My first piece of solid, uninterrupted writing for my story in over a month was a rewrite of a scene XD I’m trying to make use of some of the @yourocsbackstory​ scenes in the prequel, and this one is from the Week 2 - Friends prompt. I rewrote it to fit more chronologically with the story, and to include a little more worldbuilding.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy!

Bidding farewell to my father, I leave his study and proceed back down the corridor. Karolina is waiting for me, as she usually does, ever diligent in her duty.

The sunset makes this part of the castle seem much darker than it is. The winter months of course do not help things in this regard, but at least the sweeping hallways are lit up earlier to compensate.

There’s no one here at this time of evening, except the occasional guard patrols every now and then, as well as us. It’s lonely, almost, with how the only sounds being our own footsteps and the echo of steps far away from us, ricocheting down the stone to us.

My thoughts are plagued with grandfather’s words, his encouragement, for me to speak up and say something to my Maidens of Honour. If not all of them, just one of them. After all, dividing a daunting task into manageable chunks is an apt way to solve the problem.

It’s just me and Karolina here.

I decide then and there that we’ll take the long route back to the residential wing of the castle. I don’t want to cut our journey short by arriving back at the room, and I would rather not be interrupted by passers-by. Somewhere private. I don’t voice this intention to her, simply keeping it to myself. For now, at least.

I slow my pace as we pass one of the windows on the very outside of this building, the dusk skyline a strange mixture of orange into grey, feeding into a rich, midnight blue. Karolina matches my pace, maintaining the few pace distance between us, yet slowing down all the same, not questioning my action at all. Not that I expected her to either way.

It doesn’t feel right. How do I even break this silence we have? It feels strange to simply start a conversation. What can I even say?I slow to a halt in the middle of the corridor, trying to will myself to say something,anything to break the silence. But I don’t have to, because she speaks first.

“Is something the matter, your highness?” she asks, voice rich with a genuine concern.

I close my eyes, take a silent breath, before forcing myself to answer her question.

“Actually… there is just one thing, Karolina,” I open my eyes, hold my left hand in the grip of my right hand, trying to hide just how nervous I am about this whole thing. “I apologise if this is forward of me, but may I ask you a personal question?” I turn around to face her, looking right into those deep emerald eyes of hers.

She nodded slightly, “of course, your majesty.”

I took a moment, looking at her, stood there perfectly straight and tall, long hair stretching down the length of her back.

“My name is Anjelika,” I fully turn my body around, so I am not looking over my shoulder, to face her properly, “please, call me Anjelika. In private, I don’t mind. Please.”

“Y-yes, Anjelika,” Karolina seemed surprised at my request. Was this an odd one? I don’t know. The only people in my life that have ever called me by my name are my family, no one else does. Karolina is the first person outside of my family to ever call me by my name.

“Let’s walk, Karolina,” I say, inviting her to come up beside me so that we can converse.

We aren’t moving quickly by any means, just slow steps down the corridor together, passing the various windows, banners, statues. Everything that decorates the hallways with life and colour.

“Do you… enjoy it?” I asked, watching her mesmerising emerald eyes for any kind of answer as we walked. She furrowed her brows to a slight questioning frown, so I continued quickly. “Living and working here, Karolina.”

“Of course, your – Anjelika. Why do you ask?” she tilted her head slightly, her bright red locks resting just so on her shoulder.

“Please, be honest with me,” I hold up a hand towards her, before returning it to its original position in my own grip, “I don’t know what you think of your positions, because you’re all so… quiet, about it. You don’t talk about it with me, and I’m… worried that I’m failing to uphold my end of the vow I made to you.”

She looked surprised at this, at my strange, odd request. My heart is racing as I watch her, and I can only hope that I haven’t offended her. But oh no, I’ve put her in a precarious position. She knows there is no consequence when I have insisted that she be honest with me, but… does she truly believe that? Does she think that I will dismiss her, based on my request? Is she thinking quickly, only trying to be honest enough that I don’t suspect anything is amiss? Does she want to try to placate me, to give me the answer I want to hear?

“If I may be honest…”

“Please, please do.”

“Anjelika… perhaps the reason we keep to ourselves is because we think you prefer your solitude.” She started almost hesitantly, carefully, not even looking at me yet. She had her hands clasped together in front of her, and nodded slightly as she spoke, before she finally looked me in the eyes and continued. “It’s not because we don’t want to be with you, that isn’t it at all, but you haven’t spoken to us much, nor initiated any kind of conversation with us.”

