Courne Supremacy

In case you’re interested in reading from the beginning, I’ve setup a page that links to all of the individual stories.

Chapter 0: Alicia and the Mechanical Bird

Here’s the original story in which my current short stories are all based off. This story follows the life of a young woman named Alicia, who believes that her past life was one as a bird. She’s born again without the ability to fly and goes on a journey through her life to recover it. The world she inhabits is 19th century-like. The stories that come after it are her journeys beyond her homeland. If you think they feel like Kino’s Journey after you read them or remind you Grimm Fairy Tales, then you’re not far off the mark. Enjoy.

Chapter 1: Alicia and the Briar Rose

Chapter 2: Alicia and the Broken Doll

Chapter 3: Alicia and the Black Bird Witch

Chapter 4: Alicia and the Watchmaker’s Forest

From the sky, Alicia found the dirt road snaking through the countryside leading to the mouth of the Watchmaker’s Forest. “Buckle up! We’re landing!” She called back to her passenger Lily, who was tightening her embrace around a small pail with one hand and reaching for a rope to strap across her chest with the other.

Once on the ground, Alicia stretched her arms out, took in the fresh air, and walked out to a warm sunlit rock and started cleaning her rifle. Lily lugged her pail across the field to a nearby stream to clean it out. The broken mechanical boy was lying in the back of the plane with a tarp over his body.

“All this for a doll?” Lily asked, setting her damp bucket on the ground. She sprawled out across the grass besides the airplane.

A loud crack came from the forest. Birds scattered from the rustling treetops. Alicia aimed her rifle towards the trees. Lily jumped to her feet but took hold of the plane’s wing to steady herself. A roar followed the gunshot along with a sudden, loud thunk.

The girls looked at each other. Lily shook her head in protest but Alicia slung her rifle over her shoulder and ran for the gaping, black maw of the forest. She hopped over the rocks, brushed aside the gnarled branches, and sidestepped the overgrown roots as she followed the constant thumping noise of the beast marching away from its kill.

Lily caught up to Alicia and planted her hand on the closest tree trunk she could find. Panting she said, “Wait, wait for me.” Alicia hushed Lily and waved for her to stay low. Her eyes followed the strange animal. Each leg of the beast moved one after the other as it marched over the the forest floor. It looked like a ten men walking side by side, goose-stepping. Alicia pushed Lily out of her bewildering stare and dragged her by the hand through the woods in the opposite direction from the monster. They found the bloody body of a man wearing hunting gear up against a tree with a circular indention in his chest. A journal lay next to him. Alicia picked it up and flipped through the pages skimming the entries.

Alicia stood in a lone patch of sunlight reading the journal. The chirping songs of birds and gentle rustling of tree branches replaced the thumping, regular footfalls of the animal. “He’s been looking for the Watchmaker,” Alicia said. “Seems like stories of the forest have spread far and wide. This hunter was going to kill one of the creatures that roam this forest and return him for a handsome reward.” She opened the man’s backpack to reveal tranquilizer darts and a bottle of chloroform.

“Is that why you’ve come?” Lily asked studying the dead man with wide, startled eyes. She looked ashen and ready to throw up again.

“No,” Alicia said. “The Watchmaker can repair the mechanical boy. I want to learn from his engineering techniques.”

A crackling static filled the air and a roar blasted out from behind both of them. Startled, Alicia raised her rifle in the direction of the noise. Lily snapped her fingers and flickering flames sprung from her fingertips. The birds stopped whistling and the breeze died away leaving a crackling noise all around them. Trees to their right shook; Alicia studied them from behind her rifle’s sight. Twigs snapped to their left and a small grove of trees swished in the air raining green and yellow leaves down upon them. Thump. Thump. Thump.

Alicia pointed between where both noises had come from. Footfalls fell one after the other. The trees Alicia pointed too parted and flattened as a rectangular, brown-furred beast broke through them. The creature was all legs – it looked like a twenty legged spider.

