The sunlight hit my tired face as I let out a yawn and pushed away the light brown locks that itched my eyes.

“Erika! You’re awake. You okay? It doesn’t hurt anywhere does it?”

Ah, this familiar voice. Even without turning to face him, I instantly figured out the identity of the boy that blurted too many words, his tone filled with worry.

"I'm fine, Alec," I said to my childhood friend, “more importantly,” I smirked, “did you bring it?”

He raised a brow. “I… I guess,” he said, as he reached into his bag, and handed me the leather-bound book. “Couldn’t this have waited until you were home though?” he asked me, his features quite puzzled. “I– it’s not like I mind, but you’ve already read it so many times that the pages have begun to tear. Is it that good?”

Alec took a seat on a wooden chair not too far away.

I smirked and offered him to take back the book with a motion of my hand towards its virgin cover. “Why don’t you read it to me and find out for yourself then?” I said. “Anyway, it is about due time you laid your eyes on this great find.”

He looked exasperated with my antics, and yet, he also laughed all the same as he gently relieved my hands from the modest weight of dusty old paper. As he flipped it around between his palms, Alec asked me, “Where did you get this anyway?”

“Beats me,” I shrugged, “it was on our porch one day, and I just took it.”

“Erika!” Alec cried, horrified, “you stole it?!”

I frowned and waved his idea away. “Just read it, who cares, it’s been more than ten years now.”

Two nurses passed by my room — both of them enthralled by a casual chat.

Alec’s head hung low. His shoulders slumped as he sighed. “Very well,” he muttered before bringing a fist to his lips and clearing his throat, “The Princess of Dystopia.” He paused. “Dystopia? Really? Isn’t that a bit overdone by now?”

“Alec! Just read the book?”

…

Another sigh.

“Fine. Where was I… Oh, right. So— Long ago, in a distant land named Dystopia, lived a princess like no others. Her followers worshipped her, just like preachers would, with their deities and gods. And, felt like one, she did. Her hair was cut right at the perfect length. And her nails weren’t a centimetre too long. Her eyes, they reminded the nations of the most beautiful jewels to have ever been found in the history of mankind. A man once claimed that her skin, her features, had been delicately painted on by a renown of artist. ‘She isn’t real!’ he shouted from outside the palace, ‘she is but a tool!’

The man’s head was never found.

Alec’s nose disappeared into the book. He cringed. “Geez, she’s… pretty violent.”

“Don’t worry,” I chuckled, urging him to continue with an eager glance, “it gets better afterwards.”

“Whatever you say… Ahem. The Princess of Dystopia excelled in everything and anything she attempted. If they asked her to talk, then talk she would, in every language known to man. If women were robbed of food, money, or love; then hunt down the crooked thieves she would.

Be good to the good — even if you dislike them.

Be bad to the bad — even if you adore them.

Such was her justice.

As she sat high above them all, in the tallest towers of the land, force-feeding her people the image they wanted to keep of her; the Princess kept a secret — despite having everything, she had nothing at all, and how she envied the villagers who were always filled with a love she considered true for one another.

High above them all, in the tallest of towers, she always loathed the days to come. Questioning her sanity, wondering why this had to be her destiny, as she observed figures that looked like ants from above.

The Princess asked herself what it would feel like to have nothing, to be nothing. And then, another thought arrived, like a ship gently sailing into a port at dawn – into her mind.

What if I discovered it on my own?

Perhaps she wasn’t wrong. After all, once you had everything, there was nothing left to gain. No surprises. No more emotions to lose. It was a state of death before being dead that only the brightest minds could have achieved. It was the art of fooling friends, family, lovers. And maybe, she thought, that if she tried hard enough – the void growing in her heart would soon cut her in two. But, she traced her musings soon after, and remained stuck on the word lover. It tore a laugh from her tiny little throat that she would even assume it be possible, to find one suitable and up to the challenge, of withstanding all that she was.

Utterly alienated, the Princess of Dystopia was granted nothing, upon gaining it all. For public figures, dreams sold to a crowd, were not allowed to have things as beautiful as minds.

Kind to the ones around her, she would say, ‘You shall refrain from having enemies. There will be no such thing as violence amongst the crowds in my kingdom. And, should someone betray me, they will face the wrath of our gods. Banished, for their ill-mannered ways, will they be.’ Yet, despite introducing new rule over old, the Princess of Dystopia still walked throughout her land alone. It wasn’t unpleasant. The ground was thoroughly washed after all, and the new shoes, the dresses she had taken a fancy for – they were all here. She wondered where the girl who had believed in fairy tales had gone. Was it because I myself have become fiction? The question ran through her mind as she remembered stories from another time. Ones where Princes always appeared to save the damsel, or in this case Princess, in distress. Ones where the saved party, finally experienced love after isolation, passion traded for desolation. She wanted to burn, in fact, perhaps one could say she was already on fire – as he suddenly showed up at the bottom of her throne; a couple years after her wish to love had expired.

The man claimed he was destined to her. They were to be married off in the weeks to come. He proved himself to be a great ruler through trials and rites. The Princess of Dystopia knew he would make a great ruler, for the soon-to-be Prince, was the kind of soul one only encountered every hundred years.

At their first and final ball, they walked hand in hand, exchanging many glances and few too words. And, there, it happened. He kneeled down and presented her with the finest of rings – the Princess of dystopia’s heart shattered into pieces, not from sadness, but from joy. And she jumped, and cried, as he held her in his arms and laughed and sang.

It was not a day late that he soon set out to fetch his belongings in order for them to move in together, however, the sight he saw upon arrival was not an expected one. His domain was found in flames. The townspeople obliterated everything in his possession, leaving nothing, not even his life; behind. It was a frenzy of destruction, never before seen during the Princess’s reign, as everything burst into shades of warm yet lethal yellows; oranges and reds.

When the Princess of Dystopia had a chance to take in the scenery of horrors, it was already too late, and her heart was not just broken out from its frozen shell anymore – it was smashed beyond repair.

The next day, a messenger came by with a list naming the losses of goods, gold and historical buildings that all perished at the hands of rebels.

Nobody echoed the name of her sweet Prince.

Search parties were sent for the ones who had started all, in the name of a cause they called ‘The Princess has robbed us of freedom. We will fight back. Those hands of hers, tainted with blood up to her elbows, do not deserve to love.’

No one was found, not alive nor dead, for they had all departed long ago.

It was over. And no justice could have fixed her aching pains.

It was over.

He was gone.

They were gone.

The Princess of Dystopia wept. No matter the day, no matter the night, there was no peace in her once so fluid mind. She decided that if the Prince had never gotten to know her, then nobody ever should, for she had failed to save his kind soul. They were right, she thought, looking down to her open palms, I do have blood on my hands – his blood.

And so, the Princess of dystopia grew cold as she threw on her tattered cloak and took one last glance from over her shoulder at her fallen kingdom, she thought back to the man she loved and walked away. Some things are only meant to be admired. They are too beautiful, too fragile, to be held and touched. It was a phrase she thought about a lot as she spent her last days travelling across foreign lands, murdering every delinquent who dared cross her path. Until she too, met a fitting end, at the blade of a man who looked like him. ‘I’m sorry,’ were her final words, ‘I couldn’t bear to kill you again, my love.’

High above them all, in a tall, tall tower built upon a Castle that reigned over a faraway land – lived a lonely existence. Legends say she is still searching for a name, a way to convince herself that she is more than just a rotting piece of flesh, waiting to decay in the middle of the sea of faces. Beginning with nothing, leaving for nothing, the Princess of dystopia purged herself of her wrongdoings – never to be seen again.”