I listen closely to all of her words, both immensely relieved of her honesty, and a little hurt by it. Truth is always a bitter taste – you want it, you need it, but once you taste it, you wish you were still enveloped in your own blissful ignorance. But I can’t ask her to stop, I have to listen to everything she has to say. I still absolutely want to learn to be better.

“Maybe you could… try and be a little more involved, talk to us, and the others will open up just as much with you.” She shrugged lightly. She still seemed very nervous about how she spoke with me, and just what she was saying to me.

“I suppose you’re right, Karolina,” I replied, looking away from her and at the door to the main wing in the distance,  “I never thought of it that way. But what on earth do we talk about?”

There was something dancing on her lips, something like a smile, one that finally broke through the nerves. She seemed more comfortable, more at ease, and I… I like it this way.

“We have a lifetime to figure that out, because honestly, starting conversations is sort of hard for me too,” she explained, a nervous laugh edging the end of her sentence.

“I guess we both have a lot to learn,” I returned her smile, before looking down and away from her, taking a silent breath just before I continue, feeling that smile waver ever so slightly.

The nerves in the air somehow seem much lighter, not as overbearing. The atmosphere seems brighter despite the ever growing darkness in the world outside us. Taking a longer route somehow doesn’t seem as daunting. It’s nice to know that we’ll have this extra time together.

But there is one place that I didn’t consider in this particular route, a corridor that simultaneously gives me a feeling of tremendous pride and overwhelming pressure all at once.

Lining this stretch of hallway, equidistant apart from one another, are portraits. 8 of them, so far, to be exact. Each of them are painted during one very specific instance, and so every portrait shares an unmistakeable similarity. We come to a stop at the very end of the line of paintings.

Ever since our country was founded, the family that ruled in this castle have had portraits painted of the immediate family when the eldest child – the Crown Prince or Princess – turns 10 years old. Every single portrait on this wall has at least one child with the reigning monarchs behind them. The proud parents. It continues on to the next portrait, when that very child becomes the reigning monarch. It’s beautiful, in a way, that you can follow our family history right back in a very cohesive manner. You see them as a child, and then as an adult with a family, and then their child with their family.

My generation is no exception. The very last portrait here is one of me and my parents, painted on the very day I turned 10 years old. Stood between my parents, in a navy coloured dress, the golden tiara perched on my head. I was small back then, at least in comparison to some of the other 10 year olds in these paintings. Skinny, big brown eyes staring back at me, that small smile on my face. Father’s hand rested on my right shoulder, with my mother on my other side. My hair was longer back then, just about longer than my shoulders. I haven’t had it that long in years. This painting is also one of the three that have only one child featured. Even my father has his younger brother – my uncle - next to him in the painting next to ours.

The striking innocence in that painting, when life was so much simpler, it’s so strange to look back on.

But then, the pressure fills me with an overwhelming dread as I catch sight of the empty space next to them. The empty space that a portrait of my family will fill, somewhere in my future. Looking at the long line of my ancestors, one after another, all playing a very important role in this country.

I wonder, did all of my ancestors feel this way when they looked upon the many paintings before theirs? Of course, a swell of pride, but a deep rooted anxiety that their rule will be remarkable for the wrong reasons. I would hate to shame my family like that, to crash everything to a grinding halt. But then again, many of their reigns were unremarkable. Is that the goal? To be so unremarkable that I’m not a blemish on my family name, or to be so remarkable that my impression is left for generations to come?

I don’t know. I suppose I’ll never find out.

But honestly, I also wonder if my Maidens think the same way about their role.

“I never did like this painting,” I say aloud, almost to myself, looking myself in the eyes as I do. Those wide, innocent, brown eyes. “That dress was itchy, I hated the fabric. I had to stand there for a long while until the artist had enough of my details. I remember I couldn’t wait to get out of it.” I finish on a slightly amused chuckle.

“I think it’s a lovely dress, Anjelika,” Karolina compliments. “It suits your eyes.”

“That’s what mother said. That’s why I had to wear it,” I smile at my companion, and she returns it. It’s so nice to see, it feels so warm.

And yet, something is still plaguing my thoughts. All we’ve talked about, until now, is me. About my situation and my position, and I feel awful that I haven’t even extended the slightest courtesy to Karolina of the same respect. But she will have been told not to expect to tell me anything. After all, according to the older and wiser people who run the household, I don’t need to know about them. They just need to know me.

