What is that…? Oh…is that what they call a kingdom? It’s been quite a while since I saw one. Yeah… For this book I will be trying something different… How about I simply write what I see… A book from my point of view. Hm? What do you mean that would be weird and too meta… Ugh fine… I will keep the same damn format… But I wont just shut up like last time… This book is mine after all… A record of all my attempts at bringing her back. That’s all this book is about. A record.

Ugh… Whose point of view could I even use for this story… Let me look around this kingdom and its various useless infrastructures that were just made to worship useless gods that do not even exist… Hm? Is that a transport wagon? They had that already?… Not bad, I must say… Whatever… Who the hell are they transporting? Let me take a closer look…

Oh… Who is this… He looks… nice, I suppose… In cuffs, though… So maybe less nice… He looks to be about… Five foot nine, I believe? Pretty tall, unlike the other people around him… His weight seems to be around two hundred and twenty-five pounds. That’s a lot for a nineteen-year-old-looking guy. The long brown hair and vibrant green eyes, though… Now we are talking… I wonder where they are escorting him… I won’t just switch to his point of view if they are just going to kill him in twenty minutes now, will I?

Hm… Oh… I see… If I had to guess, this gigantic building over there would only have to be what they call…a palace, right? Are they bringing him over to their royalty to get rid of him in some sort of ritualistic thing… Or do they have a better purpose for him, hm? Pfft… Of course I could just look forward in the timeline to see exactly what would happen to him… But for once I do not wish to break my own suspense…

Took them long enough to arrive—jeez… I was almost about to just look forward… God how do these humans do this… Living in a timed world… I would get so bored… I think that’s the right emotion. Not sure—don’t care.

They brought him out quite roughly… So rough, in fact, that his face crashed against the ground, leaving a nasty bruise on his face. A bright red one, in fact. I would have laughed if I had a mouth.

A hand gripped that poor prisoner’s face and made him look up at whoever was holding onto him. That hand was covered in a metal… An armor, if I had to guess. This armor wasn’t like the guards that surrounded the person. It was all silver, and it had a small crown-like structure above its eyes. Well, if I had to guess, this just had to be the king— The helmet came off the armored person’s face, and it was—a woman?!

A woman with long grey flowing hair that seemed to glide across the air as if it was owned by her… Her red eyes seemed to glow on her face as they seemed to stare right through the soul of the man she was holding on to. Her voice alone seemed to reverberate through the thin walls around them…

‘You will do.’’

And so will you lady… I found the exact person who I can give the red gem to in this world… And you just gave me the point of view I needed so the reader will finally stop complaining about the fact that they are reading from the point of view of someone who couldn’t care less about this world. Fine. I’ll go.

——

Harry Gage, “The Prisoner”

——

Harry Gage, the prisoner of the queen was quickly thrown into a room… He expected it to be a jail cell… But it was better—a bedroom. The queen seemed to have spared his life… But what for exactly? He could not know that as of now… But he would not complain… Why would he? He had just been given a room to sleep in after all…

He quickly hopped onto the bed and laid down simply to look at the roof of his room and relax… It was so comfortable… Unlike any other bed he had the luxury to sleep in before. But something did confuse him even more than the bedroom… Was the fact he had not been killed. He was a murderer… Thats why he had been arrested in the first place… And murder was punishable by death in this queendom. Then why didn’t she order her guards to kill him…

Not only was he a murderer… But he had killed—a knock rang out on his door. A guard of the queen gently opened it and peeked his head inside to look at Harry before telling him that the queen had requested to see him at her office so they could discuss his situation.

Harry could only wonder what exactly she had wished to talk to him about… But he had no room to argue anyways, so he gently stood up from the bed and followed after the guard who had motioned him to follow after him as they walked down the highly decorated halls of the palace. The walls were plated with gold and silver ornaments. It felt rich. Even a small portion of it could make him rich if he took it and sold it… His gaze lifted up to the roof of the palace, and it was unlike anything he had expected. The hanging bodies of the people who had defied the rule of the queen were all there. Lined up toward the entrance of her office, most likely as a warning.

