Paper Crowns

Prologue

"Not her."

She stiffened. She had understood the plan perfectly. But the dark mystery shrouding him was that other girl. The one he was always asking about. The one he had spent years searching. She just couldn't understand why that girl was so important to him. That girl brought out the best in him, the most human she had seen him so far. But she also brought out the worst: that which could attack all and everything that stood in his way.

"I don't know. Somewhere, breathing."

She knew she was testing him. She really couldn't help it. She was besotted and drunk on the idea of him. Of his power and royalty. She held her breath as she waited for his answer.

He uttered a deep growl.

"Last time. Where is she?'

"She safe. Probably in some room. They've sent the paramedics after her."

"Good." She could hear the relief in his voice. "Is she up yet?"

"Not yet." She answered.

"So that's it?"

"No. We have a bit of a problem."

"Did something happen to her?"

She rolled her eyes. "No. But something will happen to me if this dead body is not taken off my floor in a few minutes. The room will start smelling."

"Find a way to dispose of it."

"How do you expect me to make a middle aged woman disappear into air without the guards at every corner not noticing?"

She heard him sigh. "I'll send some men over. Package her into a delivery box or something."

She wanted to object but he was gone as swiftly as he had come.

~

The drug was starting to wear off. Her eyes blinked, her entire body feeling as if she had been stung by a hive of angry wasps: heavy and dull, but pricking. She tried to lift her head but the hazy world was spinning and she found herself fading out, somewhere away from this world until very thing turned black, even her thoughts. She struggled to stop herself from falling into this thick mist.

She tried to move but pain shot through her arm and a different droning pain clouded her head. Steadily her vision turned from black to white. The white was everywhere. She took in the different white shapes: her abode, washed in white, was a spotless room, illuminated by bright white, with a small bed at the far end, standing upon the clean white tiled floor. The covers were white, so were the sheets. Even the clothes she was in were white. She immediately disliked the white she was at the mercy of; it was sickening because it felt so untainted. She sat up. It was cold, the air dry and musty, smelling like disinfectant. She stared at her papery white skin: so pale; it might as well blend against the white. Both her wrists and the sides of her feet were marked by long, wrinkled, faded red crosses, each a mark of where she had been pierced. She moved her muscles before numbness consumed her as a whole, just staring at the white, silent and still. Just hearing the rhythmic beating of her heart, like a drum, that sounded annoying against the silence.

And then she realized: she was breathing.

But sanity crashed into her like a freight train, the physical pain nothing compared to the wave of reality that surged strong, and when it slammed into her, making her feel like the air had been knocked from her body; the dark realization followed by the pain.

Searing. White. Molten hot pain. She felt it trying to killing her, steadily, ripping her, gnawing her to pieces. Pain gushed out of impeccable horror. Inescapable. It enveloped everything in sight and there was nothing left. It was everywhere.