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The darkness of the night embraced the entire kingdom in its utter calm that August evening. It was terrible how quickly things could change.
One moment Magnifico was just a baby asleep in his bed, wrapped in the blankets his mother had tucked him in a few hours earlier, and then.... A moment later it was the smell of smoke that had woken him up.
The child pulled himself up to sit on the bed, crinkling his eyes calmly, still numb from the beautiful dream he was having.
He looked up into the dark room, immediately noticing the terrible change in the light coming from outside the building.
Illuminating the room during the night had always been the pale glow of the moon and the stars that adorned the sky, but now... Now the room was colored a vivid red that danced, in a sinuous symphony of yellows and oranges.
Magnifico did not hesitate to jump out of bed. He had always been a curious child, and changes like that were a rarity he had never in his life seen.
He stood up on his toes to look out the window, not knowing what to expect. Perhaps his father, the king, had decided to activate again that curious discovery that a merchant had brought a few weeks earlier from the Far East: fireworks.
But he was wrong.
He did not see magical colored explosions in the sky or any other kind of marvelous play of light.
All he saw was fire.
The child almost fell over in fright as soon as he saw the flames enveloping not only the small town surrounding his house, but also part of the castle.
Although he had never seen one up close, he knew perfectly well what a fire was. It could happen; all it took was for an oil lamp to accidentally catch fire to set off all hell breaking loose.
He heard his mother's desperate voice calling to him from the hallway, and without even thinking twice the child ran to her, leaving his little room.
The long stone corridor was also colored by the red light of the flames that enveloped the palace.
The queen stood with tears in her eyes as she looked around bewildered and frightened. Chaos was raging both outside and inside her house, and with the fumes of the fire blinding her vision and filling her lungs, it was becoming more and more tiring to concentrate.
Now that she was in the hallway, Magnifico heard the screams of people from outside and the sounds of heavy footsteps of soldiers running into the building shouting orders. Disturbing him was the fact that not all the words they were saying were in the language he knew.
"Magnifico!" His mother exclaimed, crying. Once her gaze met her son's she was shaken by perhaps a sense of relief, even though she knew they were far from being out of danger.
Magnifico ran to his mother with open arms, having her hug him and immediately yank him away from his bedroom.
He did not understand what was going on.
He didn't understand anything.
...But who could blame him? He was just a child.
Despite this, he trusted his mother completely, so he let her guide him through the clouds of dark smoke.
She dragged him down the corridor to the spiral staircase that was to lead them downstairs, however from the whirlpool of stairs loud screams in an unknown language rose up causing the two royals to stop.
The queen wasted no time, dragging her son in the opposite direction to where the screams were coming from.
There was a great uproar. The black fumes blurred the little prince's vision and made him cough as his mother dragged him forcefully behind her in search of an escape route.
They walked for who knows how many endless moments, back and forth, fleeing from unseen assailants.
Magnifico could no longer keep up. His mind was moving too fast, almost as fast as his feet, but unlike them he was going nowhere. He had no answers for what was happening, he just knew that this was how it was and that he needed to focus.
He was afraid, he felt it loud and clear, but he did not have to prove himself weak, that was what his father had taught him when they had both talked about how a good ruler runs a kingdom.
A good king must stifle fear, must be strong: "When you are anxious, you don't breathe, you concentrate." The king had once said, following a comment by his wife who had intimated that he should breathe deeply when he was in a state of crisis similar to the one Magnifico was having at that moment.
No, he did not have to be afraid, protecting him after all were his parents, guards, and...
Magnifico's mother's footsteps suddenly stopped, causing the child to bump into her.
He saw her cover her mouth with her hands as her eyes filled with tears and once again his curiosity took over.
He followed his mother's gaze and for a moment felt his heart stop beating.
Exactly as it had been when Magnifico had woken up, one moment for him life was still flowing in a precise pattern, while the next moment this pattern was overturned and completely overwhelmed.
He would have wanted to take courage. He would have liked to continue to believe that everything would be all right and that his father would always be there to protect him, but now, now that he saw him slumped on the ground covered in blood, he could no longer believe it.
