"Princess, this way. Hurry!"

She gripped the dirt walls of the tunnels in the pitch black, unable to see even the tip of her nose. The pain of labour coursed through her body, but she bit down on her lip till she could taste her own blood. "I can't, Happy. Not anymore."

"Princess, please. We would carry you through these tunnels if we could. We must move, before she learns you have escaped." A pair of hands gripped her arm and gave her support.

"No!" Her hand brushed another root growing out into the tunnel through the dirt, and she held onto it with all her might. "No, I can't leave him behind. I will not leave him behind."

"Prince Charming will not abandon his castle, milady. You know that as much as we do. He's tasked us with your safety, and the safety of his heir. A heir that shall rule those lands again, but not if we are caught in these tunnels, Snow!"

"Take my hand, Bash. I cannot move alone." Another contraction pulled Snow to the ground, and she bit her cheeks, driven to not make a sound in those echoey tunnels and give their position away. The lives of her six friends depended on it. "Where is Bash? I do not hear him."

"He refused to leave the Prince's side for your sake, Snow."

"The castle has fallen, dear Happy." Snow reached out her hand towards the voice. "They will not make it back to us alive."

She hated not being able to see in the tunnels like the brothers could. Another ripple of pain pulled at her back and she stifled it as best she could. "I fear we won't reach the meadow in time, my friends. The child is coming."

"Together, we will get you to safety." It was Sleepy who spoke, stifling a yawn. "These feet will not rest till we get you to Evergreen. Do you trust us, Princess?"

"With my life." Snow cried, grabbing onto the nearest brother.

Her dear Dopey, whimpered beside her and rubbed her back. "Breathe, Snow. Breathe."

"Now, brothers, give me all your cloaks. We shall carry the Princess through these tunnels if we must. By the fairies, we are not losing this child!" Sleepy ordered, the second wisest, second bravest of them all.

And so began the tale, a tale dark and grim. About the once enchanting, sweet, Princess Snow White. The beloved princess of the Enchanted Forest, and wife to Prince Charming the III. And how this soon-to-be-mother bore a child destined to save the magical realm from a dark evil with her death. 

Lightning lashed the cool air, momentarily chasing away the black night in the unlit room, where a young woman sat with a book on her lap, having dozed off mid-read. Ruby-Rose Black was her name. Her hair, as dark as midnight, curled in loose ringlets, framing her handsome face. Her smooth olive skin glowed softly; her long, dark lashes curved enviously; her lips, full and soft, gleamed red as an apple—all visible only briefly—as short as the lightning flash.

The angry clap of thunder, as if the sky were ripping itself open, jolted Ruby awake, drool having made its way down her chin. She slurped and sat up straight in her chair, wiping the wet dribble with the back of her hand. She grabbed her book—a thick, voluminous collection of fairy tales around the world—and tried to place it on the table that had but a moment ago been right in front of her. It was bedtime, most definitely.

Instead of meeting the solid face of the desk, the brick of a book, or rather, the block of a book pounded the floor like an anvil, giving her quite a fright.

Ruby let out a fractured scream. The kind of scream one can only let out if their throat was dry and they hadn't spoken a word in hours.

"What the?" Ruby muttered, reaching a hand ahead in the dark to locate her table lamp, which she was sure she hadn't turned off yet. Why is it so dark in the room? Why isn't my lamp still on?

Forget the lamp, Ruby couldn't even find her desk. She patted her hand in the air, blind in the pitch black that devoured her room. She needed light to see. She took a step forward, thinking maybe she had unknowingly pushed her chair too far back from the desk, hence the book's Oscar-worthy landing. She just hoped she hadn't woken up her entire household. Her mum would not be happy, woken by what sounded like a crash this early—or was it 'late' at night? Her little brother would definitely grumble, 'How come Ruby's allowed to throw things and I'm not?'

Robbie Black had a temper issue as far as they knew. He did not need further encouragement in that department or there'd be no furniture or trinkets left safe in that museum of a house they called home.

Ruby tried again to locate her desk. Her outstretched hand patted the air in search of the wooden surface of her desk, or the lamp sat upon it.

