The dim, yellow light of the candle on the cabinet flickered, and the shadow of its flame crawled over the pastel pink walls, wickedly dancing around the room. On the far left side sat a gigantic wooden bed decorated with silky curtains on the top and intricate engravings on its rails. Above the cotton mattress was a beautiful girl, appearing younger than the age of ten. In contrast to her dormant state, her long silky hair was tidily tied into pigtail braids. She was dressed in an undergarment and a formal stay, which were tied to a pale pink petticoat and gown by white lace. Her long eyelashes rested on her bottom lid as those tender cheeks attained a faint shade of blush. Her hands were calmly placed on top of her stomach.

In the corner of the room, where the feeble candlelights could barely pervade, stood a young man. His silver armor suit shimmered as the light occasionally hit its surface. Unlike the girl in bed, he was wide awake and vigilant, putting a hand on the handle of his sword. 

As dawn soundlessly approached, the growing morning sunlight gradually eclipsed the candlelight’s subdued luminescence. Just before the brightness could fully illuminate the bedroom, the young man standing in the corner hurried over to the window. He pulled down the heavy curtains, returning the room to its original dimness under the wavering flames of the candlelight. The eerie silence resumed. The young man carefully stepped back to the corner, in which he stood for the entire evening.

The sullen tranquility was soon interrupted by the girl’s increasingly heavy breath. Her hands were no longer resting on top of her stomach; instead, they drifted down the sides of her body as her fingers tightened to clutch onto the sheets beneath her. 

Huff. Huff. Huf — GASP! 

The girl sharply wheezed and suddenly jerked up from her bed. Her eyes were wide open, exposing her dilated pupils. Her heart was wildly bouncing against her chest, and her knuckles were pale from tightly holding the sheets. Now the returning consciousness was slowly pulling at the strands of her nerves, allowing her to distinguish reality from dream. Even as her breathing finally quieted down, she could still feel the lingering tension in her skull, yelling at her to get up and run.

At the same time, the young man in the corner looked untroubled by the girl’s abrupt and violent awakening. Rather, he composedly walked over to the bed, and his steps were so quiet that they were nearly inaudible. He spoke nothing, and only gently patted on the girl’s back until her breathing eventually calmed down.

“Umbrian?” Her voice was still a bit hoarse from dehydration during sleep. Her dry lips were barely moving, and sound seemed to have come out from the bottom of her throat. She was still slightly shaking as she held onto Umbrian’s arm, yet those beautiful eyes were hollow as she stared into nothingness. Slowly, as Umbrian carefully patted her back, a hint of vigor returned to her eyes. 

“I’m listening,” Umbrian whispered as he untied her pigtail braids, lightly stroking her ginger hair. 

“I dreamed of it again,” a quiet sob escaped from her throat, and her voice was shivering as she muttered “I saw fire. Lots of fire. The burning stack and the blinding smoke were terrifying. It was chaos. They were yelling at each other, so I yelled at them. I warned them that they were wrong. But none listened to me.” 

“It was just a dream.” Umbrian softened his tone as his slender fingers ran through her hair to remove the knots, “You should forget about it, Caroline. Dreams possess no meaning, so you should not allow them to phase you, my princess.”

Caroline fell quiet again. The room, though decorated according to a delightful color scheme of pale pink, falls back to a melancholy state as the trivial warmth of the candlelight could not permeate through the embedded brisk gloominess in the room. 

Finally, as if she could no longer stand the somber atmosphere, Caroline anxiously asked, “Is the nurse coming today?’

“Ma’am always comes, Your Highness,” Umbrian answered as he gently braided her hair back into pigtails, “She is supposed to check on you everyday.”

“I’m not sick,” Caroline asserted, raising her voice for the first time, “I am not sick.” She repeated, as if she was confirming it to herself.

Instead of responding, Umbrian put a clip onto the top of her head, making sure that the shorter strands of her hair were not falling before her eyes. After a long pause, he sighed, “I do not know the answer. Your Highness, if I am allowed to be completely honest, I do not think I would be able to accompany you if they did not believe you to be sick.”

“Are you going to leave me, Umbrian?” Caroline clutched onto his arm, pleading, “Don’t leave me. They have all abandoned me. I don’t want you to leave, too. Then I would be all alone, and there would be absolutely no one standing up for me.”

“I’m not leaving you,” Umbrian smiled, holding her hands for her to relax, “But there will be one day, eventually, when you would no longer need my guidance. You have a strong soul, Princess.”

“But I always need you!” Caroline exclaimed, turning around to hug Umbrian as she buried her head into his chest. He quietly circled her with his arms, hugging her back.

Before any of the two were to speak again, a sudden knock came from the door. Without any permission, the door creaked open, and the intruder decided to enter. A middle-aged woman in a semi-casual gown shuffled herself in with a wooden tray, on which sits a couple jars filled with dark green liquid. 

Umbrian quickly returned to the corner of the room, where the dark shadows could act as his natural camouflage. 

“Good morning,” She nodded at Caroline before setting the tray down onto the cabinet without noticing Umbrian’s hiding place.