But that’s a lie. I do need to know them. I want to.

“Karolina, I feel like I don’t know any of you.” I break our eye contact for the first time, feeling immensely guilty about it. “You all know me. You were told everything about me the moment you were accepted into your role.”

She’s watching me, not interrupting or even making any kind of indication that she wanted to speak next, so I continued, hoping she’ll understand, hoping that this will not backfire exponentially. I was taking her earlier advice, after all. The best I can do is to prove myself to her, that I want to know her better.

“We perform the activities we do because they are the ones I chose, but I want to know what you all like to do. I…” I hesitated, my gaze fixated on the vase just over her shoulder, on the table over there, “I want us to be friends. I don’t want my only human interactions with you to be on a hierarchy. I want us to be…”

I had to actively fight to stop me saying something too forward, too serious. This was such a vulnerable conversation and I want nothing more than a real friend, but I just can’t say it. This also seems to private to be talking about in this place, but I know that if I don’t do it now, I never will.

"I would love to be able to laugh with you, cry with you and do everything that friends do, but… I’m sorry, I don’t know how. I’ve never had a friend before, just my cousin, and he, well…”

I didn’t have to continue, because she interrupted me before I could totally humiliate myself.

“Gardening.”

I looked up at her.

“I love to garden,” she said, smiling at me warmly, “back home, our garden was full of crops year round. We would harvest the apples and make szarlotka, and the strawberries made the best fruit tarts. It tasted better knowing our hard work made them possible.”

I could feel that same smile creep back onto my lips, and for the first time in ages I felt truly at ease… truly happy, “I’m sure if we asked, we could get our hands on a portion of the grounds and we can plant some crops together.”

“That would be lovely, thank you, Anjelika.”

“You’re welcome, Karolina.”

I’ve been tagged like, twice by @writingonesdreams - thank you!

I feel very proud of myself, I actually did some writing today! Mainly stemming from some frustration because I SWEAR I wrote a specific thing, and I cannot find it anywhere, so I rewote it to fit a scene!

“I never did like this painting,” I say aloud, almost to myself, looking myself in the eyes as I do. Those wide, innocent, brown eyes. “That dress was itchy, I hated the fabric. I had to stand there for a long while until the artist had enough of my details. I remember I couldn’t wait to get out of it.” I finish on a slightly amused chuckle.

“I think it’s a lovely dress, Anjelika,” Karolina compliments. “It suits your eyes.”

“That’s what Mother said. That’s why I had to wear it.”

I plan on posting the whole scene tomorrow, but this is the last of the “new” stuff in the rewritten version!

Tagging@eluari,@ardawynand@dove-actually!

At What Cost?

On a roll with this fff!! Continuing directly on from Last Week’s piece, comes this installment of “Angel is heavy with emotional baggage” XD

Anyway, I hope you enjoy!

POV: Angel/Anjelika

“What are you watching?”

Felicja was sat on her laptop, fiddling with her hair with one of her headphones in. She didn’t even look over at me when I asked my question.

“The news. Curious to see what the quote unquote Official version of events is,” she replied, twirling the other headphone around her finger.

I wince. “I’d prefer not to know, honestly.”

Getting shot at by soldiers is certainly not high up on the things I want the General and his soldiers to know about, and any curiosity I have about what they’re saying on the matter is instantly dissapated by my fear that they know I’m injured.

She doesn’t reply, but she does look up at me for a moment, acknowleding my wish.

My shoulder twinges as I sit down. I really need to get this seen to properly, but finding someone who can deal with a bullet wound is more difficult than one would think. Especially given all of the things going on right now.

I take a deep breath as I try not to lean on it too hard. Damn it. This is just something I’m going to have to live with. Pav and Felka did their best with what we have, but we really didn’t have much. I’m just lucky it wasn’t an extremity or my legs that got hit,. I don’t need my shoulder to run.

Felicja suddenly frowned, sat up straight and leaned in to watch the screen more. Her eyes grew wide, and she looked over at me.

“Angel.”

She started to get up and move towards me. I shake my head at her as she does so. “I’m not interested Felka -”

“No, you needto see this -”

I sigh as she unplugs her headphones, puts the laptop on the ground in front of me, and presses the play button. The scene changed from the news room at the KFT to something hauntingly familiar.

“That’s…”

It’s a library, but not just any library - the library at the castle. I know it is, because there is the little sitting area with the emerald green sofa.

Seated on the sofa was my mother.

