Chapter Text
Ralsei was lonely, to say the least. He'd grown up in a kingdom of admiration; full of followers for the first few years of his rather young life. He distantly remembered running through the steeple with other children, laughing and playing with people he didn't just refer to as his subjects, but his friends as well. Sometimes, he'd even bake cakes for the lot of them.
But, one day, it all came crashing down; and before he knew it, he was the sole member of his kingdom; the loneliest dark prince in the world.
However, he did have one hope; one last thing to cling to. The prophecy, that a Hero, a Monster, and a Dark Prince (himself, he believed); who'd destroy the fountain and bring light to the world; and oh, how he couldn't wait to be a part of it.
So, he waited, and waited, and waited. Sometimes he'd take strolls along the barren kingdom, tending to the plants and cleaning windows, baking cakes in empty bakeries; just needed to preoccupy his time doing something.
So, often, when he had nothing to do; he’d go on walks in the distant wilderness, beyond the lone cobblestone wall that bordered the last reaches of civilization; depicting that it once had been something more. Something great. The feeling of feet against grass that lightly pecked against the bottom of his feet when he stepped; and the tree branches that would softly wisp against his dark cloak. Whether it be daytime, afternoon, or night; it felt good to fill his lungs with fresh air. To see the rose-tinted skies shine overhead, bleating out blotches of orange and yellow; sometimes even purple. It was as if a child was handed a blank canvas, assigned to doodle their dreams with just a finger and some watercolors.
And after that, it might’ve been even better. Once the sun would set, thousands and thousands of stars would emerge from the onslaught void in the sky; glittering and reflecting across the
landscape.
It was his happy place, his own little pinprick on the map of their shaded world. When he felt lonely, he’d go there and befriend the shattered balls of light above. They’d reciprocate and crash into the beautiful sparks of day. It had been incorporated into his nightly routine.
So, it wouldn’t be that long until he found himself back in the woods again, gazing through the gaps in the leafy ceiling. He began to pace in the dreary shadows of the trees, looking up at the sky, zoning his vision in towards the stars. For endless moments, everything was the same as usual, beautiful, slow, sleepy. He wanted to blanket himself into the moonlight.
He began to hum quietly to himself, the buzz of the vibrato in his throat tickling the inside of his mouth and down to the back of his ears. He upcame and began to pass the large, thick cobblestone wall, lifting a hand to gently drag his fingers over the stones that made up the wall; which had been smoothed down from the weathering of rain and wind. He felt the little bumps and ridges in the cobblestone began to wear down against his claws, but didn’t mind too much.
He eventually turned his head to look away from the wall, facing the ceiling of leaves and twig to catch little glimpses of the stars amongst the gaps in the treetops. The sun had seemingly already set, though Ralsei could still catch small glimpses of fading purple to the east of eyeshot. He continued to mindlessly drag his fingers against the wall, until something changed. The texture of the wall had completely changed from rough stone to a smooth, polished surface. He flinched slightly and stopped all movement at the sudden change, turning his body to stand in full view of the door that had formed in the middle of the wall. He narrowed his gaze, his pupils examining the dark swirls of age in the material of the wooden door. He pressed a hand to the door, dipping his fingers and pushing against the ridges of the stiff object, curious about when it had appeared.
He thought he knew every inch of the woods, to see something new was completely perplexing. Maybe he didn’t know the environment here as well as he believed. His gaze lowered to meet the sight of a golden, polished doorknob. It looked unused, too fancy and valued for somewhere as rugged as the wilderness outside his kingdom. He rested his hands against it, getting a feel for it in his shadowed, fuzzy palm. I was so smooth, almost weighty. He squeezed it tightly, and without even thinking, turned it and pushed it open.
The entire view in front of him, through the door frame, was completely dark. There was something about this absence of light that felt wrong. It wasn’t just light that had been lost, it felt as if everything else that might have existed inside was completely empty too. It was hollow, barren, dead.
He was probably just getting ahead of himself. It was just a dark room, there was probably some sort of light switch on the inside. He tentatively stepped one foot into the room, and a chill ran up that leg, through his soft fur, into his skin. He shuddered, goosebumps beginning to rise over his body. The room wasn’t just dark, but it was cold. Bone chillingly cold.
He pushed himself a little further into the room, enough to where his body was out of the wilderness, and completely inside. The ground beneath his feet was solid and loud, enough to where he could hear the soft slapping of his feet against the slick, glossy floor. He turned around slightly to see the light of the moon and stars from outside reflect in the tiny mirrored floor below. He let out a shudder of a sigh, before stepping away to try and locate the switch.
He stepped away cautiously from the door, trying to branch out and locate the nearest wall, worried as he was unable to locate one no matter how far left or right he walked. He slowly began to feel more and more unsettled as he rocked his body back and forth between where he believed walls should have been. His heart rate began to steadily increase in his chest, and he turned back towards where he had come from; catching sight of the door slowly beginning to close.
