I'm entangled into something. Warped in an unbearable heat, and my back cushioned onto something soft. Where am I? What time was it?

The night turned silent, not a chirp or a croak in the distance, my brows furrows as I slowly I peel my eyes open to a chandelier. My chandelier. And the darkness of my room. My curtains drawn and liquid moonlight pour in through the glass of my window. Something about the heavy tranquility unsettles me, and something about this night left a sour taste in my mouth.

There was something amiss with it all, and it started with the beaming light. Its rays sparkling with little white twinkling stars and the hue of a vibrant blue. But I squeezed my eyes and suddenly saw red. I'm alone, and I want Nasir. I was just with him, was I not? Unless this was all just one bog dream conjured up by my fantasies.

It is the dead of night, for what I could only assume, probably past three. I'm surprised I slept so peacefully; in fact, I'm surprised I even slept at all. My body plastered onto the mattress as I debate with myself if I should just go and slip into his room. With Gunther being away, and the castle has been quiet, I have more free time to spare and rekindle memories.

Though disturbed by the magnitude of the darkness, I found light thinking about him, burning my blood hot, leaving me restless. If this was all reality, then that would mean all along, there he was, all along he was right aside me. He kept his promise after all.

But in the stirring realization another awakening burned through me, wiping the smile clean off my face and I cup my mouth woefully. That would mean all this time, it was Nasir I have been thinking about inappropriately, and ... the kiss in the library, and ... and how I was reading that book to seduce him.

The wretched overfilling memories make me squeal behind my hands; my gut ready to kick my abdomen. I squirm in the duvets, stifling my screams the more the humiliating memories surfaced. Until something within settles to logic.

A voice in my head whispers to me, that faint part of me that did not regret it. In fact, I couldn't help but think back to all those times we spent alone together. My castle is loaded with guards' morning and night, and even then, I have always been capable of standing on my own. Never needed much at all when it comes to aid. Yet my years of training and stability evaporated the day I looked into his eyes.

Without never questioning why, I would unwarily reach for his hand or allowed myself to be pulled into his embrace for safety. My brain struggled to keep up, but my body always knew it was him. Nasir. My old best friend. And ... and the reason behind my dazed eyes and lulling smile. He grew up into a dashing man. Long curls. Dark features and tall, a smile so dazzling it stills my heart. The younger face is gone, now this was a new him.

His vision fathoms in my brain and the tip of my fingers gently trail over my lips, before unconsciously slipping the finger in my mouth, reminiscing the feel his lips all over on mine, and body. Chills impose the surface of my skin with goosebumps as I was reminded of his warm breath in my ear, those dark taunting words. The young boy I knew back then never even wanted to stand too close to my personal space, and now in the present, the man standing before me glaring down at me with those dark eyes was ready to maul me.

The idea startles me, but the quiet part of me would have me liked that idea.

I elevate my frame, perching myself upright and swung legs from the bed. The difference in temperature changed drastically, and I anchor my eyes away from the moon. The chill in me does not subside, in fact now that I sat up, some adrenaline of a sort boils in my streams, and I mindlessly look over to my front door before rising up to look out my window.

The vacant castle grounds are now nearly packed with all black cars. I had the urge to look over to the date and felt my heart plummet to my feet.

This was the day. October 2nd. I had forgotten for the moment, and now I know the reason as to why through the disguise of the full grey moon, I could see paints of blood.

Knock, knock.

I jolted, twisting to my bedroom door.

'Tiana?' The voice of a man muffles on the other side. At my silence the knock goes off once again.

"Who is there?" My chest ignites with silent fireworks, assuming it could be the only person I wanted in here with me more than anything.

"Tiana please open the door. It's Gunter."

Suddenly I wished to have never answered.

"Tiana. Open the door."

There is something off about the tone of his voice, almost rushed and careful. Faint evidence of worry pulses through me and I lightly treaded towards the door and gasped to the proximity.