She was a lot skinnier than I remember, but she looked well, I suppose. She was wearing a fine dress that I know I have seen her in before - a blue one with flowers adorning the hem. Her hair was tied up as it usually is, and she had a magnificent silver necklace on. She looked neither happy nor sad, just as neutral as she normally would be on television appearances.

Upon seeing this, my heart stopped. Behind the sofa, on either side of my mother, were my friends.

To be specific, there was Kasia, Anja, Irenka and Matylda.

Seeing that took my breath away, and not in a good sense.

Why are they there? How? They should’t… they can’tbe!

They didn’t look any worse than my mother, but I recognise those expressions. They’re the expressions that they adorned when they were early into their positions as my Maidens of Honour.

Uncomfortable, but masked. Why they are in frame with my mother is just -

“Good evening to everyone,” my mother starts to speak, looking right into the camera, “I thank you for watching this broadcast.”

The shot changes from a view where all in the frame are visible, to one where just my mother and the shoulders of Anja and Irenka are visible. Much more intimate, close.

I fight the urge to reach forwards and touch the screen.

“I am speaking to you all today not as a member of the Royal Family, not as a Queen, but as a Mother,” she has her hands clasped together, rested on her knees, seated at a 45 degree angle to the camera.

Her voice is calm, collected, but there’s a shadow of redness around her eyes. Barely noticeable.

“My daughter, my little Anjelika, has been missing since the last Flower Festival,” she continued, “and I am here today to say: please, Anjelika, come home to us.”

She moved one of her hands to her chest, leaning forwards just a touch in her seat, raising her voice to emphasise her message, and I caught the tiniest crack in her voice.

Come… come home?

“We miss you, Anjelika, and we want you safe with us here at home. I can’t sleep knowing you’re out there somewhere, in a lot of danger, where I can’t be there to protect you. So please, come home to us, please just…”

I don’t even listen to her words, all I can see is her face, my own is streaked with tears. I don’t even have the heart to wipe my face, because seeing her, seeing my friends, hearing her like this -

Just what am I doing?

I push the laptop away from me as the message continues. Turning my entire body away from it and covering my ears with my hands, not even caring about the dull ache in my shoulder as I do. I bite down on my bottom lip, trying to fight my desperate, patheticneed to burst into a crying mess right here and right now.

My mother - she’s there, and she’s just gone on national (perhaps even international) television and begged for me to return home.

I’ve not seen anything of my mother since the day before the overthrow happened, back when my father was alive. God, what an age ago it feels like.

The sob escapes me before I can do anything, screwing my eyes shut, all I can see is her face, her words echoing inside my head. Come home, please, Anjelika, come home to us!

There’s a hand on my back, on the uninjured shoulder, and I cannot help but try and move away, get away from them. I want nothing more than to be alone right now.

After what I just witnessed.

I take a shuddering breath as I try to get to my feet, “ I have to go back, I have to -”

Felka gets up behind me, and I can hear her there. “Angel?”

“My friends, my mother - they’re all there because of me-”

She appears in front of me, holding my arms, looking right into my eyes. There’s a small scar on her cheek that I somehow never noticed before today, but her blue eyes simply stare into mine.

“Angel, Angel, listen to me - you are not thinking straight.” She stops me from moving around the room, “sit down, take a deep breath.”

I shake my head, trying to push her off me. “No, no, I can’t. How could I? I’m so selfish-” with my hands still on either side of my forehead, trying to quell the beating thoughts inside, I make my way towards the opposite wall, away from Felicja.

She follows me anyway.

“Is it really selfish to survive away from him?”

“It is now that I know my friends are there, hurting, because of me!” I raise my voice louder than I had intended, but her stupid attempt at trying to talk down to me was notwelcome.

She points up vaguely in the direction of the door. “But the General, that’s exactly what he wants!”

I clench my hands into fists and slam them down to my sides. “Don’t act like you know that man!” her eyes widen at my gesture, but she doesn’t step back. “I trusted him with my life, and he repaid my naive trust with kidnapping me!”

Her expression changed minutely, from a warm concern to a cold irritation, and I didn’t see the slap coming.

A swift sting on my left cheek that all but silenced me out of shock, my hand instantly reaching for my cheek to feel it.

“And if you turned yourself in now, what would change for them? You go to him, handing yourself over on a silver platter? How would their situation differ? Do you really think that message was voluntary on their part?”

“I…”

I can’t even look at her. That slap really took everything out of me.

