This is a 5 part short story written for RewindtheClassics21.  The prompt was to write a short story putting a fresh spin on a fairytale, myth or other classic.

Heartbeat.

Aurora sat bolt-upright in bed.

She couldn't gauge what time it was. Curtains hung open, but the scant light filtering into the room was an eerie green fluorescence. Her hand crumpled against stiff organza skirts. Why was she wearing her best ballgown and corsets to bed? Had she perhaps taken ill during a party? So parched was her mouth, that tiny stinging cracks had formed at the corners of her lips.

Something did not feel right. On an ordinary day, the palace hummed with busyness: the gentle swoosh of housemaids cleaning the grates, gardeners clipping the hedges or the happy novelty of hooves and carriage wheels.

Now, the depth of the stillness surrounding her was unnerving. And what was causing this darkness? It was then that she noticed the thick thorny vines completely obscuring each window.

From deep in the building, sounded a reverberating CLANG. Aurora started. Kitchen pots? Or could it be armor? Her stockinged toes met the cold marble floor as she spun her body off the bed. With no sunlight entering the rooms and the fires unlit, the house had become icy.

Another clang, and Aurora felt hastily around in her vanity drawer for the paper-knife she kept there. It was not much longer than her hand but shaped like a tiny dagger with pearl inlaid into the handle. It was the best weapon she could muster on such short notice.

Outside her boudoir, the palace was dark. The lone window at the end of the hall projected a pale kaleidoscope of negative spaces against one wall, an imprint of the imprisoning branches. Feet soundless on the plush carpet of the stair, she followed the continuing metallic din. In the grand entrance hall, two bodies lay aside the doorway. The guards: felled where they stood.

Her heart was pounding now. What manner of evil was this?

One half of the double kitchen doors stood ajar. Warm light shone within, flames flickering from the hearth. Aurora could hear the bang of spoon on cauldron, and the whoosh of water in the stone basin. An elongated shadow fell across the doorway, illuminated by the fire.

Was this the monster who had killed her guards, and possibly her family too?

He began to whistle.

Aurora could take no more. She would avenge the others, or she would die trying. She raised her paper-knife and kicked the open door aside.

There, munching on a chicken leg over the stew-pot, stood Will, the mage's apprentice.