Lily arched her arm back to hurl a fireball but Alicia grabbed her wrist. She took a deep breath and stared her enemy down. Where was the face? The eyes? Arms? A mouth? Alicia counted only the twenty legs and they moved one after the other down a row. Once the last leg moved forward the first leg stepped again and the wave-like pattern of moving legs repeated. It roared and crackled at them as it approached.

“Alicia!” Lily tried to break her hand free of her grasp.

“It’s too regular moving to be an animal.” Alicia said. “Allow me.” She stepped in front of Lily and studied the monster barreling down on her and steadied her sight against the stalker’s central leg right where she thought it would meet the body. At the moment when the leg in front of her barrel was about to step forward, Alicia fired.

Crack! The bullet splintered the leg. It twisted and smashed into the next moving leg tripping the creature. Each leg afterward rubbed up and snapped against each broken appendage and the animal fell over. The legs continued to move and jut out of the creature’s backside in every direction tearing and mangling its fur coat.

“W, what kind of possessed creature is this?” Lily asked.

Alicia ran across the field and jumped up on top of the body and avoided the moving legs. Wooden limbs jutting out of the back gyrated back and forth. Alicia grabbed some of the loose flesh and tore it away. “Look! It’s just a fur rug!” Underneath the rug was a cone and the crackling noise came from inside of it. “A vibrating cone to make noise, interesting.” With her knife she unhooked it found wires running from it into the body of the animal. With a sharp pull, she yanked one of the wires out of the cone silencing it. Deeper within she could see gears spinning and pistons gyrating. “Ha!” Alicia wadded up the rug and stuffed it into the gears and the legs stopped moving. “Just like the doll!”

Alicia smiled at Lily. She stared back and dropped to her knees.

“The Watchmaker must have built this to keep intruders out of the wood,” Alicia said jumping down from its back. “There must be more than one. This is a large forest.”

“In that case, we’ll never find this Watchmaker,” Lily said.

“Actually.” Alicia smiled at the fallen monster. “I have an idea.”

Erol and I were working in the pasture when a giant beast cast a shadow over our heads. I had never seen anything like it before. It looked like some kind of bird except the wings didn’t flap. The unnatural thing twisted and jerked in the air and touched down onto the ground a far distance down the hilltop where we were standing.

“It’s the Black Bird Witch! She’s returned!” My ignorant younger brother Erol said. “We need to tell mom and dad!”

“It is not,” I said to him. It was just a legend. A hundred years ago, a giant black bird flew into town. With a flash of lightning and clap of thunder, it revealed itself to be a witch. She asked for refuge and in return she would perform magical acts for the town. They took her in, and she stayed true to her word with one exception: as a monstrous bird, she needed to feed. In the dead of night, she stole children from their bedrooms and gobbled them up. The village watch caught the witch and burnt her at the stake. She swore revenge upon the villagers.

I dashed through the trees into the open field where the thing sat; My brother screamed for me to stop. Alicia, the self-proclaimed pilot of the “airplane” (that is her word for the machine), descended down a small step ladder from its head. We talked and I found her articulate, well-learned, and well-traveled. I brought her back to my house and asked my parents to give her a room. We conversed long into the evening about the things she had seen on her travels. I told her, despite being fifteen years of age, I had never been any further than confines of the farm except for one trip to town when I was very young.

“Why did you come here?” I asked her.

“I need to rest for my long journey ahead,” Alicia said. My mother interrupted us and sent me off to bed before I could ask where she was going.

That night Erol woke me from my sleep and bade me to come with him to the plane. By the fire light of our little lantern we trekked through the fields back to the mechanical bird. He was always spying on people and their private property. He showed me the body of a young boy lying in the back of the airplane.

“She’s the Black Bird Witch!” Erol said. “I’m going to get the constable and arrest her.” His eyes were burning even fiercer than the lamp light. Erol left me in the dark by the airplane, but I ran for the house. I crept up the stairs and tip-toed to our guest room. The old wooden floor creaked and betrayed my every silent step. Once I was at Alicia’s door I knocked. No answer. I opened the door and stepped into her room. The rim of a cold tube of steel touched my head. The hammer of a gun clicked into place. “I mean you no harm,” I said.