His throat ripped open by a crimson gash, his glassy eyes still wide open.... It was clear that he would never be able to protect him again.
"MI RE!" Screamed the queen, letting go of her son to rush to rescue her husband.
The flames had now invaded even the throne room where they stood dancing dangerously next to the figures of soldiers lying in pools of blood, but there, at that moment, Magnifico did not feel frightened by them.
He was afraid for his father, he felt anguish for his mother, bent over weeping over her husband's body, but he was not afraid of the fire, that is until a dark figure emerged from the flames.
He was a tall man, his body covered with shiny black scales, as if these had been carved from an ancient obsidian dragon.
The only thing that emerged from the black intensity of his body were his green eyes, which shone with an inhuman light.
The man, who looked more like a demon than a man, passed through the flames without burning, approaching the royal couple menacingly.
Magnifico froze.
He wanted to do something. Scream, run away, cry, but his body was as still as marble and so he remained until the creature began to walk hypnotically toward his parents.
With each step, with each breath, Magnifico felt more and more helpless.
So small in the face of such a great force.
"Mi Re! Please!" Shouted his mother, shaking the lifeless king's body. Her hands became smeared with his blood, but this seemed not to matter to her.
It was only when the demon drew a dagger with a blade the same color as his eyes that Magnifico was able to unlock his voice.
"Mother!" He suddenly screamed, as the dagger fell back on his mother's body. She only had time to look up at her son, paying no attention to the attacker behind her, before her eyes faded of their vital glow.
She emitted a gasp and then her body fell back to the ground like that of a puppet whose strings had been cut.
Magnifico's blue eyes filled with tears as she watched her parents lie on the ground next to each other in a silence so profound that it seemed death itself was there as a presence.
The demon drew the jade dagger from the corpse in which it had pierced him. The sound it made resounded loudly above the crackling flames that had now devoured the royal throne.
Even the palace banners, which depicted the kingdom and the royal family, had caught fire.
The flames were voracious, more voracious than any vulture.
The demon looked up and stared Magnifico straight in the eye, leaving an indelible memory in him that would never disappear, even after so many years.
Magnifico stood still at first, frozen with fear, then a voice, a voice frighteningly similar to his parents' whispered something in his ear.
"Run."
As if by magic, the child's legs unlocked, allowing him to feel the weight of his body and all the awareness that was going through him.
His parents were dead and his kingdom was being destroyed by orrible marauders. It was as if the whole world was collapsing on him, but he was only a child and was not ready to bear such a burden.
He ran away.
He ran faster and faster, fleeing from his palace, from his city. Crossing with tear-filled red eyes streets where fire and blood mixed like colors on an oil painting.
They laughed at the fallen king, who had thought he was strong enough to repel them.
They laughed at the little prince, who ran away like a coward while his world burned and smelled of death.
No one actually saw him, which was a great blessing. Even his parents' murderer had decided not to pursue him, perhaps because he knew it would be useless.
What child would have survived the atrocities of the world alone? Perhaps he would have died even in the fire that was raging outside the palace walls, who knows.
But Magnifico did not die.
He fled, fled farther and farther away, and by the time he was far enough away to catch his breath it felt like his lungs were burning from how much they hurt.
His knees gave way and tears continued to stream down his face as from over the highest hill he had managed to climb, he saw his house burning in the night.
He cried louder, even screamed, but no one could hear him.
There were burns on his hands from the fire and he was sure that some of his hair had toasted as he ran, yet he was alive.
So why would he prefer not to be?
Why live if he knew his parents were dead?
Why live if he knew that out there, no matter how far he ran, his attackers would live contentedly, indeed proudly, of their feat.
And then where to go?
What could he do? He was just a child!
He had lost everything.
Every single thing was now ashes, and all he had left was tears and a sense of shame that gripped him ever more tightly.
He looked up to heaven and as his mother had taught him to do, he began to pray.
He prayed that his parents would actually be okay.
He prayed that that was just a bad dream so that he could wake up.
He prayed that his attackers would die in the same fire they had started.
But the stars did not answer.
No one would help that child.