one spot, not moving. Why wasn't he climbing? Maybe one of his feet got tangled in her hair and he couldn't climb. Rapunzel jumped out of her window, using more of her hair as a second rope. When she reached her Prince, she stopped sliding down her hair and reached over, tapping his shoulder.
"Are you alright?"
He didn't answer and she tapped his shoulder again, this time turning him to face her. She was right. He had been tangled all right. She was just wrong about where. He must have slipped, getting his neck tangled in her hair somehow. Just like her mother's, his face was purple and bloated. He was dead.
Rapunzel pushed herself away from his dead body, fear causing her to slip down a few feet on her hair. Okay--If she couldn't leave with her Prince, she would just have to leave on her own. She could just slide down her hair and cut away the Prince's body when she landed.
She slid down a few more yards, reaching the lowest point she could before she would have to get more hair. Reaching up, she pulled herself up and let herself drop, trying to pull down more hair, but the Prince's weight was just too much for her. She would just have to climb back up to the tower and find some sort of rope She tried to pull herself back up her hair but she couldn't.
Oh, why did she have to jump?
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A Few Weeks Later
The vultures circled around the tower, finally finding their feast. The two bodies hung from faded golden hair, the male was purple and bloated, the female had a bruised and bloody scalp. Both were rotting bodies that had been eaten away by other animals.
They were practically just heads now.
