Escape

The man clutched desperately at his arm in an attempt to stop the bleeding. He had to run, but there were so few places in the castle he could escape to where his assailant could not follow. For they both knew the intricacies of the castle walls.

As I strolled back into the janitor’s closet, I double checked the cart to make sure I didn’t leave any bottles of disinfectant in any of the hospital rooms. “One, two, three…” quietly counting everything, it seemed like I didn’t forget anything this time. I let out a sigh of relief. One of the nurses really gave me an earful the last time I left a bottle next to one of the beds, it was lucky that she caught it before the room was assigned. I didn’t want to imagine the trouble I’d get in if one of the patients accidentally drank from it. You’d think no one would do such a thing of course, but after working at a hospital for a few years now, you stop being surprised at all of the unique ways people get hurt. Despite how long the days were, I was still ultimately in charge of cleaning the rooms and not leaving anything behind. I couldn’t blame the nurse for yelling at me in such a manner.

Rolling my sleeves up past the tattoos on my forearms, my wristwatch finally read half past nine. I was more than done for the day. Finally, I was allowed to wear my shirt with the sleeves rolled up. Many people didn’t like me showing off my tattoos in a hospital, so I had to cover them. It wasn’t like they were anything offensive either, it was just a simple design of a carp swimming upstream. I liked the design too, it gave me a sense of comfort. I slunk back outside and through the parking lot. The only thing keeping me going through the day was a new model kit of a mecha that was supposed to be shipping out soon. The thought of putting it together and photographing it made my heart flutter. I’d much rather sit at home building models or watching movies. I made enough to get by from my job, and posting about my model kits online has landed me some work in the past building elaborate setups for some people. The money was never going to be enough for a luxurious vacation, but as long as I could dedicate myself to my hobbies, it didn’t matter to me if I never ventured outside of the country.

My stomach began to let out a low cry, it was then I realized I hadn’t eaten a bite of anything since lunch. By the time I made it to my car, the hunger was getting unbearable. I decided then and there to hurry and pick up some fast food on the way home. While I could’ve simply gone home and made one of those microwave dinners, between the drive back and making the meal, as simple as it was, I felt I’d starve before then. Plus, I liked having an excuse to grab some fast food.

The man staggered into the library, slamming the doors behind him and pushed some chairs against it. His breath was uneven and ragged, he hardly had the energy to move, yet he needed to do all he could to buy himself some time.

I considered buying a milkshake but decided against it and went with water instead. A milkshake would be the last thing I’d want to spill in my car. I couldn’t stand any messes. I handed the money over to the cashier and I quickly drove away with my food. Reaching around in the bag, the burger was kind enough to find its way into my hand, and soon enough my stomach was jumping for joy. Sure, the meals couldn’t be any less healthy, but damn if they didn’t taste good.

The man frantically flipped through dozens of books, carefully reading the instructions of the spell that might save his life. There was one element of the spell he was unsure about, but he didn’t have the luxury of time to worry about it. He traced the sigil into the floor with his blood and hoped everything would work. ”Please, as long as at least one of us makes it…”

Driving at night is something I’ve never been fond of. Even with the car headlights illuminating the highway, you still had to be extra careful of other drivers or animals. Regardless, it was late enough to where the roads weren’t particularly busy, so it wasn’t like I had anything to complain about. There was another car driving by my side, however; I didn’t think it was close enough to be of any concern. At least I still had some fries and half a burger to finish once I got home. Although, the fries would’ve been cold by then anyway. As I continued driving, I thought I heard some odd voice coming from the radio. Turning the dial, it became apparent that it wasn’t turned on. “Is this one of those auditory hallucinations?” I found myself a bit unnerved. That was the first time I’d ever experienced something like that, knowing that voice isn’t real gave me goosebumps. “Maybe I’ll ask someone at the hospital about it later,” I mumbled. I shook my head and turned on the radio in an attempt to distract myself from it.

Out of the corner of my eye, the car in the other lane began to veer and in an instant, it rammed me head on, I didn’t have the time to process what had happened or even have my life flash before my eyes. The next second my body was laid out in the middle of the highway. I couldn’t feel anything aside from the blood quickly pooling out from under me, as if it was a cloud about to lift me into the sky. A voice rang out in my head, “The spell works! A connection has been made. Can you reach out to me?” The voice was raspy and sounded surprised. What was it? Would my last thoughts be some line from a movie? Was this really what I wanted to think of, not any of my friends, family, hobbies, or cute coworkers?

