Kingdom of Fantasy: The Prince From the Dark

Chapter 1 - Morning Mourning

The nightmare was over, as he was gaining his conscience back. Mel, a confused, yet depressed Wizard sat on a chair in his room, as he was scrolling through his books and albums. He stared deeply into the pictures of the past, where he had cherished the memories of his family. The pages of the old, dusty books shuffled as they were repetitively being flipped over and over. A young lady came into the lonely room. She was also wearing a pure white robe, had bright blue eyes, pale hair, and was adorned with gold and sapphires. This young lady was known as Mel's reliable sister, Melissa. She quietly tip-toed into the lonely room to brighten it up, and to provide some propitiation against the nightmares of the past. She saw her brother skimming through the old books, then she walked to the chair he was sitting on, and stood next to Mel. She lowered her head.

"Are you alright? It was probably another nightmare, wasn't it?" Melissa calmly asked. "Don't blame yourself for this. I too, feel greatly sorry that our little brother just left."

"I... I just can't! If only I could make things better. Since the disappearance of our parents, it was my duty, my responsibility, to claim the throne and watch over the Bright Empire! Maybe I'm not responsible enough, or that I lack the determination to keep everything in balance." Mel stated, trembling with fear.

"About that, I wonder where Avalon has been lately. I cannot believe he just left like this, and the fact he killed Grandeur a while ago! What's this?" Melissa looked into the dusty bookshelf and noticed a small red book that was not there before. The book was filthy and had dark stains around its cover, and there were yellow, loose pages. Melissa picked up the pages, and she noticed the pages were filled with dark markings of symbols that were supposed to represent some secret system of letters and numbers. She presented the pages to Mel, yet the duo were very confused.

"This is not any familiar Fantasian Script I have seen before." Mel responded. "Wait, there is a key on the last page of the book. For instance, I see that the first few letters of the alphabet were represented by hand gestures, and that punctuation markings and numbers represented mailboxes and household items. How can Avalon be so clever? He must have written his own secret system of symbols to keep his plans to himself."

"Exactly what could he be concealing from us?" Melissa wondered with curiosity. She glanced at the first page of the ragged journal. She then carefully read the key along with the symbols. The word was 'ERASE' in some form of red ink. This grew curiosity towards the duo.

Mel scratched his head in oblivion. Then the same flashback recurred in his head. He could hear the same imaginary voice from his nightmare, as if Grandeur just appeared to him in the form of words inside Mel's mind.

Please. Help me... The imaginary voice echoed through Mel's mind. More memories flashed through the Wizard's vision like the repeated turning of the pages of a book. This left him cold and anxious. If only he knew that a threat would reach to a great extent, he can feel it in his Soul, that the threat would be nearly impossible to vanquish, especially if he would have to stop it on his own. Mel turned toward his sister, asking to borrow the book. He read the first few pages. It read:

I know what's going on around here, don't you?

You just want to see me suffer.

Isn't that right? You must really hate me that much.

Melissa snatched the book out of her brother's hand and frustratingly hurled it into the fireplace. The fire growled and cracked with pleasure as it was slowly digesting the old book. Mel glanced at the fire and gave his sister a questioning look. After a moment, he could tell that she was very frustrated at having to have a missing sibling writing hateful messages in secret.

"I am absolutely sick of this!!" Melissa snapped.

"Please, calm down! I'm sure that there is a way we can fix this! We don't need to use violence to solve this." Mel responded.

"Really!? Our little brother isn't who we think he is anymore! Think about it. He killed Grandeur, he writes distasteful messages about us in secret; he even leaves the damn house in the dead of night!"

"But sis, I---"

"Enough is enough!!! He blew away all of his chances already! If Avalon still wants to play his freakin' game with us, he might as well be on HIS OWN!!!" 

She then left the room in an absolutely livid fashion. In the meanwhile, the satisfied fire gave one last crimson-gold flash of light and happily crackled before it silently died down to become the grey ashes.

How can I be so stupid? Why did I even bother asking my sister about this? Mel thought in his head. Anyways, I am still me, and nobody can stop that. I want to give him another chance. Hopefully, he can change.