His eyes widened, and he bolted back towards the closing door, his heart starting to pound in his chest. He heard the sound of the door creaking on its hinges, which only assisted in the acceleration of his heart rate. However, as soon as it looked like he might reach the door in time, it shut a few inches away from his face, leaving him inside, buried deep in the dark.
“Help!” He yelled out, his voice hitching slightly as he rammed his hands into the wooden door, the sound echoing inside of the thick darkness. “Please, someone! I’m trapped!” He continued to push and scream against the door, before giving up and into a fit of harsh, terrified breaths. He slid down against the cool wood of the door, which weirdly felt good on the hot, red flush of his cheeks. He closed his eyes, trying to cool himself out of the anxiety that had entered his heart; taking a few moments to swallow big, thick gulps of air into his lungs.
After a few moments, he let his eyes flicker open and gaze outwards, narrowing his eyes as something other than darkness filled his vision. Far, far away in the distance was the faint view of a very dim light source. Ralsei quickly became more alert, rising on his feet and pacing towards the source. Soon, as he came the slightest bit closer, he noticed a tall shadow outlined in the middle of the dim light, a long figure stretched out in a vertical sense. The dark prince exhaled in relief. There was someone else there, he wasn’t alone.
“Excuse me, Mister?” He called out, picking up his pace into a jog, his long cloak flailing behind him, the top of his robe falling off his hat as he came even closer to his destination, the long man coming more into view. “Sir, sir! Are you okay? Do you need help?” He questioned, very much relieved that he wasn’t alone in this. “Gosh, I’m so relieved. I thought I was completely alone,” he began to ramble to the figure as he came closer. “I was so scared! Do you know how to get out of here? Sorry, that was dumb, why would you want to stay in a place like this? I mean, unless you want to, in that case, I’m really sorry-” Ralsei was quickly cut off in a swallowed gasp when the man turned to face him.
The man was elongated in unrealistic proportions, his body drooping down and sloping to the side as if he was melted. His chest showed a mass of white, hollow and trembling from the sheer weight of breathing in the absence of nothing. His hands were wide and thin, a large hole gaged in the middle of each hand. This isn’t even to mention his face. A large oval with two hollow dark circles as eyes, his left one split halfway by the center, two large strikes of carve-markings splitting his eyes in halves down the center. His mouth was formed in a wicked grimace, like a distorted quarter moon tilted to the side.
Ralsei stepped back, his eyes wide with horror. He cupped his hands over his mouth in a shake, terrible kind of surprise.
The man’s face glistened and glitched in some kind of horror as it began to speak.
“My child, what are you doing here?” It gurgled, an indecipherable language to the prince spilling from the gaping hole in it’s face. It melted slightly, looking sullen and terrified.
Ralsei just stared up at it, confusion and terror in his eyes. The thing seemed so sad. Was it in pain? “S-Sir?” He started, his small body beginning to tremble from the sheer fear he felt. “Are y-you okay?”
“No.” The man sputtered, lifting his arms to wrap them around his own torso. “N︎o︎,︎ n︎o︎,︎ n︎o︎!︎ t︎h︎i︎s︎ i︎s︎ a︎l︎l︎ w︎r︎o︎n︎g︎." It exclaimed in a bone-chilling sort of way, growing closer to the terrified prince. “No, you need to leave right now.”
Ralsei whimpered at the growing sight of the man, confused and filled to the brim with fear. “W-What?”
“You need to go.” Gurgled the man once again, beginning to expand and rise vertically over the boy. “You must go. Go!”
Ralsei gasped, scrambling to his feet and backing away from the elongated shadow of a man.
“Go. Go!” The thing began to scream, rising closer and closer towards Ralsei. “Go!”
Ralsei shrieked, turning around and running back towards where he remembered the door to have been. His body was throbbing with adrenaline, his soft black fur soaked with sweat. He heard the echoing of his feet against the flooring below him; which increased in speed as he carried his body away faster. He could hear the stalking of the man behind him as he seemingly gave chase.
In the distance, he saw a crack of starlight as the door began to reopen. He raced faster and faster until he couldn’t even feel himself breathe, let alone his own exhaustion. He was closer, and closer, and closer.
“Go, go and never return to this place!”
Before he knew it, he could feel something pick him up, and fling him through the open door, which sourced a scream through Ralsei’s lips as he left the cold air of the hidden room, which faded into the mildew-soaked heat of the outside.
His body hit the soft, damp grass, causing scrapes against his calves and thighs, along with his face and hands. He brought himself upwards shakily on his hands and knees, spitting out mouthfuls of dirt and grass.
He flopped backwards onto his back, heaving breathlessly as he faced the night sky. The stars were blurry through Ralsei’s vision, and he inhaled sharp, terrified breaths as he began to catch the wind that had been knocked out of him. He brought himself up from a sitting position, almost hoping to catch another glimpse of where he had just been.
But the door was gone, it was just a wall of cobblestone.