The voice called out more clearly: “Can you respond? We don’t have much time left.” Respond to what? Was that really from a movie? No movie I remembered had a line like that. I thought for a second it was directed to me. However, I didn’t have the energy to make a sound or think about it anymore. “Fine then, I’ll do it myself. Let us hope I can save at least one of us.” The voice was on the verge of tears, I didn’t know who was speaking, but I wanted to cry with them. This wasn’t how I wanted my life to go. There were so many people I found myself wanting to apologize to. Through the tears and my fading vision, I could no longer see the sky.

I opened my eyes again to a large ornate ceiling and towering bookshelves. ‘I didn’t die?’ I thought to myself. My body ached as I lifted myself up. Books were scattered about the floor around me, some bloody, and others with their pages torn and strewn in a circle. Despite the crash, I found the energy to stand up and found that I was lying in a similar-looking pool of blood that I was in before. 

“This must be some elaborate prank,” I grumbled, now thinking about who on Earth would go through all the trouble. I could think of a few names, but none of them had the money to rent out such a massive space for this. “Maybe they pooled their money together, or I’m experiencing some memory loss then?” The ladder seemed like the most likely possibility, I was thrown out of my car after all. It would also explain how I’m able to stand up so easily as well, but then the question becomes how much time has passed and what have I forgotten since then?

Grabbing one of the books off the floor and flipping through it. The pages were bloody and most of the text was obscured, but I was stunned at the fact that I could read the foreign characters. It wasn’t a script I’ve ever seen before, and I’ve never learned a second language in school. “So there goes the memory loss and prank theory,” I said. Just where on Earth am I?

The doors to the library were torn down, with tables and chairs in shambles nearby. It gave off a foreboding aura but as it looked to be the only exit, I cautiously walked through it. The doors felt like a gateway to another world. While the library was furnished with wooden decor and bookshelves, the halls looked to be masterfully carved marble. Pillars rose into the ceiling as if they were reaching far above into the heavens, the craftsmanship that went into these countless pillars sent chills through my body. I couldn’t imagine how long it took to construct everything in this one hall, let alone the rest of this seemingly endless castle. Was it decades or perhaps centuries until all of this was finally completed? I was left so awestruck, it made the models I carefully spent months building back home look like childsplay in comparison. Well, I suppose they were toys in a sense.

Feeling venturous, I decided to leave the pillars behind and explore the rest of the castle, following the blood trail. The halls were long as they were wide, I imagined you could likely fit parades down them with relative ease; there would even be room for bystanders to sit and admire the floats. Despite the blood there was a lack of evidence that anyone else roamed the halls given how quiet and empty they were. However; there must’ve been something or someone else nearby to cause such a mess out here and in the library. And as if called upon by my growing anxieties, metal clashing against the floors reverberated against the halls, amplifying and growing louder as it drew closer. Against all reason I was stuck frozen to the glacial floor and stared down the hall.

Turning the corner was a towering knight with horns protruding from their helm. The two eye holes in the helmet were pitch black, like staring into a void. Upon noticing me, the figure quickened their pace. It took what felt like ages to fully register in my brain as an active threat before I could unfasten my legs from the floor and move again. Once I began moving, I ran faster than I had ever ran in my life. The sound of metal armor crashing against the floor behind me rushed through my bones and could not even hear the beating of my own heart. It was only a matter of time before the figure threw me to the ground, rendering me helpless as they picked me off the ground, like a hawk catching a mouse. They then ripped the book I’d been carrying out of my hands. It was up close I realized just how giant they were and the gravity of the situation sinking in. Struggling as I did, their grip was unfazed as they carried me through the halls down several staircases. They likely could have snapped my bones as easily as one would a twig or a cheap toy.

The guard brought me down through a dark and damp hallway, illuminated only by a few torches, flickering sporadically. The suited figure finally spoke: “Caught an intruder about upstairs.”

“How odd. No one else should’ve been in the castle tonight,” another one remarked. “Whatever, just throw them in one of the cells,” they added.

A door creaked open and all of a sudden, my body was thrown against the wall. My body fell to the floor, and I was left coughing. “I just wish I could strike him down where he stood.”