“You know as well as I do what he wants you for. You said as much the day we met. Why would you want to give him what he wants?”

Even her voice started to break at her own question.

I didn’t try to speak, and neither did she, we both stood there - breathing heavily - trying to calm down some. I managed to bring my hands down to my side, slowly, trying to count my breaths.

One.

Two.

Three.

In.

One.

Two.

Three.

Out.

Felicja seemed to follow suit, because the irritation that was there was now gone. In its place was a sadness that couldn’t be put into words.

“My friends were there for me when I was at my lowest, Felka.” I managed to say, in a low voice, all the memories of the last times I saw those girls flying through my head.

All they did for me leading up to that.

“They stuck by me after I watched my father die. They tried to protect me, and how am I repaying them? Letting them suffer in my name because of my stupid, selfish stubbornness?”

I can’t keep standing, my head feels light and dizzy. I drop to the ground, the hard concrete beneath my knees being the only thing keeping me here. My legs are so heavy, my head is making me nauseous.

She joins me down here, kneeling on the floor, doing her best to look through the mess of my hair into my eyes.

“I am sorry, alright? For hitting you. I really am,” she did the thing my mother did, a hand on her chest as she spoke. The image hurts, the memory more so. “It must be terrible for you, to see your friends and mother, whom you clearly love dearly, being used as puppets for the man you’re running away from. But you returning to that castle will not help them. It doesn’t guarantee their safety. It doesn’t make their lives easier.”

The tears returned, and I didn’t care about holding them in anymore. “Felka, those girls have gone through enough for me. What is the cost of my insolence if I do not? Why should I let them continue to -”

“Becauseall they did for you, all that protecting because they cared about you, will be for nothing. All their sacrifices. You sound like very close friends. I know if I were them, I’d be furious with you for letting such an obvious plot be the thing that gets you to go back there. It would be like all I did for you, you didn’t respect. You didn’t acknowledge. You just threw it away.”

Her words sting like a fresh slap every time, beating down every thought I had to defend wanting to go back.

“I am telling you, that the worst thing you could do right now, is give him what he wants.”

Now that I’m a modicum calmer, I can see her argument.

Why did I think that the broadcast was their idea?

Why did I think that mother was upset enough to want me to return, when she knows as well as I do what will happen if I do?

Why did I think it was some kind of sick coincidence that my friends were stood right behind her?

That was a low thing for him to do.

Damn it.

“I know you care for them, I know you don’t want them to get hurt for you, but even they will know that if you are still here, away from him, then that cost is worth every single grosz.”

I can’t believe I was about to turn myself in on a stupid, reactionary whim.

It was a horrible plan, but I’ll be damned if i don’t say it didn’t almost work. I would do anything for my friends, and it looks like they’d do the same for me.

And he didn’t even make an appearance.

I suppose that would have instantly taken me out of wanting to return.

“… you’re right, Felicja,” I manage to croak out. “You’re right and I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry too,” she crawled closer, reached her arms around me and pulled me into an embrace. “I don’t want you to get hurt, Angel, and if that means I have to stop you from hurting yourself, then so be it.”

She’s warm, and she’s here.

We just sat there for a while, in each other’s arms, and I’d be lying if I said that her hug was not a welcome one. Felicja has done almost as much for me as those girls, and whilst I know she is right - going back there will not help my friends - I dread to think what will happen to them when I do not.

I’m just glad I was not alone when I saw that video.

Goodness only knows what would have happened to me then.

A whumpy little excerpt that I wrote a while ago. It’s not the full scene but just the dramatic stuff.

POV: Anjelika

Warnings: blood, death, accidental stabbing, throat injury, vomiting.

The rain is mercilessly pounding against me, cold and bitter and hard as it soaks me completely, chilling me to my core in the night-time wind that gushes through the trees here. It’s cold, so very cold.

But I can’t stop running.

I can barely see 10 feet in front of me, and that makes every single tree root a potentially fatal hazard. My feet are screaming in the shoes I’m wearing, simple black pumps that are absolutely not designed for sprinting through dense woodland after sunset. It’s very dark, in combination with the clouds that block the moon completely from view, as well as the night sky a deep black above and beyond those same clouds. I have no point of reference for where I am even going, I barely even know where I am.

My feet are in control, taking me anywhere, trying to get me away from there.

