Am I too tired of my life?
Or, maybe, impossibly, incredibly, maddeningly…
Did I dream about this for too many days?
How many times have I fantasised about this?
That someone could come to me, embrace me in strong, protective arms, and say that I can go home?
That I don’t share foul blood with that man?
That someone out there, maybe, impossibly, incredibly, maddeningly…
Could care about me, too?
This man…
He stretches out his hand in an offering to me.
He’s offering me a home.
I’m going to grow old in these foul alleys and die, or perhaps be sold into slavery, is there really a point to staying here?
Can I throw caution to the wind?
Can I be childish, silly, stupid, reckless for just a small, fractured second?
I’m seventeen. I’m nearly an adult, already.
But since when wasn’t I?
This man’s words of a home are too tempting.
My bony, small, filthy hand reached out to grasp that outstretched offering.
I wish I never grasped that hand.
The next three years must’ve been the happiest years of my life.
I met a man who called himself my father; according to him, when I was around the age of three, I had been kidnapped along with my mother for ransom. Unfortunately for them, my mother wasn’t quite someone to sit around and wait, and somehow fought her way free, killing most of her kidnappers in the process.
But, she wasn’t strong enough to evade the Hounds.
She died.
But she managed to free me, and somehow get a man to raise me.
My ‘father’.
So, my surname never really was Thornhild. I happily shed that surname, though I was never told what my true surname was.
As for my new father…
Apparently, he’d been unceasingly searching for me until I was found.
I could see that he cared a lot about me, and loved me, but I could also see that he was… nervous. Unsure of me.
After all, he’d last seen me when I was a three-year-old.
Now, I was seventeen.
It must’ve been quite the shock, I suppose, because without him, I grew up, learned to survive, learned to speak and to curse. I could even curse out a sailor.
To his credit, he didn’t try to curb my habits or correct my thoughts or behaviours. He only tried to learn my likes and dislikes; he removed all the causes of my traumas; he gently soothed me when I lay paralyzed from nightmares and carefully tip-toed around my mines.
He had a very careful sort of love for me.
When he heard I had trauma from broken glass, he bricked up every window; when he heard that the sound of knifes drove me into panic attacks, he had all the chefs and maids use scissors instead of blades; when he realised I had the terrible habit of hiding food, he turned a blind eye to the biscuits that vanished and silently built suitable hiding spots for my leisure.
For the first time in my life, I experienced such amazing, beautiful, loving care.
I lived in an estate, in a massive, towering sprawling complex of stone walls and ornate halls. Every room had a waiting servant; three trailed me every second of the day.
The servants all loved me, as I did them; most were older than me, but for the few that were of my age, we became the most bosom of friends, slowly healing the scarred mess that was my soul. They were careful to never let their words hurt me, to clearly explain every one of their actions and intentions, and to overlook what must have seemed like insanity in my early days.
Of course, I didn’t play all day; after three months, my father took the pains to take time out of his mysteriously busy schedule to teach me. If he wasn’t available, he would have a kind, patient yet talented tutor teach me instead.
The topics I learnt were very simple in the beginning before slowly developing to my pace. I started with first gaining literacy, a skill I’d never once dreamed of having; then I learnt about basic classics and culture, followed by simple etiquette, though my teacher for that particular subject was extraordinarily lax with me; then I took on mathematics, science, economics and law.
I must say that I was a very quick learner; I was so fast I often wondered if the butler or my father had slipped me some sort of miracle drug, or if the world was simply tailored in such a way that so easily made sense to me. Any skill I was taught, I could remember and comprehend after one lesson—this trait of mine made me what must’ve been the equivalent of a muse to my tutors. My father was shocked, then seemingly relieved; if it weren’t for my sharpened sense of danger and the topics I were taught, I would’ve thought I was being groomed for something.
Nevertheless, I had a great time and soon surpassed those my age, according to my rather shell-shocked father and servants.
…Well, the servants simply insisted that I was a natural-born genius, and that my progress was to be expected, but they never let go of the opportunity to celebrate every one of my passing grades.
If I had been any younger, I probably would’ve been spoiled rotten.
The only fly in the ointment1A Chinese idiom meaning the one flaw in what otherwise would be perfect. was that I knew nothing of their names; they never told me their true names or titles, merely encouraging me to give them rather odd nicknames. I didn’t even know the name of my father. When I gave the butler—the man who found and brought me back here—the nickname of Muffin, he cried tears of joy and immediately ran through the halls announcing his new title to every person he laid eyes on.
His yells of joy were all met with jealousy and envy, the servants grumbling over why he was the first to receive a nickname from me.
I think, I think…
I might have laughed for the first time that day.
My hoarse, rough heaves of laughter bubbled out of my throat, filling me with a joy I’d never experienced before.
That day, the servants were so overjoyed they threw a whole party to celebrate my raw, unused laughter, and decorated the whole estate with ribbons and banners of “SHE LAUGHED!!!”
Their celebrations lasted over a week, during which I eventually came around to give everyone nicknames. The servants loved it so much that they spent all their savings to get it tattooed on their skin.
The butler looked rather funny with MUFFIN printed on both his biceps.
The nurse went as far as to print Jellyfish on her forehead.
Everyone loved their names, no matter how odd it was.
They said that their odd names were perfect; I was an odd girl, and their names were odd too, so we could all be perfectly odd together.
We revelled in our oddness.
And I…
I treasured those moments forever.
Little did I know that they would vanish all too soon.
Things started to go downhill after my third year with my large, rowdy but wonderfully perfect, wonderfully loving, family.
One of my servants—I’d nicknamed her Coat Hanger, for she was a natural in clothes of all kinds, someone who looked perfect in everything—fell severely ill from cancer and died.
