Burning Hope

Chapter 4: Facing Your Fears

 Did you ever have a monster under your bed when you were a child? Something that kept you awake at night and scarred you for life as a child? Well, I had my very own monster. Night after night as a small child, I used to lie in bed with my eyes wide open because I knew that as soon as I shut them, he would come and visit me in my dreams.

And right now, here was that same monster, standing before me just like I had remembered him. His skin was deathly pale and his eyes were two black, soulless holes in the middle of his skull with two red dots acting as pupils. His teeth were a nasty yellow and sharpened to a point, making him look like he might lunge at any second and tear your throat out. And that wasn't even his most distinguishing feature; his arms and legs were abnormally long and slender, and instead of hands or feet, there were metal devices at the ends with blades the size of butcher knives acting as fingers and toes that could move independently from one another—the reason I had dubbed him 'Cutter'.

"You...You're supposed to be a dream!" I tried to sound strong and brave when I said it, but in the end I just sounded really pathetic and wimpy.

"Oh, I am no dream, Sera. Or should I say...Prince Scarlett of Sciana!" He whispered extremely softly, as though this was his first time speaking. "I am just as real as the air you are breathing right now, as the food you have just eaten, as the music you were listening to, as the supposed 'friends' you think you have just made, and even as the first kiss you experienced only moments ago. But some of those, however, aren't as real as you may think."

My fear suddenly turned to anger. "You saw that!? What the-"

"Oh, I've seen much more than that silly fiasco." Cutter said, smiling sadistically as his finger-blades began twitching. "I've been asked to watch over you since you were small. I've seen you take your first steps, I've seen you on your way to your first day of school, and I've seen you shake and tremble in fear each night when you went to bed thinking of me."

I grit my teeth and balled my fists. "Alright, freak, you'd better start explaining what the hell is going on right now! And what you you freakin' mean 'not as real as I think?!"

Cutter spread his hands. "And why would I do that?"

"Because I guarantee you don't have anything better to do. That and I said so, you half-completed psychotic stalker from Hell!"

He smiled. "Alright, then. My name is Mortulus. I come from the birthplace of all fear. I serve under my Mistress, who rules my land, and she has ordered me to find the Prince of Sciana. You are her, Scarlett Seraphina."

I scoffed. "And I bet you're Abe Lincoln."

"Oh, but you are the Princess." Mortulus grinned and ran his fingers along one another in a motion similar to sharpening knives. "Your father is Ignacius, King of the Dragon Crown of Sciana, and your mother is human. My mistress wants the crown for herself, but she cannot fully take it until you are gone. I'll admit, it was a wise decision on the part of Ignacius to send you to the human realm, but not wise enough for my Mistress. She sent me and more of my brethren to this realm to look for you and kill you, and here we are. I promise I will make your demise as slow and as painful as I possibly can. And I will revel in every second of it!"

I scoffed, slowly standing up. Suddenly, I couldn't take it anymore. The scoff turned to a burst of laughter.

"What?" Mortulus asked, regarding me with a look of what I assumed to be confusion. "What is so amusing to you, Scale Child?"

I looked at him. "You know, I'm not even mad at you anymore. I pity you. Dragons? Princes? Kings? Heck, you even put a mistress in there? It all sounds like something from out of a fantasy novel! It's just too crazy to be real! It sounds cool, though. If you're doing some sort of advertising for a book of yours, I'd love to read it."