“I saw both you and your brother go down to my plane,” Alicia said. “I take it you saw what I was carrying.”

“Did you kill that boy?”

“No. I’m going to fix him.” She put her weapon away and picked up a duffel back from the bed. “Thank you for letting me stay the night.” She passed me by and hurried down the stairs. I went after her but once we stepped out the front door, the constable and his deputies had us surrounded. He approached us first. “Black Bird Witch,” he said. “If you try any of your tricks my men will kill you.” Half his square face was in shadow the other half was lit red and yellow by the flame of his torch. His faceless deputies stood behind him shielded by the darkness, but I saw their guns gleaming in the moonlight.

Alicia raised her hands.

“Arrest her, and take the girl too.”

“What!” Erol said. “No! Lily’s no witch!”

“She certainly is. She’s one of the demon bird’s spawn.”

The next day, the constable and mayor proclaimed that the curse of the town would be lifted because they had caught the Black Bird Witch and me. We would both be purified by the priest and burnt at the stake. Alicia and I sat together in the jail cell.

“What did he mean that you were the ‘demon bird’s spawn?’” Alicia asked me.

I raised my hand. “Watch.” A flame like one at the end of a candle flickered to life over my index finger. The flame bounced from fingertip to fingertip and then my entire palm lit on fire.

“Astonishing! I didn’t think magic still existed in the world,” Alicia said.

I closed my fist to put the flame out. “A maiden born of ever generation will inherit the dark arts of the Black Bird Witch and hunger for the flesh of the innocent.” I opened my hand. It was red and raw looking and smoke smoldered from my palm, but otherwise I was fine.

“Thank the King, I’m far from innocent these days.”

Once night blanketed the sky, I could see the stars shine over a large pile of wood and tinder. To the side, a man dressed in clerical robes stood with his holy book and a torch. Children were dressed in witch hats and black cloaks and ran around with faux black wings. They pelted us with rotten vegetables and curses as we were led to our pyre. The people were ready to celebrate our demise. Alicia and I were lashed to a pole on top of a pile of layered logs. The town priest gave us our purifying prayers and once he finished, he dropped his torch in a bundle of tinder under the logs. The villagers cheered and chanted and the fire licked at our feet.

I chanted too. Incantations from old passed down from my true mother.

Clouds formed overhead but not a soul standing in this barbaric mob noticed. Flashes of lightning and claps of thunder broke their chanting. I envisioned every drop striking down each one of them. I grew the thunder to a deafening roar and the lightning struck nearby houses. The rain washed the fire away from our feet, flooded the streets, and drenched the townspeople. Alicia broke her bonds with a razor she had tucked under her sleeve and she cut me loose too. “Let’s leave this place!”

Houses and stores burned because my lightning bolts. People scurried and ran like rats and no one gave us a hint of trouble as we raced through the streets. The constable and his deputies busied themselves with fire fighting and didn’t notice our escape. We returned to Alicia’s plane. She opened the back hatch where I saw the machine boy. “Quick get in!”

“Lily!” It was Erol. “Stop where you are! Both of you!”

“Erol. Please.” He had an arrow in his bow and aimed it for me.

“I know mom and dad lied to me now! The constable told me everything about you! You’re not my sister. You’re just a monster!” Tears streamed down his face. “And I have to kill you to save everyone!”

“Killing her will do nothing!” Alicia exclaimed.

“It will! You’ll see!” Erol retorted.

“Erol! Do what you must!” I closed my eyes but a loud bang from behind startled them open again. “Erol!” He was on the ground. His bow splintered into pieces.

Alicia holstered her smoking gun. “He’ll be alright.” Sure enough, I could hear Erol whimpering and shaking. I wanted to hold him. At least a final hug, but I turned my back on him.

“Goodbye brother.” I wiped a tear and got into the plane.

“If you don’t mind, there’s one place I need to stop before you can disembark,” Alicia said. “And I could definitely use your help there.”

