The pain burned through me. Every step I took ripped my body apart, but I couldn’t stop.

I ran for a while, not caring where I ended up. I just needed to get away from the manifestation of my sins. Put distance between whatever the dream tried to make me do and myself.

Tears filled my eyes, making the path ahead hard to see.

Turning a corner down an alleyway, I ran directly into something big and hard. I looked up and my blurred vision came into focus.

There he was.

Another manifestation of my sins.

Darkness surrounded him in an eerie way that made him seem like he was part of the shadow. Only his eyes were lit up, and they were looking straight at me.

I shortly wondered if this was what I looked like to my prey, just before I cut them down. If this was the last view The Sixth Prince had seen.

I cut off the thought. Stopped thinking. I was good at that.

One of his guards motioned to step forward, but the shadow held up a hand to stop him, and the guard did so immediately and with no questions asked.

The shadow bent down to my level, the darkness swallowing me along with him. Despise it as I might, being there made me feel safe and incredibly lonely.

I had always been part of the shadows.

But…

Here, now…

Everything felt wrong. 

Things were usually colder in the shadows, but not this cold. The darkness seemed deeper and fuller. The shadows overtaking me were more than just his figure. 

It was the memories.

This was how I had met him once before, so many years ago.

I had played out the coming monologue of his over and over in my mind, with pieces added and taken away. Polished and adorned.

“You have fire in your eyes, child,” The Fourth Prince told me, looking straight into my eyes like he could see into what lay behind them. I wondered if there was anything besides emptiness.

“A will to do anything to survive,” he didn’t let me look away, “I could use someone like you.” He held his hand out to the side, and the guard took out an apple from his bag and put it in his hand.

“I have been looking for you. You stole an apple from the market and paid dearly. Are you hungry?” He polished the apple with his long sleeve, covering it as he worked, turning and turning, until finally he held the hand with the apple out in front of me.

What played out was close to, but not exactly, what had happened in my memories.

The pieces did not quite fit the frames I had built. I thought he had held a speech about how he needed me. About how it needed to be me. I thought I was specially chosen. Either my dream was once again messing with my memories, or my memories were messing with my dream.

I could not tell.

That time, I took the apple from his hand and ate it like I had never eaten before, the sweet juices spilling on my fingers and around my mouth. On my rags and on my bare feet. And when I had finished eating, he had taken my hand, despite how dirty it was, and asked for my help. Said I could help protect the royal family. Make the kingdom a better place.

I only needed to do as he told me, and he would feed and clothe me.

I had gone down on my knees, not knowing how to properly swear loyalty, as I had only heard about it from storytellers on the street. I had taken the hand he held in mine and kissed it. I had bowed down and kissed his shoes. I had bowed even lower and kissed the very ground he was standing on.

He had seemed amused and gotten the guards to clothe and feed me, just as promised.

I only thought of him as my savior at first, as I did not know he was The Fourth Prince, then. I only learned that later.

And from there… I had stopped being a person.

I had survived.

Until I hadn’t.

And yet, here I was again.

I had taken a different path in this dream, and it had still led me straight to this outstretched hand, promising me the apple I could never forget the taste of, and a future that only tasted of bitterness and regrets.

Did I really have no choice but to kill The Sixth Prince?

Either now, as a child, or later, after entering The Fourth Prince’s service?

Did I ever have any choices, at all?

If this truly was a dream… Torture or not… I could, at the very least, choose my own path this once.

Even if it wasn’t a dream, could I really endure killing him again?

No.

Even if I was the one to die, even though I might already be dead, I could never lay as much as a finger on The Sixth Prince again.

I could not bear the smile he wore in death. Could not bear those purplish blue eyes looking at me with resignation.

I thought about Lyric who may or may not be The Sixth Prince. How he had gotten me to eat first and only asked for help later. How he didn’t even ask anything of me before he was sure I had gotten something in my stomach. He hadn’t even asked if I was hungry, but simply provided me with food like I was his guest.

I thought about how he had made even a dark alleyway light up, how he looked royal even amongst trash.

