The screeching of tires. My son's scream for me. The impact--

"--after all this evidence, we so royally declare him exiled. He will be removed--"

My lungs feel as if they've been punctured. I'm winded, barely cognizant, my head ringing. Gasping.

"--o! It's not me! Father, father--"

"Dad..."

"--no son of mine--"

"......I'm..."

"--ake him away."

"Father, please! If you hold any love for me..."

The noise settles. The air remains stale. My feet stumble back. This isn't the car. We aren't on the road. My vision does not fade. Henry's breath does not raggedly heave beside me.

"Father..."

Henry is on his hands and knees where he has crawled to me. He is breathing, shuddering through his coughs.

I inhale sharply. A bruise is beginning to darken and swell up at one eye. There's blood at his mouth.

My son is all but sobbing. His teeth grit. "Please," he begs me, voice wet and broken. "I'll do anything. I'll be a good son. I'll listen. I'll do anything you say. I was wrong. I'll be more obedient. Please..."

My stomach churns. Did I want Henry to say these things to me? Of course. To know he had done wrong, and to learn from it, and to be open to guidance. But to see my son reduced to this? Where has the anger, the hostility, the things that belonged to him gone? What has...what is going on?

It takes me a moment then to realize what he is wearing. No private school uniform with a sloppy colllar under a hoodie, and grass-stained slacks. He wears a formal jacket with a straight collar, but its creases have been dulled. Dirt stains it. Broken glass shards lay on the floor with blood and a silver liquid, soaking the knees of his pants.

 I barely realize it when someone has stepped beside me and whispered into my ear.

"We must let them take him away."

I spin around, elbow instinctively pulling back that I keep tight to my side. "What?" My voice grows harsh.

He's a slender-faced man, body wily like a willow, dressed in a neutral suit, half-cloak draped on his shoulders. I don't know who he is or where we are--which is the space around us, a large palace of sorts. He smiles politely at me before my gaze turns to our audience.

We are not alone, surrounded as we are by the watching eyes of the people around us. Long robes, draping to the calves. Masks partitioned to each face. Everyone anonymous, except for the young man standing before us and the girl by his side, curled into the nest of his arms.

What scenario is this?

My hands shake: in anger, in horror, and in fury. You make a scene, a mockery of my son?

I snarl, furious. "Who is taking anyone away?"

"The palace's guards."

Guards? Palace? "Nobody is taking him away." What is this place?

"But sir--"

"You would defend a murderer?" the young man before us asks. The girl beside him shrinks further into his arms, as if my very gaze frightens her. "Even if my father values you, do you think it's still--"

I don't bother listening. Henry has raised his face to me, and now I see the tears begin to fall. "Dad," he cries, completely uninhibited. He's crawling to me, to my feet, thanking me over and over again.

I don't realize what he's doing until his face angles downwards towards my shoes.

My own face drops. I bend to my knees and grab him by his shoulders. "Stand up," I order, half-panicked, not even caring how hard my knee has hit the tiled floor. "What is wrong with you?"

I grip Henry tighter as I stand up with him. He stumbles with me--he's lighter than I remember and yet...how has he grown so tall?

I have never seen Henry like this. Not so destroyed. In my arms, he stiffens, speechless, before letting his gaze drop. Around us, I can hear the shifting of discomfit. The populace murmurs amongst themselves like annoying birds.

"Is he crazy?"

"If I had to house a potential murderer among my heirs..."

"He's ignored the prince. I'm sure he must be furious..."

"Well, this'll be news for sure."

They're noisy and irritating, gossiping without a care.

Henry is folding within himself, breathing becoming staggered again.

I must take him away from this place. "Come."  We can't stay here. I don't know where we are, but it'll be better.

"He's been exiled. You can't just take him away--"

"I'll pretend you didn't waste my time just now." I cast a steely, warning look at the young man, who's frozen in his steps with one arm still outstretched. Then at the girl, who looks away, and at at each of the faces around us. I hold my gaze until everyone steps back. "Mark my words, this matter is not over. I will be holding someone responsible."

No one bothers with their casual remarks now. I don't stay to entertain more.

I move fast and swiftly. The crowd is accommodating, instantaneously parting like a wave to let us pass by the double doors.

Leaving the foyer leads to more mystery and ambiguity. This palace seems almost ceaseless with chandeliers on the ceilings and a large domed ceiling overhead. Long carpets stretch out through the hallways. The wooden decals of the ceilings and door frames are carefully, artistically carved.

I pass by a mirror casually. Then pause.

Another man looks back at me; cold-looking, older, square-shaped features as pronounced as his shoulders are wide. He wears a uniform--military by the pockets, cuffs, and straight creases--and a green cloak slides off from the side of one shoulder. He pulls back at the same time that I do, eyes hawk-like and threatening.

Henry's stifled, staggered breaths fill my ears, limping with each step as he catches up. I glance down at him; my son refuses to meet my eye.

Maybe it really is some strange dream, because somehow I know where to go. Past twists and turns, we go into less busy, simplified hallways, and past double doors. In the room, there's an ornate chair, a seating couch, a coffee table, and a large dark wood desk beside the window. Bookshelves frame the sides of the room, filled to the brim with knick-knacks and folders.

I hope this is far enough.

"Sit," I tell him.

Henry doesn't move, and looks over my shoulder.

"Sir, we can't say no to royal orders." 

The man from before has followed us both in as if it's completely natural.