“Where is that?” I asked.

“The Forest of the Watchmaker.”

Nestled on a cliffside, a small town zig-zagged up the rock face and ended with a church on the plateau. In the noonday sun, the church steeple had been the first thing Alicia had seen glimmering in the horizon as she had flown over the Senbu Desert two days ago. As her plane soared over it, the desert ended and a lush valley of farmland opened up before her. She zoomed over the patchwork of farms and eventually landed at the foot of the mountainside village.

She was the first traveler in months for these people. A mother and her gaggle of children had approached her first — the youngest, a yellow haired girl with crooked teeth, gave her a charm, a small four-leaf clover she picked from a tuft of grass. An elderly couple had offered Alicia food and lodgings for her stay in return for news of the world beyond their vertical village. On the first night, Alicia was the guest of honor at the church festival. They sang hymns, danced to flute music, and feasted on the plumpest pigs and chickens Alicia had ever seen.

The next day, she explored the town on her own. Alicia weaved her way up and down the inclined streets admiring the engineering that went into the town’s architecture. Buildings looked as if they were chiseled out of the rock. These people lived with nature instead of destroying it. In her journal, Alicia opened her journal and drew the view of the farms from the cliff.

A strange whirling noise passed across Alicia’s back. She jerked her head to the side and caught the sight of a boy with a basket. He marched like a toy soldier going down the street. She studied each rigid step and scrutinized the back of his head. Did his skin look somewhat paler than everyone else’s? The boy stopped at a cart, produced a list for the shopkeeper, and stood by silently to receive his wares. After he paid, the boy raised his arm and waved it side to side before marching away.

As the boy approached the next cart, several rowdy children ran by and bumped into it. A support beam holding a rack of pumpkins snapped and the shelf collapsed.

“Watch out!” Alicia called. She tucked her journal back into her jacket and weaved her way through the throng of people shopping in the market district. She broke through the crowd, but by then most of them were gawking at the sight of the boy laying on his back with his legs making a walking motion in the air. The pumpkin that hit the boy’s head was smashed open and bleeding seeds. “Are you hurt?” she asked him. “Is there a doctor here?” She called to the crowd.

“Oy, who’s gonna pay for that pump-” The cart owner stooped down besides Alicia and the boy. “What’s with is head?”

Alicia turned from the cart owner to the child. Her eyes widened. Inside the boy’s head gears rotated and a metallic belt of bumps moved cams up and down. The whirling noise she heard earlier was louder now that it wasn’t fully encased by the boy’s skull. Around the wound laid brass gears and copper cogs.

“What’s wrong with his legs?” Alicia recognized the yellow-haired girl’s voice. When she glanced at them, the mother pushed her daughter behind her cloak. Murmurs and whispers grew amongst the bystanders.

“It’s a machine like a music box or pocket watch, but he’s broken now,” Alicia said. She bent back over the boy and removed a cloth pouch from her belt and unrolled it on the street revealing a set of slender wrenches, tiny tuners, chisels, awls, and mallets. Taking a wrench, she probed the boy’s head and with great care she slid the tool against the cams to keep them from rolling over the bumps. The boy’s legs froze in mid-air. Cries of “Heretic!” rose from the stunned audience.

A small stone hit Alicia in the small of her back. She yelped. Another stone hit her on her arm. “Stop!” She cried. She drew her luger and raised it against the crowd. Several more townsfolk had rocks in their hands ready to launch them.

“Stay your distance! Lower your weapons!” An elderly man forced his way through the crowd with his cane. Alicia recognized him as the husband of the couple that she was staying at. He approached the boy and tapped his cane against his chest. “My child,” he said turning to Alicia. “I know you mean well, but allow us to take care of this.”

“What will you do to him?” She said lowering her gun.

“It. We will destroy it. All the works of the Devil must be destroyed.”

“Where I come from scientists and philosophers believe the human body is nothing more than an intricate machine full of minute gears and wheels that allow us to live. If I’m no longer welcome here, let me take him with me!” The yellow-hair girl began to cry and latched onto her mother’s side.

