Five seconds.
Phan panicked. He never knew what this guy did, in fact he completely amazed, but he was immediately alerted. He hastily grabbed his sword belt from the table, put it around his waist and locked it. He unleashed the blade and began observing his surroundings.
It was dead silent. No sound occurred for the past three seconds.
Then bricks from the opposite of his bed exploded, leaving a huge hole at his room— enough to connect it to the castle staircase. A gigantic green monster barged inside, with big jaw, bulgy eyes, two huge fangs, and curved nose. The giant mace it was holding clearly made the wall-destruction thingy possible.
Shame. He could feel shame for having his room ruined. And he felt angry. Angry for the troll because it was trespassing. . . Indeed, Phan had his priorities in proper order.
He stared at the troll, who stared back at him pointlessly. His eyes turned at the tuxedo guy, "This is seriously how you'll change my life?" He said. "Are you even serious?"
"What did you expect?" The guy replied, as the troll's mace sailed over Phan's head. "You think there will be unicorns, carousels, horses and some glass slippers? Please Phan, you're a prince. Not Cinderella."
The monster roared, unleashing enough breath to kill three flocks of birds at once— not by poison, but by literally breath, a really, very, bad, breath.
Phan slipped between the troll's legs, his hands moved to stab him, but his sword was for child's play. The metal bent from the monster's skin, failing Phan quicker than he thought. The tyrant turned back, he dropped his mace into Phan's head, but the prince was too swift. Well, fast enough not to have his head crushed, but slow enough to have the heel of his left foot bleeding like hell.
A bolt of electrocuting agony shot him. Blood dripped down from the ground, tainting it with red ooz. He could tell based from the pain that his bone's relationship with each other was working so bad, they had to break up. And they did.
Phan tried to comfort himself, but the more he assumed to be safe, the more he thought about that same giant mace passing through his brains. Which is about to happen.
The King successfully broke the door with his men. The sound of wood breaking apart was enough to surprise the troll. The monster looked back, postponing Phan's death instantly. But the prince was too busy with his foot to bother thanking his father.
The King's men, soldiers and knights began to attack the beast. The frontlines drew their swords, waved it, hacked it, but there was no way to stop it. The monster was relentless, and almost invincible. Their weapons laid useless, and their armours were crushed as the mace broke through it.
The troll turned to Phan, who was running out of ideas about how could he save himself.
"Go to the window, then jump." The guy suggested.
"Oh, what a great idea!" Phan declared.
"Oh, please Phan." The guy responded. "Trust me. If I can fasten time, how could I not save your life?"
"If you can fasten time, how could you not kill me?"
The creature charged towards him, the head of its mace dropping against the ground, digging through the brick floor. Phan was left with no other choice, but to leap out the window. Which he did.
The burning sunrays welcomed his death, the radiance of light was almost new into his eyes. He never had been out of the castle, but when he does, he never expected that he would be sky-diving— without a parachute.
As he slowly descended toward the ground with his face-first position, he knew that he's dead. That the tuxedo guy tricked him into lounging out the window. Which was very stupid for him to follow. But of course, if he didn't, the troll he met in his room will take care of the job for him.
He was falling twenty-five feet off ground.
The air was violently trying to destroy his face.
All hopes were gone when he saw Kog. Yes, Kog, the gardener-bartender-dishwasher-housekeeper-maintenance-maid and part-time friend of Phan, was standing there at the exact place where he was about to land.
"Kog Kog Kog Kog Kog!" Phan repeated, from every word he travelled three feet to the ground. He slammed Kog and pushed him down. They landed against the brick. The impact wasn't nice. The fact that Kog was built to be hard as stone didn't help. And Penny hate it, because:
1) Kog did not actually catch him on purpose.
2) Kog never expected it. Neither does he.
3) Falling to Kog, is not that manly. . . The right word rhymes with gray.
4) He doesn't like the right word which rhymes with gray
But at least, he's alive. That's the important part. That survived it. Because if he died in the situation, the whole book will be all about "In the memory of Phan, the protagonist who failed to reach climax". If the author is really planning for his story to be unique, then that's a good example. But of course, who cares about a dead main character? You're right. The antagonist.