Maybe Robbie had peeked in and, seeing her asleep, had moved her further away from her desk and turned her light off as a prank. It wasn't funny!

"Come on. Where are you?" She patted the air some more, taking tiny hesitant steps towards her desk. She was acutely aware of the hazards her room presented. She had left her school bag lying around, and her tennis bag too. Her shoes were probably somewhere in the middle of the floor—mines, waiting to ambush her. If Robbie had turned her away from her desk, she was going the wrong way and her chances of tripping over any one of those things was astronomical.

"Come on desk, where are you?" Ruby forged ahead another step, sliding her foot gingerly across the laminate floor and onto the carpet, inching it like a worm. She couldn't quite decide whether she should turn around and waddle the other way or carry on. If she was right and Robbie had turned her, she was also about to either walk into her closet, her bedroom door, or the foot of her bed. She was not looking forward to an 'anticipated' stubbed toe. Especially not after the last incident where she'd nearly lost her entire nail thanks to a hazard and a rush to go pee in the middle of the night.

Her mum has not enjoyed driving her to the Emergency at three in the morning.

Outside the house, Ruby could hear the rain pelting down tonight. She could hear its relentless attacks on the terra-cotta roof tiles, or her window panes, and a certain chill hung in the air like mist. She shivered, feeling goose pimples ripple across her exposed arms.

Another flash of lightning lit the sky outside as Ruby continued to blindly move about her room. The momentary flash of light revealed to her that her desk was indeed not in front of her. Nor were her things littering the floor like numerous safety hazards. And her bed? Forget about walking into a foot, she'd have to be careful about hitting her head on the post! Why was there a post on her bed—four posts?!

In fact, that brief flare of light had revealed, Ruby was not in her room at all. Or anyone else's for that matter. No. A room like this did not exist in their house, nor their neighbourhood. Perhaps on TV shows and museums, or old forts and castles, but not modern day flats above old art galleries in the middle of a bustling city.

Ruby waited for another strobe of light to confirm what she had seen. Her heart pounded in her chest as she waited with bated breath. Come on, give me another lightning. Where was she? This did not look like her room, not her room in her house or perhaps any room in any house this side of Earth.

I must be dreaming. Ruby licked her lips, her pulse whooshing in her ears. Did I just see a massive gilded window?

Ruby shook her head. No. It was impossible. Her world did not have intact medieval castles with intact gilded window panes, and lush, large four-poster beds in rooms the size of her entire family home.

A flare of lightning lit the dark room then and nothing kept Ruby from confirming that, yes indeed, this was no longer her room. Or her house.

She rubbed her eyes. "I have to be dreaming. I have to be." She pinched herself until she yelped. She slapped her face aplenty, but no matter how much Ruby tried, she couldn't wake up from this dream.

"Where is my room? And my bed?" When she took another step ahead in the dark, she almost tripped, and a lashing of lightning revealed her foot had collided with the book she'd fallen asleep reading. The book that had thudded to the floor like a dramatic act: Fairy-tales from around the Globe.

Ruby picked it off the—cobalt-stoned—floor and rushed to the narrow but tall window, where so little moonlight filtered through the thick pane she could barely make out the gold gilded words on the old brown leather. She had borrowed the book from her mother's rare collection. It was one of the oldest collections of fairy tales they had found on a trip overseas. Ruby remembered she'd been reading a particular tale when she must have dozed off.

She read the title again, caressing the faint glow of gold ink. The book was real, and if the book was real—could the place be real?

"No." She shook her head. "It's just a dream. I fell asleep reading and now I'm dreaming I'm in the story, hence why the book feels real."

She pinched herself again and was sure she could feel the pain as true as day. Was that possible in a dream? But her heart was telling her no.

"Just go to bed and you'll wake up in your room." She tried to convince herself, fumbling in the dark towards the enormous bed. As her thigh hit the solid beam of the bed unexpectedly and her body jerked ahead in momentum, something clattered to the floor.

"Ah, shoot!" Ruby crouched low, patting the floor until her fingers brushed a familiar device. She grabbed it and rose, murmuring, "Please don't be broken."

