EDIT: I hated the title, so I changed it. Because I don't want an ugly title in my portfolio. xD
Like my older work, this is pretty long so I'll be giving out stuff in exchange for a crit. Points or a short story critique, your pick.
I like my critiques harsh, so rip this apart. It's a short story I came up with. It's rated 16+ because of the body count. I posted it here because I wasn't sure where it belonged. I was thinking fantasy, but then I was all: wait, this barely has anything fantastical. And I'm pretty sure it's not historical either. So I just posted it here in other because I wasn't sure where else.
Anyway, enough of my rambling.
#FF0000 ">~Start~
The heavy gold key clicks into the lock and the sound resonates through the hall. It’s a click, it has to be, but in my head it’s a gunshot. My stomach lurches. Deep breaths. In and out. In and out. Be still, my heart. I close my eyes, lean my head against the imposing door, let the cold wood calm me. Badump badump. My heart won’t listen. I chuckle. Who am I kidding? I’ll never enter this room without breaking into a sweat.
Exhale, straighten myself. Place my hand on the icy doorknob and twist it to the right. The door gives in to my half-hearted push. Before I go in I look around to see if anyone has spotted my mini-breakdown, if you could call it that. Check if someone has spotted the crown prince trying to enter the room they thought he’d never have the guts to approach ever again.
I step inside the room. Roomy, spacious, high ceilings – perfect for a massacre. It smells of soap even until now, ten months after the day they had to clean up that mess. But when I close my eyes, when I close my eyes the coppery scent of blood overwhelms me. It’s all a memory but the gunshots ring so truly, so clearly I can’t believe it’s only a memory.
“Rivan, I –“
[i]My older brother slammed me inside the closet. Pain bursts through my back, spreading out to the rest of my body. A groan escapes me and he puts his hand over my mouth.
“You shut up and stay in here. Understand? If you can help it, don’t even breathe.”
That was Rivan for you. He always had to be braver, always had to be stronger. The entire palace was already locked down. An assassin, a single assassin’s card sent to my father, had triggered the panic. The card warned of a visit that night.
Rivan ought to be calmer. A good king had to keep his head above his heart, where it belonged. He ought to be more logical.
But no, he wasn’t. He was pushing aside his youngest brother’s attempts again. I was nothing but a pest to him, a hindrance that he was sending away to marry a foreign princess as soon as possible. The closet’s door banged shut, leaving me in cramped darkness.
Then, that’s when I heard it. Gunshots. My other brothers rushing into the room. Loud footsteps, yells. A woman, my mother, screaming. I covered my ears with my hands. Her screaming was high-pitched, a wail, as if she found out about something horrible.
“We’re leaving. NOW.” The second eldest, Barrett. Normally calm, now crazed. Frightened. This assassin had never missed her mark before.
I heard the rest of my five brothers murmuring in agreement, but Rivan wasn’t one of them. I could almost imagine him shaking his head.
“We can’t leave. This is our fort. If that woman drives us away from here, it’ll scare the whole country. It will show the other countries our weakness.”
Like I said. Always the bravest.
My hand had found its way to my chest while I was lost in that memory. My breathing is uneven again, my heart running a race. I blink a few times and try to place myself in the present. But it's hard to do that when everything around me is just as broken as it was that night. Father never had the heart to replace the fractured ornaments in this room. It’ll forever be a testament to the bravery – or stupidity – of Rivan and my brothers.
For example, the crystal globe with a gargantuan crack running up one side. I remember exactly where that crack came from.
“Dear gods, she got through the guards. Barrett, duck!”
“What?”
A gunshot and a groan. Another wail, this time from my sister. She must have come in with my brothers. Through a crack in the closet I saw Barrett’s lifeless eyes staring back at me and I shudder. He was nothing but a corpse now.
“Ciera, look out!”
My brothers' voices blended together and I heard a crash and another gunshot. Three bodies crash to the ground, one of them my only sister. The other one was a figure in a mask that covered her entire face while the last one was one of my brothers straddling her. She caught my eye and I silently withdrew deeper into the closet.
She recovered, jumping up and shoving my brother off her. Remarkable. The globe crashed into the ground and a dozen more gunshots were fired. She must be wearing dragon leather under her clothes. It was the only way she could have withstood the shots fired at her by my brothers.
They could never win against her. How could they when the guards didn’t even stand a chance? They never trained with the guards. Never ever.
I walk towards the window, where a fleck of blood remains. The sunlight is blinding and I automatically shield my eyes with my right hand. A final shiver passes through me and the hairs on the back of my neck stand. My breathing is still erratic, but it’s better. My heart, on the other hand, dances a mad ritual and my stomach doesn’t only knot itself, it twists itself into fantastical shapes.
Five bodies on the ground and counting. Two people left. Rivan and the assassin. Her long brown hair had come undone and it fell over her shoulders like a veil. The gun was in her hands, but he was controlling her arms, moving them into different directions, shooting into the roof.
All these deaths in how many minutes? Five? Ten? No, it couldn’t be ten. Or else the guards would already be here. Unless, unless the guards were busy tending to father and mother. No, they wouldn’t. We weren’t that expendable, were we?
Grunts from the two of them, then a gunshot. Blood pulsed through my veins and I was aware of every single breath I took. A thud, but I couldn’t see who fell. I prayed my hardest that it was the right person who fell.
I closed my eyes and counted to three to calm myself. Then I pushed open the closet doors and stumbled out, gulping down cold air. It sickened me; the stench of blood was so heavy. One look at the bodies and I tasted my dinner coming up my throat.
I was going to be sick.
Rivan lay on the floor, eyes glassy and lifeless. She sat in the corner, bleeding. Her stomach had a gaping wound in it. A bloody shard of glass lay on the floor beside her.
One step, then two steps towards her. The girl who killed my brothers. She was younger than me by at least a year or two. So young, and already an assassin. I fingered the shard near her and saw the panic in her eyes. Her gun was too far for her to reach.
“So you’re killing me, just like this?” she croaks.
The shard cut into my hand. Pain. Will my brothers ever know the face of the one who hired this assassin?
The door creaks open again, startling me. I turn around quickly.
Dolores stands by the closed door, an amused smile on her face. “Did I scare you?” She saunters towards me. “I dropped by after talking with her highness. She seems to like me, but I can’t be too sure. Do you think she likes me?”
“Maybe,” I murmur. With mother, nothing is sure. She's been a bit mad since that night.
She puts a finger on my lips, shushing me as footsteps pass by the hallway. When the footsteps have passed, she smiles. “How are you supposed to convince everyone you’re frightened of this room if you keep coming back here?”
“I’m scared of it, partly. It still makes me stop and think.”
“About what I did or about your brothers?”
Pause. I look around the room. I don’t remember where some of my brothers' bodies fell anymore, but I do remember the order in which they fell. Barrett fell first. Rivan was the last to go. The most vivid detail in my memories is her crimson blood pooling around her as she sat in the corner. Of her smile when I kissed her lips and thanked her for making me crown prince.
She knew I deserved it. She knew my brothers were incompetent and that they’d run the country to the ground. Most importantly, she knew how to kill.
I brush her hair away from her eyes. “Neither. I think of you and how they’ll never know.” How they’ll never know what we’ve done. A bird chirps outside the window and she gives me a knowing smile, twining our fingers together. Just like she did the night my brothers died.