Phan quickly rolled away from his awkward position, just right before swearing himself to death why he'd actually need to experience that. He could hear Kog breathing heavily, cursing him "Uh, you freaking son of a king!"
"Yeah you saved me pal." Phan answered, breathing heavily. His legs moved him up, his head turned left and right, and his eyes widened.
He saw two green raging beast, the size of normal humans. They have bear skin wrapped around their body as clothes, crooked nose, evil grin, and misshapen swords between their fingers. Their leg movements were half as fast as a horse, their arms travelled quicker than chickens, like some taekwondo black belt experts.
The good part's that, those monsters were from the left. They knew they can't run fast enough to avoid them, but the other good part is that, from the right, were the knights. Yes, the knights, who never had killed a single person through their whole lives.
The knights, who never had any real combat experience. The knights, with armours shining, swords glittering, were now about to risk their very life for the very first time, in order to protect their lovely useful absolutely responsible prince.
Phan was about to run, but he immediately remembered about his charming ankle which was bleeding to death. But then two strong arms grabbed him by the leg, raised him up, and he landed over someone's shoulders. He was carried like a sack. And when he realized that it was Kog' who was doing it for him, Phan began to feel a lot more humiliated.
He was the prince. He was supposed to be in the sword fight. He was supposed to be the one carrying his kingdom. But instead, he was the one being carried be his dishwasher.
As his eyes locked into seeing his men fight, he never knew he'll watch in horror. The beast were too fast, they buried their fist into a knight's helmet into their head. Their misshapen swords were sharp enough to sink through the men's armours, and their kicks were strong enough to send a man flying off the castle heights.
Despite of Phan's ultimate depression, he still managed to keep himself together.
Do not panic, he told himself. The kingdom's gonna be okay. My father's alright. My people will survive through this.
He could see the massive compilation of bricks as floors and walls, it all looked like gray things flashing away. Kog was running like hell. The king's men bought them enough time to escape.
Normally, these trolls and beast lives in harmony inside the forest. They won't attack anything outside their territory. They're just, a part of a normal prince' adventure in finding his princess. Just another part of the damned tradition. But today, for the very first time in history, monsters engaged an attack to the castle. And it was a bloodbath.
"Evacuate the castle!" Penny could hear a man shouting from a distance. "The castle has been overrun! Abandon the castle!"
Phan could hear walls getting smashed through. People screaming. Blades clashing. Huge debris of rocks from the ceiling falling down in a dust rain. . . It was a disaster. The image of his castle, burning and dropping and losing was never been inside his head. It was never something that someone would imagine.
Everything was out of tradition. The lineage of events broke. Everyone was playing outside of their normal role. Like a disobeyed script in a live presentation, and people just have to go with the flow because, the show must always go on.
As Kog finally reached the castle gates, Phan heard a vast, massive, everyone-could-hear cry. "Plot twist everyone! Plot twist!"
___
Phan found himself resting against the tree trunk, with a blood-stained cloth wrapped tightly around his heel. He was almost crying. Before they reached the woods, before they made it into the main gate of their castle, they went through the town first. The mud-ground, city, which was under their kingdom's protection.
He saw his own people panicking, stumbling into ground, helplessly crying for help . . . And there was none. There was not help coming for them.
And he couldn't move. He couldn't act. He couldn't do anything. He couldn't save them. He could only watch them as they were killed by the monsters, while Kog continued running away to spare him, killing every troll in path and pushing people aside. He saw enough violence for the day, and he was nearly blowing it out.
From his view, he could see the castle on fire. A huge atmosphere of think gray smoke above the scorching towers. There were boulders smashing through the walls. Beasts invading and destroying the stronghold which had been there three years since the beginning of time.
It was too painful to witness. Watching as the place where you grew as it fell into crumbs of stones and dust. The very window where he was looking at just a while ago was gone. The garden where he used to play was ruined. The empire where he used to live was devastated, right in front of his eyes. . . He remembered about his father. His family. . . And Kog's family too (so he won't be offended).
