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The Prisoner

I watch through the bars as the empress dies.

It is an ugly death, one that comes after a long duel punctuated by grunts of pain on each side. As she falls, lifeless, I…

Somewhere, deep inside me, I feel…a faint burst of an emotion that is not grief, nor guilt, nor the self-hatred that has torn apart what was left of my soul. It is…a satisfaction that I do not want to look too closely at, for it is the sort of satisfaction that stems from a protectiveness and a burning anger that this woman would have dared to harm Rui.

“See?” The Aglyeong is standing close to me on the other side of the bars. “You like watching people die. You always have. Isn’t that right, my scrumptious?”

Hurting its hand was a mistake. It has become crueler since then, if such a thing is even possible.

Now, the Prophecy is pulling back her forces. Enough damage has been done for the night. Becoming aware of my presence, she shoves me away from the bars. I’m thrown backward, hitting the ground hard.

Lying there, I know that I should not, but…

I think of Rui.

The Rui that I thought I knew. Not the cruel Dokkaebi he became, bringing my sister to a bloodbath. But the kind boy who wove me a crown of flowers and called me his underneath the light of many moons. I have not thought about that boy in so long.

How long? I do not know. Time passes differently in here; I know that much. A minute in here may be an hour in the real world, or perhaps the opposite.

Before I can stop myself, I wish for him.

The boy I loved. Rui, my Rui.

The one from before everything went so godsdamned wrong .

I wish for it, so much, that my heart hurts. It feels as if it is being pulled in every direction, straining, stretching. My breath escapes me as I lurch to my feet, pulled by—pulled by—

Pulled by the red string curling out of my chest.