1 The Dream
On a green flourishing field, flowers bloomed, shimmering like crystals, reflecting off from the sunlight.
A slim and slender young woman clad in beautiful white finery, ran like a breeze, occasionally twirling around. The visibly ecstatic woman savored the moments as if she was seeing the sunshine for the first time.
Up above in the clear blue sky, the sun shone providing the soothing sunshine to all the living beings. For her, the world and the sky expanded limitlessly and without a single soul around, the young woman felt that the world was hers to conquer and the sky, belonged solely to her.
Behind her, at enough distance were the footsteps trailing gently and slowly as if the person wished to give her enough space to be wild and free.
"Princess! Be careful enough not to trip over your feet." The man shouted, and his voice echoed in the surrounding and as he gazed lovingly at her, an indescribable sense of happiness swelled up his heart.
The young lady stopped abruptly and turned around with a flirtatious attitude and replied, "It would be an honor to fall onto these beautiful flowers." Fluttering her arms out, she twirled around a couple of times reeling in everything around her.
"Haha," the man chuckled from the distance. Nothing in life made him feel as happy as seeing the woman who was precious to him, happy and carefree.
The young lady stopped to face the man approaching her. She looked down at the ground for a few seconds as if a deep thought struck her and then looked at the man walking slowly towards her.
Her gaze warmed. She smiled brightly at the man at the front; her expression held such affection for him that touched his heart. In the moment of silence, her face showed a thousand unspoken words of love. She watched him take a step towards her and her legs automatically began covering the distance between them.
She held still momentarily as the emotions that she came across in his eyes stopped the world for her. She had barely taken a step more towards him, two arrows pierced right into her back, out of nowhere and the flower field instantly changed into a dark mountain cliff.
She stumbled on her steps, and even in the pain that was shooting in her body, her hand was trying to reach out for the man but in just a couple of more seconds, more arrows flew at her and each one of them, hit their target right and the fierce, powerful arrows pushed her, making her lose her footing and forcing her off the cliff.
"Princess," the man yelled as he rushed forward at full speed, desperately stretching his hand out for her to grab, only to miss her in his grasp.
*
In a spacious room with a night light on, a young man gasped as he jerked awake from his bed. His palm touched his forehead wet with sweat beads. He scanned the area and a sense of déjà vu sank in. Another dream… again, he sighed. He took a deep breath and lay back on the bed. His nightmares seemed to be getting worse lately.
He constantly tossed and turned, unable to fall asleep again. Every time after he dreamed, the emotions that evoked in his dreams always made him feel incomplete in reality for the next few days, causing him to not feel like himself.
He finally got up and called a servant to bring him some hot tea. After giving the order, he walked out to his office, which was the room, next door. He got to the desk, turned on the computer and compared data from his screen to the stacks of documents on his desk.
Not long later, an old butler knocked on the door to let him know that he was entering the room.
"Come in," he allowed.
The door opened and the old butler who was in his early 60s with black mixed gray hair walked in with a tea set. The butler placed the tea set on the desk next to him. "Prince, it's not good for your health to be awake at this time of night this often. Did you have another nightmare?"
"Mmm," the prince replied while concentrating on his computer screen.
"Same old disease?" the butler asked, although he could guess the answer himself. He wanted to keep checks on how many times the prince woke up in the middle of the night due to bad dreams.
The prince paused for a few seconds and sighed before replying in a low tone, "Yes."
"Would you like me to find a psychic to help look into those recurring dreams of yours?" Though he had asked the same question quite a lot of times earlier and the answer had always been 'no', he continued to ask hoping that one day, his prince, would cave in and agree.
The prince replied without looking at the butler before signaling him to leave, "No need."
After the butler stepped out, he sighed, shaking his head with a pitiful expression. He remembered when the prince was a child; the child prince would sometimes wake up screaming and sometimes with a soulless expression. To what he assumed, the young prince then must have had bad dreams.
It was only until later that the butler understood that his nightmares were not as simple as they seemed. There was a deeper meaning to those dreams.
After some recurring nightmares, the prince then used a night light in his sleep and despite his age of 25 years young, he continued to use a night light, every night afraid to wake up one day to a whole different world.
Never wanting to trouble his parents or anyone, the prince had kept all his problems to himself. He was a person who liked to keep things in. He never opened up to anyone and even at such a young age, he was never bossy, needy, or spoiled which was so unlike a royal child. He seemed mature beyond his age, surprising the adults, even his parents- the king and the queen.
He dealt with his problems his own way and thus, the issue remained unspoken to anyone. The butler felt conflicted, unable to choose between disobeying his prince and consulting someone or keeping the problem a secret from everyone and taking his prince's problem to his grave.
Deep down, the butler had hoped that as the prince grew older, he would be more inclined to find out the root cause of his issue, but instead, he buried himself with works, leaving very little time for anything else.