Retrieving her attention back from Umbrian in the dark corner of the room, Caroline glanced at the woman and nodded back, “Good morning, Mrs. Whitmarke.”

“How are you feeling today, Caroline?” She smiled at her and sat down on the edge of her bed, holding onto her right hand, “You do not seem to be in the best state. Tell me, child, is there anything troubling you today?”

“Thank you, Ma’am, but I am all well,” Caroline tried to pull her hand back, but it was tightly trapped between the nurse’s palms, “I simply woke up from a terrible nightmare. I would feel better in about a minute or two.”

“I am sorry for the awful night of sleep. Here, I brought these herbs with me. They might make you feel better,” Mrs. Whitmarke at last let go of Caroline’s soft, tiny hand as she reached out for one of the taller jars on the tray.

“She’s not sick.”

Umbrian’s voice argued from the corner, unexpectedly cutting through the conversation like an icy cold blade. 

Pinching her nails down at her own palms, Caroline’s muscles tensed as soon as Umbrian spoke the first syllable, and her breath uncontrollably grew faster. Yet the nurse did not spare a glance at him as she held the jar before Caroline, looking upon her with an encouraging expression in her eyes. The flickering flame of the candle casted both light and shadow across her face, resonating with the sparks in her intensive gaze. Squeezing the jar in one hand, she failed to reach again for Caroline, who, instead of returning the eye contact, was examining Umbrian’s facial expressions.

“Umbrian said I’m not sick,” Caroline turned back, meeting Mrs. Whitmarke’s reassuring gaze, “He’s right.” She added firmly, again.

The nurse raised an eyebrow, but she did not seem annoyed. Rather, she appeared to be confused yet engaged, as if she was observing something incomprehensible but interesting. “Are you listening to him, dear? Are you listening to him right now?” She asked eagerly, unable to hide the anxiety in her voice.

“Yes, Ma’am,” Caroline nodded as she became a bit unsatisfied with her questioning, “Umbrian is a great knight, but no one ever listen to him except for me. People do not realize how brilliant he is. They do not know that he is always right.”

“He may be,” the nurse shrugged, finally moving her gaze away as if she had given up on interrogating her, “Yet I have no authority to judge to the accuracy of his words. You should be fully aware now that everyone, including myself, should listen to the Doctor in this place.”

As the nurse turned away from Caroline and took out a device to take some notes, she heard a strange, consecutive tapping noise. It was not the sound of the tip of a pen brushing against the linen paper; instead, the tapping noise sounded so unfamiliar that it felt abruptly out of place in this particularly quiet room.

The nurse, facing back and blocking the faint light that came from the device, did not notice Caroline’s unwelcoming reaction to the sound, so she kept on tapping. The sound was amplified in the silence of the room, and Caroline imagined that it was growing louder and louder as it continued. The noise scratched her eardrums, pierced through them, then bounced back and forth within her skull, and — 

“Ahhhh!” Caroline screamed, scratching her scalp and destroying her braids, which were just tidily tied only a few hours ago by Umbrian.

Startled, Mrs. Whitmarke dropped the device on her hand onto the floor. The sound of steel crushing against the floor interrupted the tapping sound, echoing in the bleak darkness of the room. 

Shaking, Caroline managed to direct the tip of her index finger at the object that fell out of Mrs. Whitmarke’s hand.

 “What is that?” Caroline heard herself asking. She thought she would have screamed it out loud, but it came out more like a weak, shivering question; her voice sounded so distant and muffled that it did not feel like her own. Staring at the square, foldable, black device on the floor, Caroline sensed a sharp pain slicing through her brain. 

Without answering Caroline’s question at all, Mrs. Whitmarke calmly bowed down to pick the black object up. Checking to see if it had been damaged, the nurse held the device up again and unfolded it. As Caroline could now have a full view of it, she saw some blue light emanating from the side of the object which was previously folded in when it was dropped to the floor.

“Take it away!” Caroline neurotically shrieked, “This doesn’t belong here! Take it away, Umbrian! Help me!” 

But no one was there to answer her call.

She wiggled on the mattress, but it no longer felt soft and embracing. The sugary pastel color began to fade from the wall, which was deteriorating into a forlorn ugly gray. Although the wall was now fully devoid of any fantastic color, Caroline found it more blinding and unbearable to look at than before. Clutching onto her pale pink gown to find support, Caroline realized that her own clothing had changed as well; she was now wearing some lined linen clothes, something that was extremely unfit for someone of her status.

Instinctively, Caroline looked for the Umbrian in the corner, but the young man in the knight armor was no longer there. He was nowhere to be seen as if he had been snatched by the hideous claws of the evil shadows into the grotesque and dilapidated gray walls of the room. The entire place turned unfamiliar and worrisome within seconds, and everything happened so sudden that Caroline thought she was about to go completely insane.

Watching the little girl madly hitting against her own head, Mrs. Whitmarke calmly took out another rectangular black device, which was much smaller than the one that she was previously holding. Tapping on the object for a few times, the nurse held it up against her ears.

“Hello? Yes, this is Nurse Whitemarke. Patient number 13 is having an attack; apparently, the last medication wasn’t working.”