“Very well,” the elderly man said after a long pause. A ruckus of cries and yells bellowed from the surrounding people. “Silence! You will obey your elders just as it says in the scriptures! Allow her to pass. I shall walk with her.” Alicia picked up the boy and all the mechanical parts laying around him she could find. She bought a tarp from a nearby cart and wrapped the boy’s body and slung it over her shoulder. Before Alicia left the market, she crouched down by the yellow-haired girl and plucked the clover from her pocket and held it out for her. The girl swiped it from her hand and crushed it in her fist. Alicia smiled anyway. “Goodbye,” she said.

The elderly man guided her back to her plane. His wife had brought her suitcase to the plane already. She frowned and bid Alicia adieu. Alicia laid the boy in the plane’s trunk and buckled him down.

When the elderly man was alone with her he said to her: “There was once a great inventor that lived in this town. He was a watchmaker. A master of the craft. He build more and more complex watches and toy dolls that drew pictures and danced to ditties. Now, he is beyond the farmlands hidden away in the forest never allowed to return here.”

“Thank you.” Alicia climbed into her cockpit and closed the canopy. She saluted the man, turned the plane around, and took off into the clear blue sky.

When I originally created the Courne Supremacy I thought that it would be all about writing. I would post short stories and my friends could come and read them. It hasn’t turned out that way. More or less, Courne Supremacy is a blog about all the projects I’m currently working on. I like a lot of different forms of expression if you haven’t noticed.

My brother and I talked over winter break about trying to do a project together. I wanted to write; he wanted to draw. I thought we might be able to do a comic strip of some sort, but really that’s a lot of work and we’re both very busy. I proposed to him the idea that I would write a short story and he could illustrate a scene from it. This is the first of those short stories and hopefully you’ll see a new one every two weeks. I was hoping for every week, but really, that might be too much. This is based off a short story I posted on here a year ago called “Alicia and the Mechanical Bird.” If you recognize the fairy tale of the “Briar Rose,” then you’ll have an idea as to the type of stories I’m shooting for. Enjoy.

“Legend speaks of the beautiful, sleeping Princess Rose. I’ve come to kiss her and lift the curse from this city,” said the Prince from Anterfield, a country to the north with a burgeoning military and few towns and villages to conquer. This Prince must have rode out to seek glory and validation, neither of which he could earn under the watchful eye of his father and the shelter of Anterfield’s high walls and crowded hierarchy of princes and lords. “What does a girl seek in a city like this?”

“How did this curse come about?” I pulled my hammer from my belt and began to board the windows up with planks from the tea counter and chair seats. I reloaded my rifle and ensured that all the rooms were locked tight. The wolves would be back soon and no doubt they were clever enough to find other ways into the tea house. This is what the Prince told me while I worked:

“Once the princess was born, the King, in his joy, held a great celebration. He invited men of fortune and grandeur and twelve of thirteen wise women of his kingdom. Each woman bestowed a gift upon the newborn. When the eleventh had graced the child, the thirteenth woman forced her way into the castle and cursed the newborn with death from a spindle needle. The twelfth woman blessed her with a chance to survive. The young princess turned fifteen and true to the prediction she pierced her finger on a needle and collapsed into a deep sleep. As did all the people of this city. For one hundred years, it has been so. Today is the day that the Princess will reawaken, that was what the local people told me.”

The story accounted for the half-eaten bodies I found in the streets. The wolves and bears had gotten to those intrepid men. Not all of them were princes but men seeking fortune and power.

Above us a window shattered. Claws scrapped against the wood floor. I counted three wolves by the sound made by each animal entering through the window. They must have found a way through one of the abandoned buildings adjacent to the tea house.

“Can you run?” I asked. The Prince’s leg was bandaged the blood soaked through the cotton gauze wrapped around it.

He clapped his hands on the counter and heaved himself up on his feet. He drew his saber. “Let them come.”