Gunter leaning aside the wall, his breath quickening as he trembles, sweat glands racing down his temples as he held a wounded bicep. My eyes widened to saucers, raking it up and down his slumping frame. A wounded King.

"Gunter are you -"

"No!" he growled, "Get back inside, it isn't safe out here."

"Isn't safe, what's going on?" Just than in the hallways, three shots were fired, and my heart plummeted.

He ushers towards me, lifting himself from the wall "Let me in."

I'm stilled like a statue. Another shot was fired.

"Tiana, move." I'm nudged aside, with a free hand Gunter swung the bedroom door closed, secluding the two of us in darkness. And now that he was free from the open space, he groans, slouching down to the ground.

"Gunter -" tears had begun to weld in my eyes, and in the dim glow of the moonlight I watch his shadow angle upwards to me in my peripheral vision. "What's happening?" my lips tremble and a tear slipped.

The top of his head gently hits the wall behind him, as If he searches for the right words. "You won't like it." he only says.

My attention fully grasped, and I flick my blurry eyes down to him.

"It's our bodyguard."

Nasir? "Wh-what, n-no it can't be." I sniffled, and every word I say he only kept nodding until I could grasp it. "I don't believe that."

"Believe what you want wife, but it wasn't you who had to grow up with him."

"Grow up?"

Our voices are kept to a minimum, and Gunter finally rose up, gritting his teeth the pinching wound. Striding towards me until he hovered before my frame. "He had nowhere to go, and my father took him in, taught him ways to defend himself, and ways to survive. He worked his way through the knives so well, my father placed him in a camp, and even than my father was impressed. So impressed he is who is today."

I swallowed. More tears falling sharply from my eyes.

"But ..."

"But!" I urged before he shushed me.

"He acted different with me. Beating me up, throwing things at me, even curses -" Gunter had to pause, angle his breath upwards for fresh air and I heard a sniffle.

My hands rose to touch his bicep. "It's ok, talk to me."

"The bullying got so bad, that - me and him got into it one day. And erratically I ended up winning. But neither one of us walked out unscathed. Half my bones were broken, and I was blue for a long time, but he suffered something more long term."

"Long term?"

The firing shots got closer, and I shook, Gunter stands before me like a shield, his free arm keeping me behind him. "Don't worry, I won't let anything happen to you." he says.

The nearing bullets suddenly rerouted direction, further away from my room.

"Finish what you were saying Gunter. What happened to him."

He sighs, moving away to face me, eye to eye, our lips inches apart. "Some type of illness, where he believes he is visited by something, and that it tells him to either die or he has to kill."

As if a stroke of lightning ziplines through my veins, everything in me stills, and chills freely racing down my body. "What?" I tried to fathom.

"Medications and medications, treatments after treatments, nothing. In the end it was all nothing."

"He is sick?" I mustered.

"Been this way since that day, why else do you think I am hard on him. So, he can remember who it is that is above him." His voice lowered with dark pitch.

"And what about your arm?"

"I return to see my guards lying on the ground dead, my first instincts as the son of a mafia king are to disarm, even if it means through struggle."

"Struggle?"

"Don't play coy my queen. Acting as If you do not know what it is I am talking about."

"I'm not acting." I sniffled. My eyes watering, blurring my vision, "I just don't understand."

"And what is it you don't understand hmm, that something like this could ever happen? or because it is Nasir wielding the gun. Enlighten me. Last time I checked on my loving wife, her and her bodyguard were well over comfortable for the past few days."

"Gunter I-"

"Granted, this is your castle, and you are free to do what it is you please. But even I as your husband could even smell your urging scent emanating between your legs when your near him."

My cheeks burn. "I-"

"Did I not warn you, that you had no idea what it is you were getting yourself into."

The sob I stifled had begun to ache my throat.

"Did I not warn you, once you proceed with your curiosity, you would learn the hard way."

I cup my face into my palms.

"And now, listen to this my Queen, many of innocent lives are downstairs, lying lifelessly in a pool of their own blood. And you're too blame."

My head flung upwards, "Me!? it was your people that brought this onto my castle."