A billowing feeling of dread, grief and horrified anticipation dropped into my stomach.
I was so sad, so grieved, so… resentful that the world had taken her from me that I didn’t cry at her funeral.
A morbid feeling of fulfilment rocked through my body—a feeling of twisted, strange deja vu.
This had happened before.
I was sure of it.
From then on, people started to disappear from me.
First, it was my more-distant friends, followed by the little servants; then, it was the closer friends, the closer servants, the closer pets; then it was those right in my circle, those I saw as aunts and uncles; finally, I lost those I saw as siblings and parental figures.
They all left me in strange, inexplicable ways; some died to misfortunate accidents; others to illnesses or succumbed to allergies and the like.
What I firmly knew of, though, was that none had left me of their own volition; one scene I remembered was of a servant’s father who had died, and their mother had pleaded for them to return home, but they staunchly refused to leave me when I was constantly in a grieving state, even while tears poured down their face.
I tried to force her to leave, but she refused to go, threatening that only death would make her leave me.
She died the week after from an inexplicable fever.
…I didn’t even know what their names were to carve on their tombstones. Not even the servants knew each other’s real names.
I’ll… just carve their nicknames, I suppose.
They loved those nicknames so much.
…But I think they would’ve loved it more if I called them by their real names, though.
There’s barely anyone left anymore.
The estate is so empty, and with the emptying estate I’m also emptying too.
I…
I don’t know anymore.
Only the butler, Muffin, and my father are left.
Muffin says that I’m experiencing something called depression, and that I must get through this tough period.
I’m trying, I’m trying.
I feel so empty.
I’m so tired I can’t even feel sad anymore.
I’m so lucky I have my father and Muffin, though.
I’m so scared I’ll be left alone again.
Why did they teach me what loneliness felt like?
Father told me something on his deathbed.
Something shocking.
He was actually the King.
I was the Princess.
My full name was Eva Redwave.
That was why I’d never been taught everyone’s names.
So I wouldn’t know who they were.
My father told me that he hadn’t planned for me to know so soon. I was fragile when I’d been taken in, and he didn’t want me to panic. He didn’t want me to be a monarch, either; he just wanted to heal me, and to leave the kingdom and live in a safe, secluded place in the countryside with the servants.
He told me that he had named me the heiress, and that the kingdom was mine.
I told him that I hated the world and hated everybody except our family.
He simply told me that if I hated the world, then I should try to see the beauty in life. If that didn’t work, I was free to destroy the kingdom.
As long as it made me happy.
Then he died.
Just Muffin and I are left.
I’m crowned Queen Redwave.
I… don’t like anyone.
I don’t like the look in those strangers’ eyes.
They look like the eyes from my childhood.
I told Muffin I wanted to die today.
He pulled out two little red pills of poison from his pocket and presented them to me. He told me, “Young Miss, if you want to die, then let me try to show you the joy of life again. If that doesn’t work, take a pill—I promise you’ll die painlessly—and I’ll quickly join you, Young Miss.”
He looked down at the ground. I could see new, startling streaks of white in his hair.
“Young Miss, never forget, I am here for you.”
The world is so filthy and foul.
I hate it.
Muffin decided to take a trusted proxy to take my place for a few weeks.
We travelled the kingdom. I spent the most time on the borders in the North; I loved killing the monsters.
Monsters were like great, giant mutated animals and creatures that tended to attack the North during winter. They came from the Northern kingdoms, but when it grew too cold to survive there, they would move down South, eventually running into our Kingdom.
It was the main reason why I liked the North; it was cold, devoid of people, and had plenty of monsters to kill and vent my hatred of the world.
I wanted to stay and never leave, but I could see that Muffin hated the cold, and rushed back to the Capital when he got sick.
I can’t lose him.
I can’t lose him.
I can’t lose him.
Not now.
Not yet.
I continue to bargain with fate.
The proxy had hired some servants while I was away.
I didn’t like them, nor did I trust them.
Muffin was sure of the proxy’s loyalty.
I didn’t trust the proxy.
Muffin could see that the proxy was causing me great stress, so he had the proxy fired and sent away.
The proxy was furious.
I could hear him argue with Muffin for a long, long time.
I couldn’t find Muffin.
…What happened to him?
…He’s always by my side, how could he just vanish?
I still can’t find Muffin.
The proxy is back.
He brought more servants.
I hate them all.
The officials are all pressuring me to go back and work.
I refuse. I must keep looking for Muffin.
I try to enlist the servants to search, but they all have excuses to refuse.
What?
I’m the Queen.
How dare they disobey me?
But Muffin comes first.
I must find him.
Now.
I found a body in the dungeons.
It’s a man in a tuxedo.
But, but, but, but, but, but, but, but…
It’s not Muffin.
It can’t be Muffin.
He would never leave me.
He promised that he would always be there for me.
It’s not him, it’s not him, it’s not him, it’s not him it’s not him it’s not him it’s not him…
Muffin is just hiding from me, I’ll find him one day.
But, this man’s corpse is really interesting, so I’ll preserve it and keep it in an ice coffin to preserve it…
No-one in the palace listens to me anymore.
I think the proxy is taking control over the palace, but that doesn’t matter.
I just want Muffin back.
He’s my second father.
I need him.
He’s still hiding.
Where is he?
I knocked over the ice coffin today.
The corpse inside tumbled out, and two small things tumbled out his pocket.
Two little red pills.
His corpse’s throat was slit with a knife.
I would know.
I killed everyone in the palace.
I killed the proxy.
I killed the servants.
I killed the guards.
I killed the officials.
I killed the maids.
I killed myself.
The world breathed a sigh.
I survived.
I didn’t kill myself.
Fine, I thought.
Then I’ll just kill the world.