The guard silently pushed open the grand door of the office as he motioned Harry to enter, which he quickly obeyed, finding himself face-to-face with the queen of this queendom. He didn’t know her name yet… But he felt like the mere mention of it would terrify him.

The queen stood tall at the window, the sun shining against her royal body. She had taken off her armor and had put it onto her couch as she stood there in her underclothes, a simple shirt and pants. Something light. Scars were all across her body, evidence of all the battles that she had been a part of throughout her years.

The room was silent for a long moment… It was almost awkward, as Harry knew well not to start the conversation with the queen. She could see it as him trying to impose… Which was illegal here, punishable by death.

The queen took a slow step away from the window, which made him take a step back. Seeing just how nervous Harry was, the queen couldn’t help but smirk at the face he was wearing… He was so scared of her… Good. Her steps were quiet as she advanced through the room as if she was merely a ghost flying by… But she wasn’t a ghost; she simply was that light on her feet. it was terrifying how in control of her own body she was… It was almost as if her body itself was in her control, just like the rest of the queendom. Harry couldn’t even control his body… It was in her grasp as if she was silently commanding it to step backward until his back touched the wall with nowhere to escape… Their heights, even while so close, were very different… She was almost a full other head above him… He had to lift his chin to simply keep their eye contact.

Harry could only gasp as her voice bounced off the walls of her office.

‘' Harry Gage… Correct?’’ He immediately nodded. ‘‘I heard you had killed your captors and ran away before being caught by my guards and being brought here… is that correct boy?’’ Once more, he could only nod. “I’m going to guess you are wondering why I let you live, hm? It’s simple, truly. I need a killer like you in my ranks.’’

Harry froze. She needed him? The queen… Needed him?

The queen immediately saw the surprise in his eyes and backed away from him, sitting right onto her desk and crossing her legs elegantly. ‘‘Of course, at first I will have to make sure you are truly worth my time… So tomorrow morning we will have a duel, you and me. I will not hold back; be warned.’’

He had…to fight her? God…he was fucked. The queen silently motioned for the guard at the door to escort him back to his room and make sure he stayed there. However, despite his fear… He didn’t complain and gave her a small nod as he turned to follow the guard back to his room… He wished she would had called him back to tell him all of this was some kind of a prank… But she never called him back as he walked past her doors.

His steps felt heavy the closer he got to his room… So much weight was on his back from the duel he would have to do agaisnt her tomorrow morning… All of that to prove his worth to her… Dammit… The guard stopped at the door to his room, holding it open for him to walk in before closing it—and locking it?! Harry let out a small yelp as he understood well that he really wasn’t going to escape his duel.

He laid down on his bed and knew well he had to fall asleep quickly so he would be at top shape if he wanted to be able to even stand a chance tomorrow… His eyes slowly closed as he drifted toward a deep slumber…

Suddenly… he found himself back at the house he dreaded… the one where he was kept captive… a nightmare, of course… the stress of the duel probably got to his brain… He had been tied to a wooden beam in the basement of the small farmhouse that was in the middle of nowhere… He used to live there with his mom before his captives had broken in and killed her before tying him down there… No matter how hard he struggled against the rope… it wouldn’t budge… he was stuck. For eternity. However…when all his hopes had died down…the universe itself seemed to give him an opportunity… One of the captors had left him a knife so that he could cut his food…Such a big mistake on his part.

His hands were quick to grab the knife and get rid of the rope in mere seconds… He wanted out. The captor who had given him the knife let out a confused snarl as he felt a sudden sharp pain in his back… The bastard had moved so quick that he never heard him…

The body collapsed and rolled down the stairs as Harry simply walked over it… In his face it was clear he did not truly understand what he had just done… But something was clear… This would change the rest of his life forever.