Dark Prince

Ash

I sat upright in my bed, suddenly feeling smothered. I tried kicking off the covers but mostly ended up entangling my legs even more. My heart beat hard in my chest, and I tried to take deep breaths to steady myself and return to my own reality. I swung my legs to the side of the bed far harsh than I meant to. "Geez," I muttered. My voice was muffled in a yawn.

I stood up on shaky legs, feeling restless and . . . well, sad. Sad and empty. Needing to walk off my weird mood, I put on some sweat pants and slippers and left for the bathroom. It felt endless in my very large suite, but finally I made it there. I splashed cool water on my face and stared in the mirror. The reflection looking back at me had tangled hair and bloodshot eyes. I looked sleep-deprived, but I didn’t want to go back to bed. I didn’t want to risk falling asleep quite yet. I needed something to wake me up and shake away what I’d seen.

I scanned the lobby. It was empty, except for the yawning man sitting at the front desk. He leafed half-heartedly through a magazine, held to consciousness only by the finest of threads. He came to the magazine’s end and yawned again. Turning in his revolving chair, he tossed the magazine on a table behind him and reached for what must have been something else to read.

I darted past him toward the set of double doors that opened outside. Once outside, cold wind blasted me in the face, but it was exactly what I needed. Leafless tree branches swayed in that wind, clawing at the sides of the stone building like fingernails. The moon sending a reflected light across the fountain water. It peeped at me from between lead-coloured clouds, further reminding me that I should be in bed and asleep. Yawning, I walked around the side of the building. The slush on the sidewalk soaked into the cloth of my slippers, but I didn’t care.

Yeah, it was a typically miserable autumn day in Paris, but that was the point. The crisp air did a lot to wake me up and chase off the remnants of the virtual nightmare, or was it a memory? It was hard to tell. But it didn't matter. Whatever, who cares..
I do..

I gave up, and turned to head back.
When I was almost to the double doors, I caught movement in my peripheral vision. My mood plummeted. Great. People. It was typical of my luck. Half-expecting a pedestrian or a thief of some kind, I prepared myself for any contact that might occur.

But it wasn’t a pedestrian.
It wasn’t a thief.
It wasn’t even a person.

For half an instant, I wondered if I’d ever really woken up. Maybe I was actually still in bed, asleep and dreaming.

Because surely, surely that was the only explanation for what I was now seeing in front of me on the Hotel's lawn, lurking in the shadow of an ancient, gnarled oak.

It was Acey.