I compared it to The Fourth Prince, who used the apple against me. He didn’t care if I ate or not. He only wanted to control me with it.

If I was dead anyway, what would being killed now do? End the dream? I could only hope.

Resolve steeled, I chose my own future, however short it might be.

Looking straight into the eyes of The Fourth Prince, I smacked the apple out of his hand, never breaking eye contact.

“No thank you, I’m not hungry,” I said, feeling years and years of built-up habits rebelling for each word.

My careful tone, never looking him in the eyes when he was in a mood, always showing respect in front of him, choosing my words carefully, double and triple-checking his mood before doing anything I knew would set him off.

I had ignored it all for this one little sentence.

He wouldn’t let this slide. I knew him well enough for that. Killing me would be the least of my worries. The torture he could inflict upon me for this was…

I found I didn’t care.

Did it even matter?

At best, this was a dying dream, at worst, this was a torturous nightmare. Either way, I was already dying, and as soon as my mind let go of me, things would be over.

Finally.

My long fight for survival would end with my loss, like everyone else’s.

Laughing brought me back into the moment. Laughter from The Fourth Prince who was picking up the apple I had thrown to the side. Laughter as he brushed it off and turned it around. Laughter as a bruised spot shaped like a perfect little circle near the bottom came into view.

It stared at me as if it was a little eye.

A bruised spot that had just been made or… 

Been there all along.

A shudder ran through me.

It would be too much of a coincidence.

This wasn’t real, and yet there was no doubt about it. That apple.

It was the one I had stolen so many years ago. The unmistakable bruising that looked like it looked at me.

The dream was playing tricks. This wasn’t how it went. The apple I had eaten at that time didn’t have any bruises on it.

Or did it?

I couldn’t tell. I had not inspected it, simply devoured it on sight.

But he had polished it in his sleeve, covering it and made sure I couldn’t see it before he handed it to me.

If, maybe, he had placed it in his hand and covered the bruise. If he had turned the bruise away from me before he handed it over. If he had done it with the conviction that I wouldn’t double check it, it was possible.

But. This was a dream. My mind was messing with me.

He could not possibly have used the same apple that had nearly cost me my life, to grant me survival.

I didn’t want to believe it.

But the laughter. The horrible laughter that had kept going as the realizations had fallen upon me.

“I do apologize,” The Fourth Prince said with only mocking in his tone, now having stood up to his full height, and looking down at me, apple still in hand, “I did not mean to laugh, but it made for such a good jest. I could not help myself.”

A jest. The apple had made for a good jest. My rebellion unwillingly playing a part in his charade.

“I don’t understand…” I said, trying to vocalize what part I didn’t understand but coming up short. I had thought he would slay me or detain me on the spot. I thought I had known him well enough to expect that, yet I understood nothing.

Had I been made into a joke, ever since that time? Had I just been too foolish to notice?

“You do not need to understand, child, you do not even need to think,” The Fourth Prince said as way of explanation, though it explained absolutely nothing, “except about my offer, think it over and meet me here tomorrow. I will even bring you something better than an apple. As an apology for my… jest.”

With those words, he signaled with his hand for the guards to go, turned and left.

Then he was gone.  

I stood alone, having stood up to him for the first, and what I supposed would be my last time.

The dream should have ended with this. I could not comprehend a life where I did not work for that man, who was still just a boy himself, and yet I knew I would not see him tomorrow.

I would not choose him again.

Something was off. Wrong. Entirely different from how it was supposed to be.

It wasn’t a dream. It simply couldn’t be.

Small and vague senses started to fall into place, slowly and agonizingly.

The pain that was still all too real. The hunger. The Fourth Prince and his words. The bruised apple. The past that was my past and yet different because of choices I had made differently.

The Third Princess was not cruel. She would kill her enemies without mercy, yes, but she would never torture them like this.

She would never send me off with words of peace and a final farewell if this had truly been the place she was sending me.

But… if this was not a dream or a hallucination, the only other possible solution was not possible at all.

The only other thing I could think of, that could have happened, would be that I had died…

Truly died…

And then, somehow, despite all logic, magic or otherwise…

Went back in time.