The Murdgen Palace was in great celebration, and I could hear the pealing bell from it. I was still on a horse wandering around the village nearby.

People started nudging and murmuring as they looked at me until a boy on the other street, older than me, caught my eye. He's hooded in a cloak, stealthily walking away. He must be the young prince of the Murdgen Kingdom, heir to the throne, with what he was wearing under his cloak.

And just after him, there was a sudden commotion around me that had me fall off the horse.

People were in terror, running away from the palace as I gripped a horse's rein beside me. Even the new king, running with the young queen, who looked back at me with her questionable stares, had just passed by me. They were all leaving for nowhere. Away from the palace, where a kind of dimension emerged, slowly expanding its area surrounded by a dark elastic membrane that shatters everything it overlaps into dust. Into erns.

A realm no human has to see. A living reality that ceased expansion before me. In front of me. As I held my breath. And talked to me by producing tinted lights within its wall. Then a swift reverse, shrunken itself in a blink back into an ern.

The palace and half of the village were gone, leaving about a fifty-meter deep hole in the ground.

People were still in shock. Some are traumatized. And there was I, who just walked away from the kingdom.

I was nowhere but here, on an isolated island after a long run with my horse. Just with another sunset in here beyond the sea. Zoning out, sitting on the soft sand, and gazing into nothing. Into the sun that only waits for its death.

Thinking of another intervention, I closed my eyes to fall asleep.

Then it was all black, a void-like space without light, in a state of consciousness. I waited for a while as I turned and looked around until thousands of tiny jellied spheres appeared like stars around me. Spheres where I stored every dream I had in each of them.

I grabbed a sphere then drifted to a bit of light far from me. I moved towards it as it grew into a round portal.

Inside was a bright hollow dream, a domain where lucid dreams were allowed.

Standing inside, I squeezed a dream out of a sphere, causing it to emerge from my hand, a dream where my mother died.

Looking at my mom as I was in a crowd, I gradually altered every corner, every person, and everything into different scenes. Into an ultimate dream where I entered our home through the door, holding a posy, and seeing how fine my parents are. They were sitting at the table, smiling and waiting for me for dinner.

As I was walking straight towards them, and after I looked at the flowers below my chin, the room darkened. Then my parents were suddenly drifted away and completely vanished into shadow before waking me up in the rain, shivering, and lying on my arm.

There are monsters. Right now. Around me.

Monsters can't cross their dimension barrier made of scorching mud unless it's weakened by higher frequency. Unless one human body is weakened enough to chill and breach their barrier. Enough for them to cross and physically attack that one unfortunate human. 

Hallucination. The word they say when monsters are just on the other side.

It's freezing. I'm even starving and dehydrated. And, here they are. Following me. Seeing them. Hearing them as I'm feeling sick, resting my head on a horse's mane, walking on a dark, rocky mountain. And they're even more terrifying when I'm trapped in a mortal body.

Among them, I stopped breathing when I saw a walking faceless, sluggish, tall, and slender pellucid humanoid. A ficsen. I averted my eyes from it, and just waited for it to disappear.

Then they all disappeared when I was slightly illuminated by a hut on the way down the slope. I halted the horse not too far from it and saw the same boy from the palace appeared in the doorway inside. He was about to close the door when he saw the horse looking at him as I tried to hide behind its neck.

When he closed it, I started to hear monsters' voices again, and my stomach was still growling.

My horse just started pawing, and I almost fell off it. I kept on hushing it, but it didn't stop until I dismounted.

I tried to think as I was glancing at the hut until I decided to start walking as I pulled its reins forward.

We stopped right in front of the door, and had a moment before I knocked once. I tidied up a little, and when I was about to knock again, an old, thin man suddenly opened the door. He was seemed surprised that he couldn't say a word. He just looked at me and my horse, as I saw the boy inside, glancing at me.

The man looked around outside suspiciously before letting me in, pulling me in with his hand on my back. Just by getting through the doorway, I passed out.

It was just all empty and darkness until my eyes were hard to open with a hazy sight. Seeing a dim room lit by a lamp beside the bed. My eyes tried to look around and saw the boy had averted his eyes from me. He was sitting on a chair by the wall.

I looked at the ceiling, and there was just silence as my stomach kept on growling.

"You must eat." He spoke. "There, on the table."

I sat up after hearing what he said and was dizzy.

He stood up and handed me some bread. "Here."

I took it and watched him get back to his seat.

"Thank you!" I said, and he smiled.

I ate up the bread and took the last one to eat more. He's just watching me.

I asked him as I was chewing, "Where's the man?"

"He's asleep."

"Who is he? Do you know him?"

"No... but. Can I tell you a secret?"

"Secret? Yeah, okay."

He whispered, "He's an elf."

My eyes reacted in surprise as I just finished eating and drank up a cup of water.

He continued saying, "And, he doesn't know that I know."

"Really? And if he knows?"

He just chuckled and asked, "You still hungry?"

"No. And, Oh! My horse..." I stood up quickly, but he responded with "She's fine. He fed her up and tethered her at the back outside."

"Do you wanna go? Outside?"

"Sure."

We got outside of the room, and I stopped in front of another door.

I whispered, "He's there, isn't he?"

He whispered back, "Yes, and that door works as a portal too."

"What?"

"Shh! You wouldn't wanna go in there if I were you. Let's get out of here."

We went behind the house and checked the horse.

"I know what you are," I said as I untethered the horse.

"Oh, really?"

"Yeah," And mounted it.

"What am I, then?"

"A runaway prince?"

"I know what you are, either."

"You know about me?"

"Yeah. You're alone."

"Right. Does the man, uh, know who I am?"

"Do you know people know you?"

"People know me?"

"Yes. The residents. You don't seem to know."

"Why...? How?"

"Can you give me a ride?"

"You're coming with me? Where to?"

"Anywhere's fine. Wherever you want."

"You sure about that? I'm kind of staying out of trouble. I'm no royal like you.

"Haven't I even heard you address me?"

"I'm not addressing you. I don't care what you are."

"Does that mean a free ride?"

I didn't respond, but I made the horse lower its saddle by tapping it with my leg, for the prince to mount behind me.