Pitter-patter. The trio of wolves sauntered about upstairs biding their time. I imagined them panting and growling at one another, speaking in their own tongue, and plotting the best way to ensnare us. One of the wolves departed from the others and trotted down the stairs. He scratched at the door and growled.

I quietly moved to the window. The wolf on the other side of the door barked and scratched the door as if it were trying to dig the wood away.

I peeked through the cracks of the boarded up windows. A blurry thing jumped at me from the other side. I screamed and fell backwards onto the floor. Chips of wood flew into the room and a snout full of yellow, sharp teeth gnashed at where I stood. Both of us stayed still and listened to the click-click of the wolf’s teeth biting at the empty air and the scratching on the door. Before I could regain my footing and fire my rifle, the Prince stabbed the beast through the boards. A whimper and thump announced its death.

The wolf at the door scurried back up the stairs to confer with his partner.

“Look at this,” said the prince. I peeped through the cracks again. The two wolves had jumped down from the second story. They circled the wall watching their fallen comrade.

The idea struck me right when I saw them. “They’ll be well fed. Let’s go.” I pulled the Prince back from the window. At first his feet didn’t budge but we were soon by the door. We listened a moment longer and soon I could hear the wolves dragging the body away.

“Let’s find your castle,” I said.

“You didn’t answer my question from before,” the Prince responded.

“I didn’t know what my answer was until you told me.”

* * * * *

The architects of this town packed the buildings tightly. Bad for the citizens — if a major fire broke out or some other disaster, they would all be consumed by it. Good for us — it made it easier to climb from one roof to the next. Plus, traveling this way made it harder for animals to hunt us.

There were still dangers to contend too. We nearly fell to our deaths when one of the rooftops we stepped on cracked and crumbled. Someone had planted an entire garden and after a hundred years of exposure to rain and sunlight dandelions and moss carpeted everything. The roots grew into the concrete and wood splintering it just enough for our weight to do it in. We tread carefully through the thicket of overgrown herbs and spice plants. The fragrance of those plants brought me back to my days living in Aeterall and leisurely spending time with friends and classmates at the local taverns and cafes. As we walked I stuffed my coat with the aromatic leaves — they would make some of my canned meals a little more flavorful.

When we had to cross the street to move in between blocks of buildings, we’d hurry down the building and made sure that the path was clear of animals. I would draw my rifle and the Prince unsheathed his saber as we crossed the street, but aside from the wolves in the teahouse the animals that we came across left us alone.

We made it to the city’s center and the castle. Ivy, vines, and moss covered the edifice of the castle’s walls. The iron and wood gates were shut.

The Prince raised his hand. “Do you hear that?”

I listened and speedily unslung my rifle. The growls of wolves meant that we had more company. I peeked through the scope and tried to pick the little monsters out from the trees, but the forest concealed them.

“We climb,” I told him. I wrapped my gloved hands around the thickest vines and hoisted myself up the side of the great stone wall. The prince, grunting in pain, followed behind me. The wolves arrived below to sniff the ground, but we were already atop the wall on the narrow catwalk.

Two guards were slumped against the wall in the tower we had climbed into. No carnivores had scavenged these men; their bodies were mostly intact. Time though had made their skin brittle. The skin of their cheeks clung to their skull and their eyes sunk in their sockets.

“What will happen when you kiss this princess?” I asked.

“She will awaken from her slumber. Unlike these poor chaps.”

“But if the same curse has effected everyone, wouldn’t they awaken as well?” I pulled a sprig of mint from my coat pocket and held it under the guard’s mummified nose. I steadied my hand and watched for any signs of breath. I hoped and prayed that his eyes stayed closed. The sprig fluttered gently. “By the King!” I whispered. “He’s still alive!” I drew my hand away as quick as I could.

“Let’s hurry. The sooner I awaken the princess the sooner this town will be saved.”

Down the spiral stairs and across the courtyard we went. The manicured lawn and pruned trees had turned wild without a gardener. A monstrous tree with water engorged roots tore up a circular fountain and absorbed all of the water.

