I have to get out of here…
Should I head for the tower? What if it was a trap? Some new sting in this rotten tale?
The rain fell harder still, a bitterly cold wind moving in, quickly becoming unbearable. If I didn’t get to shelter soon, I’d be dead. Dead in the mud. Dead like Pearl.
She’s not dead. She can’t ever be dead.Those words bounced around in my head, a symbol of my struggle to accept reality.
Fuck reality.
Fuck living without her.
This isn’t real…
I made for the tower, crossing the soupy mud easily.
Pearl…
My heart thrummed in my chest, fear a tight cocoon around me. I teetered on the edge of complete collapse, ready for unconsciousness to grant me some mercy for a while.
Youareunconscious…
I arrived at the tower doorway, tears brimming in my eyes, my hands curled into fists. My shoulders shook as the sobbing escaped, anguish my best friend.
This isn’t happening.
This isn’t happening.
This isn’t happening.
My limbs weakened, every last ounce of strength sucked away. Any moment now, I would keel over and wait for the cold to kill me right here. Because what was the point anymore? When did things stop being so exhausting?
Being dead meant failure.
Being dead meant never getting anywhere or achieving my goals.
And I’d never know peace. A guy like me didn’t get to the light at the end of the tunnel by giving up. He found it by being proactive, strangling the whining shit and wielding Aidan’s love like a sword.
I snarled, straightening my spine. Anger injected fresh strength into me, bringing a bright kernel of hope to my core. Violent hope. One where I dropped a piano on the king’s head purely for shits and giggles before I staked him.
Dead. Dead. Dead. Goodbye to the scum.
This is a dream. You’re not here, but backthereon the bathroom floor.
Huh?
Steeling myself against my thoughts before they got the better of me, I rapped my knuckles on the door.
I woke up in a forest, something blissfully soft against my back. Fairy lights glistened in the vines and greenery above, and jasmine filled my nostrils.
The king’s chambers.
Yeah, I’d been dreaming.
I sat up, rubbing the back of my neck, my mouth tasting like a sewer. My head ached as if I’d guzzled too many beers last night and was now paying the price.
That dream. Pearl. I often saw her die in different ways, my brain attacking me with invented horrors. But that tower was new. Were my nightmares evolving?
Great. I couldn’t wait.