"I did you a favor didn't I, returning your lover back to you?" he smirked.

"He. Is. Not -"

"Your lover? hmm, the library begged to differ."

"Uh-"

"Didn't think so." He grits his teeth, the pain of his wound spreading throughout his body.

I scrutinize him walking towards the bed. Perched himself on the edge and looked out to the moonlight.

"Why should I believe you?"

He looks back to me, and I repeated my words. "Why should I believe you. You have not been honest with me, and now you expect me to believe any of words? If anything, Nasir is the one who showed me utter kindness, instead of my so-called husband."

"And I would lie to my Queen?"

I cross my arms, "Never stopped you before."

Half shrouded in darkness, Gunter stills as he looked to me with one exposed eye, but in that only one was a darkness spewed by something sinister. "Then, wife, it is best you go and see it for yourself."

"I will not approach a man with a gun."

"Now you believe me?"

"I believe it is not Nasir."

"Unless you go and see it for yourself." He lifts himself from the mattress. "Only than could you believe what it is I have to say."

My feet plants into the ground, hesitating, now half of me believes him. And a part of me did not want to see the outcome. My emotions spiral and my eyes brim again. Afraid to see the monster my best friend had become. "If he is under a dream, we could never approach."

"Not we. You."

My brows crease, "You would send your wife and Queen to her grave. Cowardice words for a cowardice King."

"You would have better chances of getting to him than anyone else my queen, you could stop all of this."

A part of that statement held truth. "If he is sleeping, he won't hear me."

Gunter's grip on my bicep suddenly loosens, and he stepped in closely to me. His mellowing stance draws my attention as I gaze up to his soft blue cyan eyes and read his lips as he said. "There will never be a void dark enough, where he would never hear the light of your voice."

***

In the deepest ends of my ear canal, there was an ear-piercing whistle that threatened to bleed, my staggering breath looked as though it vaporizes in front of me, my temperature dropping cold as I look down at the pools of blood under neath my feet. Bodies. Lifeless bodies like fallen flies, dead on my floor, majority dressed in black, but my eyes keen on the ones in the maid attires. People who I have considered as family, I will soon have to bury.

Rage flames in my blood, searing to the unbearable as I travel down the halls. So far, those that lay on the ground, are friends of my fathers. The raw stench of Iron is pungent, and my hands had to cup my mouth. Why had I agreed to do this? why could I not have contacted authorities, well surely, they were on their way.

My feet touched the cold surface of skin, and my blood shrivels, trying not to look down at the large body underneath me.

It isn't true. I don't believe it. Not the Nasir I know. Not the boy that threw himself in front of danger, just to protect me. I refused to believe it.

But within the first gunshot. He would have already been at my door to protect me. I am sure he heard.

"Just further down." Gunter says aside me. He led me down to the unit suites of the castle, and my breath gusted from me. That ... that is Patrick's room. My instincts burst like sparks, and I tear from Gunters hand, the clops of my ears are loud in the narrow walls, my breathing accelerating, the wind blowing back tears hoping not to see one of my biggest fears.

Patrick dead. And Nasir holding the gun.

And alas, I heard voices, and Nasir's back side out in the open, his arm extending outwards, words vanquish at the tip of my tongue, liquid pools from my eyes. Fuck, I cannot speak, I try to move forward, fuck I can't walk. Frozen like a statue. Until finally the bullet is fired, the billowing blast resembled a firework. And everything around me silences.

No anger, no sorrow, no pain, or emotion. I am hollow. And as I watch Nasir's frame fall back to the wall, all the memories of him I have stored deep in me burn at the edges, our chapters together burning along with it. I see red through the watery blur. He could not see our memories together burning away.

He let it go. He let the memories of us burn away, burning to ashes. And proved Gunter right. And as he narrows his eyes to me, in that moment I couldn't care less if he had angled the barrel towards my chest, for even in my death he would suffer excruciating consequences.

"What have you done?" I speak.

Of all people, who have done me wrong. Nasir. Why did you let me hate you?