The Prince pushed the double doors apart to the main castle entrance. Dust danced in the first rays of sunlight it had seen in a century. My nose wrinkled at a hundred years of unwashed clothing, unwashed bodies, and rotted food. Vines, weeds, and moss broke through the marble floor and reclaimed the interior as its own. We climbed the grand staircase and entered through another set of double doors in to the throne room.

Before us sat the sleeping King and Queen. The King’s beard and Queen’s hair had grown long and gray over these hundred years. I lingered with the centennials studying them as the Prince searched from pillar to pillar and room to room for his prize.

“At last!” I heard the Prince cry. I stood away from the ancient royals. The room was filled with sleeping men. Knights slumbered against the pillars of the great hall. A fat jester splayed out on the floor snoozing away. Men and women dressed in noble suits and gowns huddled by one another. I did not want to see them reawaken. “Come quickly, girl. Witness as I take this fair princess to be my own.”

I followed his voice, it came from behind the throne room and out of an open door. The room had belonged to a maidservant but now it was overrun with cobwebs. Laying in a bed of hay was a young woman with lips as red as blood, skin as white as snow, and hair as gold as flax. Her blue silk dress fluttered in the breeze coming from the open window. She kept her youth of fifteen years. The Prince was cleaning the cobwebs away from her and he gently caressed her heart-shaped face.

He leaned over her and mumbled words I couldn’t discern (a prayer I assumed). He kissed her.

The princess’ eyes opened. They were a serene and beautiful azure. All at once she appeared radiant and majestic. Her lips parted as to smile, but her hands clapped over her belly. She arched her back and gasped for air. Spiders poured from her nose, ears, and mouth. From under the haystack more of the wretched things crept away from her reanimated body. She thrashed and screamed but the volume of arachnids pouring from her mouth silenced her.

In the courtyard I heard rustling and movement. I brushed the cobwebs from the window and opened it wider. Just as I thought, the near-dead were awake. People walked and crawled about. If souls still inhabited those bodies, I felt them poorer for it.

“My eyes! My eyes!” A man lamented. He stumbled and crawled. “Why can’t I see?” Other moans and howls of distress emanated from every corner of the courtyard.

“My Princess! My love!” I turned to see the Prince helping his Queen-to-be to her feet. She vomited more of the spiders. “Help me!” A prince asking a common girl for help? “Save her!” This was his kingdom slipping through his hands. I backed out through the door, but I was greeted by a man covered in mangled hair and bugs crawling all over his face. It was the King! He had staggered down the hallway. When he saw me, his lips moved and he tried to speak but the noise came out as low moans. Once I gathered my senses again and put some distance between myself and the King, I realized what he was saying: “My daughter, my daughter.” His bony fingers clawed at the walls and tore to pieces as he fell towards the room I had departed. His Queen came lurching after. Her jaw hung slackly and she rolled against the wall whilst her head lolled about as if it had become unhinged from her neck. Behind her a parade of horror continued as far as my eyes could see.

“Do something for her!” The prince exited the room but at the sight of the monstrosities in front of him he drew his sword.

“No!” I took his arm and held him back. I turned my eyes to the King’s daughter. She choked and sputtered. Her eyes bled red. If these people were alive and crying in pain, then what about the townspeople? After a hundred years they would be defenseless against the beasts of the wild, absolutely famished, and completely dehydrated and only the King knows what kind of agony they would be in.

I pushed past the Prince and raised my rifle. The girl lumbered towards me with outstretched arms. The spiders swarmed out of her mouth and over her pristine flesh. She didn’t move from my sights. “Go back to sleep,” I whispered as I pulled the trigger. The cries stopped except for the Prince’s.

It was the only humane thing I could do.

* * * * *

I came here for fuel or food, neither of which I found. My plane was packed and ready for takeoff. I remember how pretty the city looked from the air. The buildings covered over with greenery and overtaken by trees. It excited my imagination. I believed I would find wonders that I had never seen before, and I suppose, I did.

As for the prince, I left him in the castle. He would not part from his beloved.