“Easy enough to wait a day, he’ll likely be executed later. We'll say it was for the murder of the royal family,” they added before promptly leaving the room. Wait, what was that? I’ll be executed tomorrow? I was in disbelief, I thought I misheard them for a second. I scrambled to my feet and grasped at the rusty cell bars but they were already out of sight. No time for questions or answers, I was just left to sit there and ruminate on what was to come. Slamming my fist into the bars let out a sad clang that hardly echoed through the room. The silence was deafening. “Damnit, what’s going on around here?!” I slid to the ground and stared. I desperately tried to think of what I could do but no ideas came to mind. I had no idea where I was or what was going on, what hope was there of me escaping? Even if I did, where would I go? It seemed so hopeless all I could do was grin pathetically. To think less than twenty-four hours prior one of my biggest concerns was if a stupid package would arrive at my apartment before the end of the week. It was a simple concern I wished to have again, but one that I would never have the luxury of experiencing again.

I sat in a puddle and watched as the moon rose in the sky through a small window. I wondered if that was the last time I’d ever appreciate looking at the moon. It was never something I truly got the time to admire before now, but even with the looming morning, I was admiring the moon all the same. It then dawned on me that I must’ve been reincarnated somehow, as the moon looked nothing like how I remembered it. So much had happened in such a short span of time that I hardly had the time to even process it all.

A soft tap tap tapping sound reached my ears like a hymn. I wearily watched the staircase as a cloaked figure made their way into the room. They were also looking around carefully, no doubt in an effort to avoid being spotted, I thought. Before I could think to call out to them, they had already made their way in front of my cell in a dash. The figure kneeled down before me and removed their hood: she had two sets of white and red horns protruding above her brows. She had short hair, with her bangs swooping gently down between her horns. Her skin was pale as snow yet not sickly looking, it contrasted nicely with her silky black hair. I was awestruck at how beautiful the girl was. It was very apparent that she was royalty in some manner.

“I’ve never seen you before. What were you doing in the castle?” The girl asked.

I wasn’t sure how to answer. Saying I’d been reincarnated was out of the question, yet I couldn’t just say I somehow stumbled into the castle. Which is, unfortunately, exactly how I answered. “I uh, somehow stumbled in here and the guards caught me.” The girl was unamused at my answer, unsurprisingly.

She stood up and sighed. “Fine, you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.” I felt a twinge of guilt as she said that. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to say, but I hardly even knew what I’d gotten myself into, so how could I explain that to someone else? She grabbed the keys from the wall and spoke again: “If I help you, can you help me escape from here?”

I stood up and looked her in the eyes. “I would be indebted to you,” I responded.

She promptly unlocked the cell door. “I don’t need your debts,” she said, “just your help for now.” The girl walked back toward the other side of the room, peering carefully outside the door. I hurried to the other end of the room and grabbed the book the guard confiscated from me off a battered chair. Returning to where the girl was, we then looked outside the door together. The girl whispered to me: “We’ll need to cut through the courtyard and sneak into the guard’s barracks; from there, we can quickly depart.”

As soon as we made sure the coast was clear, the girl quietly opened the door and made a dash for the barracks. I followed closely behind. The outside was colder than I anticipated. The moment I stepped foot outside, my skin felt as if it would freeze and shatter apart. Still I persisted behind the girl and before I knew it we had arrived at the barracks. It was surprisingly barren, almost alarmingly so. The girl didn’t seem as perturbed by this, in fact, it had almost seemed as if she was expecting this. Was it really that all of the guards were elsewhere? I thought to myself. I shook myself free of such worries and continued behind her.

We were back outside before we knew it and the castle walls were finally behind us. Looking back, the castle was even more massive than I had ever anticipated. The large spires pierced the clouds and likely continued far above them. I only managed to see a small portion of the castle from where I stood, but its size was staggering. “Come on, we have to hurry,” the girl spoke in hushed tones.

I turned back and she was gone, in her place stood an indomitable wall of a man. Only his lower half was covered in armor. He stood with his arms crossed, glaring down at me. Did the girl get captured? Where did she go? Many thoughts were rushing through my head, but the most prominent one told me to stand my ground and fight. It would have been fruitless against a larger man with decades of training, yet I refused to give way and let everything go to waste. The man’s stance widened and he swung his fist at me, crashing into the ground. I just narrowly avoided it, but was thrown off balance and fell against a tree. Just as he prepared to swing again and I braced for impact, he stood frozen solid. “Thanks for buying me some time,” the girl peered over from behind the guard. The girl’s hands glistened a pale blue, some flakes of snow softly dancing around her fingers. She gently rested her hand against the guard with a solemn look on her face before greeting me with a warm smile. “Now then, let’s get out of here,” she added.