My lungs are on fire, and my breathing is deep and ragged from my constant and current exertion. I can’t seem to run fast enough, and I feel my heart beating furiously in my chest. My legs feel heavier and heavier with every step I force myself to take in such quick succession.

The man behind me is getting closer. I can hear him.

My feet crunched the leaves and twigs on the forest floor, all damp with the pouring rain yet still barely audible above the rumble of thunder in the distance.

I daren’t look back, it would only slow me down. My only chance is to outrun him. I can’t stop, I won’t stop, I need to keep going!

I can hear him yelling through the environmental chaos at me, but I can’t make out a single word that he’s shouting at me. I don’t want him to get any closer for me to find out. He knows, he knows who I am. He knows, and he wants to take advantage of that. He wants to take me away, send me back, but I don’t want to!

The woodland thinned out a little as I sprinted straight, not noticing the dip in the ground until it was too late. I hadn’t expected the drop – it wasn’t much of a drop – but it was enough to cause me to cry out in surprise. I ended up with my foot submerged in a shallow stream, and I felt my ankle land awkwardly against a rock. Shock from the cold and a sharp pain coursed through me, but it did not stop me. Not because I wanted to, because I needed to.

I was out of the stream within another step yet the momentary hesitation had slowed me down, and that was a few golden seconds that I could not afford to waste. I hated the feeling of my wet feet, I’ll get ill if I don’t – no. Not important. I’ll die, let alone get ill, if he catches me!

Splashes behind me barely a second later told me that he was right there, having just crossed the stream too. I can’t even process what the environment directly in front of me is like because all I can think about is how close he is now. I had not gone far, and I was struggling to breathe now. No amount of casual training with Anja had prepared me for this, and the already waning power of my adrenaline has only gotten me so far.

Not far enough.

I was still fighting to stay ahead of the man, but when I felt a brutal hand pull at the back of my shirt, and I screamed.

“I’ve got you now, you little –!“ I can hear him growl into my ear, something sharp at my side, and the way his voice sent a shiver through me in combination with the bitter air was almost unbearable.

His violent attempt to pull me to a halt, and my own attempt at keeping running, was thwarted by me losing my footing completely. I somehow escaped his grip – at the expense of tumbling down the hill completely out of control.

He seemed to fall immediately after me, but I couldn’t tell. I had screwed my eyes shut, trying to fight back the dizziness from the beating my body was taking. Hitting every single rock and branch. Thankfully no trees.

It’s a brief stumble, but still enough to wind me once the slope levels off. 

As I finally roll to a stop at the bottom, well and truly battered by the fall, covered in dirt and soaked with rain, I expect to hear my pursuer recover faster than I and grab me, to try and take me away.

But it doesn’t happen.

I look around for him, and he’s some five feet away from me, behind me, shaking and convulsing, lying on his back staring up at the sky, not knowing or caring that I’m even here. There’s an awful gurgling sound and it takes me a few moments to realise what it is.

As I get up to my feet and step closer, looking over him, I can see clearly what is causing the awful sound.

The man is clutching at his throat, eyes wide with panic and coughing up blood so fast I’m surprised he hasn’t choked. I see the blade embedded in his throat, deep and deadly.

I can feel the colour drain from my face, and my vision dims with a fuzzy feeling, like I’m going to pass out. My legs give in beneath me and I collapse to my knees clutching my stomach. My insides churn and twist and I feel like I’m going to be sick. I can’t look away, somehow. Watching him bleed out in front of me, those awful sounds as he tries to breathe, to speak – something.

The man’s convulsions suddenly stop, and he stills, the blood from that gaping wound spreading onto the ground where he lay, unmoving, lifeless.

Dead.

I can’t hold it back anymore, and I retch up what little I had eaten earlier. My hands are shaking so hard that I grip onto the grass to try and stop them trembling, but even then I can’t.

My throat hurts with my wrecked sobs that I manage to choke up after spitting up all the bile. It hurts, and even breathing hurts here.

I can’t believe that just happened. I can’t believe it.

I killed a man.

What did I -? Why -?

I didn’t mean to do it, but… I didn’t know he had a knife! I didn’t know he would – I didn’t know he would fall like that, that he would –

The crack of lightning that strikes, and the deep rumble of thunder jolts me back to my senses, clearing my thoughts enough to realise I am still in a lot of trouble.

I stumble backwards, trying to get to my feet without looking at the man’s fresh corpse before I throw up again.

I’m lost, I don’t know where I am, I don’t even know where I can go to from here, but I have to keep going.

I have to.