They're still there . . . and maybe they're still alive. Maybe they escaped. Maybe they survived.
But Phan couldn't assume. The pictures of his father being stabbed to chest by one of those beast was hitting his brain. The picture of him, standing, crying over the king's grave.
He tried not to think about it. But the more he tried, the more he does the opposite.
I should go back to the castle, he thought, but his wound was stopping him. He's about to call Kog, but his friend was nowhere around.
A drop of tear rolled into the bottom of his face. He wanted to save them. He wanted to go there, and rescue them. Help them. Protect them.
But he was nothing but a useless, stubborn, stupid, one hell of a prince. He laughed and gagged around when he was supposed to be preparing for this kind of battle. He had fun when he was supposed to be engaging his people.
Footsteps emerged behind the tree he was lying at. He stroke back to senses, grabbed a handful of soil, and a huge solid rock, ready to attack anybody. He turned, and he saw the guy in tuxedo. And suddenly, Phan was paralyzed, unable to move a single muscle.
"Do you, wanna, uh, want me to turn back time?" The guy asked.
"What do y-you mean?" Phan asked, his heartbeat drumming against his chest.
"Bring back things to normal. You know." The guy replied. "Back from the day since I came in your room."
"That was just about forty minutes ago." Phan calculated. "Look, why are you asking me this?"
The guy smiled. "I promised you I'll tell my name when you choose to answer 'yes' right?"
"I can remember."
"I'm about to do that." The guy responded. "But before I do, I still need to ask you if you want to pursue this thing. Your life-changing get-the-heck-out-of-prince's-normal-destiny path."
"I could . . . Return from things as they were?"
"Yes, indeed."
Phan's brain split in halves. The other part of him says it was nice. Getting back to the same old life he used to live. When he was happy. When there were no trolls barging inside his room, when there were no beast killing his town's people, there were no monsters destroying his castle.
The other part of him was telling him the opposite.
The guy kept him alive as promised. His life changed as promised. All he has to choose from is whether he wanted it or not. Recalling back the times when he was just an ordinary prince, who cursing upon his window about what life's going to be for him. Remembering the times when he was lying over his bed, dreaming about his what could happen if people were to choose their own destiny.
He was thinking about his father. Even though he was never been that close with that old man, he still cared for him. No matter how less attention they gave to each other, of course, a king is a king, and a king has more to worry about than his son. Maybe Phan was just overdramatic, telling himself that his father had no time for him. Telling himself that his father only cared about his quest.
The last time they talked wasn't much of a conversation either. He never even thanked him after he broke into his room because he's worried.
Phan exhaled a huge amount of air. "If I continued what you started, could you promise me that my life would be better?"
"I can't." The guy responded. "When you agreed in this deal, your life will not be as much of a fairy tale. You will be no male version of Cinderella, nor sleeping beauty, nor any other person with a happy ending." The guy continued. "Heroes die, Phan. Heroes fall. Some might live, but sooner or later they will die. It doesn't really matter. The only thing that matters about life is—"
"The journey." Phan finished his sentence.
"No. Something more than that." The guy smiled. "The adventure."
Phan was puzzled a little. "But, saving princess in towers guarded by dragons is an adventure right?"
"Well, is it?"
"It is. But, it's not that . . . adventurous, since everyone's doing it."
The guy grinned. "So, what now? Do you want your life to change permanently?"
Phan could feel his adrenaline rush flowing through his veins. His soul was on fire. His bones were struck with energy. He knew that he never wanted he was living. He was always wishing to be different. . . Now that his wish had been granted, then, why not? Why reject it?
"I've witnessed three things that could never possibly happen." He answered. "I want my life to change, but, how about my dad? How about my kingdom? I can't just— live carrying the dread of losing them with me."
"That's what it's all about Phan." The guy said. "Before you could continue, you must be able to leave them behind."
Phan hesitated. "It won't be easy for me." He said. "But I guess . . . I could start today."