As soon as she located the home button on the screen, she saw the familiar wallpaper—a selfie with her mum in front of the Louvre—she turned the torch on and eyed the room. The pithy flashes of lightning hadn't been enough for her to study the space in detail. Perhaps I just imagined things, she reasoned in vain.

Ruby swept the light across the room and gawked.

She stood in the middle of a stonemason room, carved limestone bricks; a giant hearth stood to one side, behind her, a large four-poster bed loomed. To another end, a small writing table made of some greenish looking wood peeked. It had no table lamp to speak of. Only an old oil lantern.

The lush, enormous carpet she stood on was soft beneath her feet, and covered half of the giant room. There was definitely no wooden laminate floor from her bedroom, nor the polyester carpet that felt rough.

"Where am I?" She eyed the ceiling and found there were no such things as fans or lights. Not the ones she was used to. Instead, she saw a large candelabra with twelve arms and twelve soot-blackened glass shades, hoisted up with thick hemp rope.

Shocked, Ruby reached out and patted the cold stone walls beside the large bed with her hand. With any luck, this was just a dream and she'd roll over on her bed and touch her pillow. However, the stone underneath her hand was as real as anything, just like the floor was, like the carpet was. Like the room was.

She eyed the door then, timidly walking to it, hoping once she opened it, she would see the small corridor they shared between their three bedrooms—gyprock walls lined with photos of a smiling, happy family—a thing that was now something of a memory, just like dad. Her room was just some trippy thing her mind was doing, influenced by the old fairy tale she was reading beforehand, no doubt.

"Do it." Ruby psyched herself up. "You're dreaming. You have to be. Just wake up, go pee, and go straight to bed." I just hope Robbie's left the seat down!

It took her a moment to figure out the odd latch on the odd door and she repeated to herself, "It's all a dream," all the way until she stepped into a space that echoed with silence. She looked left, and she looked right, only to see darkness deepen. She used the small torch from her phone to spy what was definitely not a small corridor with photos of a once-happy-family. As far as the weak light could reach, she saw nothing but the stone walls engulfed in darkness. Not a soul stirred, nor any sound penetrated the odd hollow silence that lingered in the chilly halls.

"Hello?" she dared speak—in a whisper, of course—afraid to wake monsters, should there be any. If she was right about this being a dream, a dream influenced by the story she'd fallen asleep reading, she should be in a castle, perhaps in young Snow White's shoes, and somewhere in that cold, quiet castle, her—or rather Snow's—step mother, wanted her dead.

Snow White's shoes! Ruby scoffed, amused at her own thoughts. What were the chances of that? Even if it were in a dream.

Another crack of thunder jolted her, and she nearly dropped her phone to the cold stone floor.

She grabbed it mid-air and rushed back into the room, adamant that the dream would end if she fell asleep. That she'd wake in her own room in the morning. As she closed the door and replaced the hinge-latch, her phone screen glowed.

She brought it to face her, only to realise she'd accidentally pressed the camera button and the front camera was on. Her own face stared back at her, and something odd caught her attention.

She spied an odd costume hanging off the foot of the bed. She vaguely knew it, but couldn't place a finger on it. Where was it from??

She shone the phone light onto a frock, its sleeves puffed and waist tiny, made of silk and ribbons. Rich and antique.

"What in the world?" She stared at it as she moved closer to the bed that wasn't hers. Whose dress was it? Hers? And what a hideous thing it was.

"Just go to bed," she demanded of herself, shaking her head as if shaking the ugly thoughts away. "You just go to bed and wake up, and it will be all right again. You just have to stop reading these outlandish books before bed. Maybe tomorrow you can read something happy. Not some story about a sad girl who has a target on her back. Maybe a happy tale..." but Ruby couldn't think of one happy fairytale in that instant. Not a single one.

As if reading her thoughts, the sky lit up again, and thunder laughed at her in raptures.

Ruby sat upon the bed, hugging herself, rocking back and forth as the storm raged on outside. "It's just a dream. It's just a dream."

But no matter how long she chanted or how often, the world about her stayed the same. Cold, dark, and foreign.

The flashes of lightning refused to show anything but her dream.

If it were a dream.

[Read more: Find 'Ruby-Rose' on my profile!] 

'Ruby-Rose' is the current WIP, with an almost daily update!