"Get out."

"Pardon?"

"Father," Henry begins. "I'm sorry..."

"Be quiet," I tell him. I don't want anything he says to be somehow misconstrued for however we deal with the events of today. I turn to face my ill-advised advisor.

The man smiles wider. "Yes?"

"What part of 'Get out' did you not understand?"

"I can't." He's not budging, as insistent as he is annoying. "They have to have an answer."

The implication is that I can't send him off without one. Until I can understand why Henry is being picked up by guards or the scene that I just witnessed, I can't allow Henry to go either. "Why is my son in this state?" Who do I find?

Henry has grown stiff and silent. Wordlessly, I slacken my touch and he pulls himself away.

The man blinks. "But he was accused of trying to assassinate the young prince's fiancée. As punishment, he will be exiled to the far reaches of the kingdom."

Prince? Fiancée? Is this some kind of a joke?

"That wasn't me, father," Henry whispers, voice hoarse. "He framed me."

"But you were not at the Academy for the past week, young master," the man informs him. I'm trying to wrap my head around these circumstances. The place we're in. The clothes we're all wearing. The demeanor, this whole situation. I must be dreaming, somehow. My blood cools--the car accident. Is Henry alive? "And you were found at the scene of the crime with the poison in your hands."

"That was-!"

"Don't say a word." I interrupt. He's going to give ammunition to someone who may not even have his best interests at heart. For now, I squeeze both his shoulders--but this feels so real. How can it be a dream? Henry is breathing, living, before me. "Stay here. I'll go see them."

What I remember is... Oh no. That car accident. Did Henry--Did he put his seatbelt on? Please, please may he have put it on. I can barely remember, swept up in sudden, tense fear.

"Father--"

It's too formal. This place must be a dream. Henry would never speak or talk or look at me like this. Believing. Trusting. Relying.

And yet, I can't help it. My voice softens. "Stay here. Nothing will happen to you." Henry nods slowly, jerkily. "I promise." He keeps nodding until I release him, before moving his chin to his chest.

If this is a dream, I am not waking up. Instead, I'm leaving the room with the man beside me. He locks the door--"To ensure he does not run away," he informs me--behind us.

"He won't," I say.

"He won't," the man agrees. "But we should still be quick about this."

"Do I know you?"

He smiles politely and turns on his heel, forcing me to follow. "You don't."

No further explanation.

"What do you think of this?" I ask. It's the most neutral question you could ask someone.

"You're being very nice to him," he informs me. "Is it because you feel guilty?"

My anger must read in my face, because he elaborates quickly.

"Don't you usually say you'll disown him?"

My stomach clenches. "He's my son."

"Right. Your son." A glimmer of a smile with teeth. "But don't you have two more?"

Even in a dream, these words sit so heavily on me. "What are you saying?" He doesn't answer me. "He's my son," I repeat, more hostile. "It doesn't matter--" I cut myself off. I don't need to justify to him.

The man doesn't return me to the hall with its masked audience. Instead, he brings me to a small room off the side. No windows or natural light fill it. My instincts tell me to run, but I stand firm.

The door closes behind me with a thunk.

My hand sweeps out, but the handle disappears before my eyes.

"It's okaaaaAAAAAaaaa~aaay."

I whip my head around. The man's skin is deteriorating before my eyes. My breath catches as I watch, frozen. As if scraped off, the skin melts itself off to reveal black flesh until standing before me is no longer human.

The man becomes a humanoid figure, completely indiscernible outside of form. Spasms of his body etch into the space around him, as if he's neither here or there.

My hackles rise.

"What the hell are you?"

"You wanted to save your son, didn't you?" is the murmur. Their voice rumbles deeply and high at the same time, resounding everywhere and then also in front of me. As if pinpricks of electricity are dancing against my skin, my tensions raise.

I take a step back, but the door suddenly is too far away. My leg bumps against a chair.

"Poor, poor Henry," they whisper into my ears, "bleeding out in that car seat before he could even reach the hospital. He had to watch you go first. Isn't that terrible?"

The visions spark into my mind. Henry, lips parted, eyes shuttering dull as I tried to reach him through the broken glass and twisted chassis of the car. The visceral pain in my chest. I...wanted to hold him. I wanted to make it hurt less for him. I wanted to take his pain--

"...Dad...I'm sorry..."

"No," I whisper. "That can't be."

"Yes," they say. "That's what happened."

If I hadn't driven there. If I hadn't picked him up. If I had sent someone else in my stead...!

"Did you like seeing him alive here? I do too." Each word is a whisper, cast along a line and a wire. A knife wound that stabs me in my heart. "I think he's a very good child, but as the youngest one, he was never given opportunity and attention and care like the rest of his siblings. Henry always had to compare."

My blood chills as I glance around. It seems impossible to locate them, as if they exist everywhere and somewhere specific at once. "Who are you? What do you want?"

"My name is Ete," they say, and endless fingers start to curl their way around my arms and legs. They slither away instantaneously when I jerk my hand away, suddenly hidden the way rats scatter at light.

This isn't a dream. It feels too real, as if I am standing under the sight of a predator.

Their face appears before me. Formless, with the cosmos etched into their flesh. Their eyes open, pupils the blackest of night and soulless. Sharp shark teeth grow rigged without lips, the boundary line parting past the confines of their face and into the darkness into a crooked smile.

"And I can make your wish come true, Lee Huang. You just need to say yes."