I woke up to a sharp slap across my face. Dizziness washed over me as I instinctively tried to shield my head, but my arms wouldn't budge. My feet were bound, too. When I tried to open my eyes, a harsh light scorched my vision; I snapped them shut immediately, the burning sensation from before still stinging like needles.
Another slap stung my other cheek and afterwards a hand tangled in my hair, wrenching my head upward.
"You dirty slave! How dare you kill the Witch!" A harsh male voice pierced my eardrums, forcing me into a brutal realization of my surroundings.
Beyond that man's voice, I could hear the low whisperings of other people in the room. It was chaos. I was doomed, everyone assumed I had killed Medea, a feat that should have been impossible given her immense strength and magic. How could they ever conclude I was the killer? Then, the memory of the final moments surfaced.
They must have found me pinned under Medea's body, my hand on the knife in her belly.
"W-where is... where is Medea?" I croaked, struggling to force the words past my cracked lips while slightly opening my eyes.
The men looking down at me curled their lips in disgust. I didn't realize yet that my face and mouth were coated in the witch's dried blood, or that my eyes had turned a haunting red, as if I were possessed.
"You demon!"
Another slap landed, but this time, I felt a spark of rage ignite inside me.
"Jack, stop!" someone intervened, leaning into whisper into the other man's ear. Somehow, despite the distance, the words reached me as clearly as if they were being hissed directly into my own ear. "We need to bring him to the Prince. If we tell him the witch is dead without capturing the killer, he'll have our heads instead."
"It wasn't me!" I pleaded, looking at every face in the room. I already knew they didn't believe me and even if they did, they didn't care. To them, I was just a slave.
I was used to people not listening to me, as I never had a voice in any matter, but this time was different. I certainly might die, and soon.
I never had a grasp of the world outside the castle, but I knew the depths of a human can be rotten. How they treat a 12-year-old slave tells you a lot about a person. Medea once said that truly good people can't exist on this planet, as it was the planet filled with the most negativity among all the planets in our solar system. So, salvation and forgiveness were never an option for me from the very beginning.
"Let's take him to the Prince; we might get a prize." One of them was about to reach his hands toward me when I suddenly heard Medea's voice in my ear.
"You need to escape. Now."
I tilted my head while furrowing my brows in confusion. Was I going insane?
"Little Leif, listen to me. Now, you need to repeat my words." Logic was not flowing through my head right now, but since I was near death, I decided to follow what the witch said.
I couldn't believe she really died anyway; she had lived for more than a century.
"Jack suddenly felt dizzy as a burning pain itched his skin. Little did he know that the witch's blood on his palm from slapping the boy could be poisonous." The words she whispered in my head sounded like a song, carried by her angelic voice. Yet, I knew better: never be swayed by such a sweet tone when the words she spat out sounded so much like a curse.
Wasn't that too long to repeat it all at once? But I whispered the words anyway, my voice moving as if it were no longer my own.
"Hey! What are you mumbling about!" Jack, who was about to reach me, stopped instantly. He fell backward onto the ground in pain, scratching his arms, his legs, and his face, every corner of his skin like a madman.
I was puzzled as I looked down at him. Wasn't this the witch's power? Had I really just cursed someone?
"H-hey, what the hell, Jack! What the fuck are you doing?" His friend crouched down to look at him, only for Jack to shove him away.
"In the confusion, Jack scratched his friend's face, causing blood to spill on his face."
Within a few minutes, it became chaos.
Everyone stepped back as the two men madly scratched their skin off. They watched me, terrified. "H-he cursed them!"
"He took the witch's magic!"
They were ready to run out of the room, but I locked eyes with the man who was nearest. "If you don't untie me, agony will fall upon your family." I said in a low voice, embarrassed by the words the witch told me to say.
The man looked to the others for help, but they had already fled. With trembling hands, he untied the little boy. By doing so, he was condemning the villagers to be killed by the Prince; the moment the ropes fell away, the man ran toward his family, desperate to escape.
Leif struggled to stand, his legs weak, but he knew he had to hide. When he stumbled out of the room, he realized he was in the village just outside Medea's castle, inside a small barracks. The bitterness of this newfound freedom made him let out a hollow laugh.
When he looked around, he was watched by frantic people, all of them busy running to save their own lives.
"They are just a bunch of pigs." Medea's voice echoed. "The fear of my magic was engraved deep in their subconscious, yet they still dared to come after me."
Leif had no time to be lazy, so he began to run toward the forest. He didn't know where he was going, but he knew that being far away from people was his best option.
"Miss... why did you do that?" After he had put some distance between himself and the village, tears began to stream down his cheeks. He remembered the curse she had cast on him, to be imprisoned...but where? He felt as though he could never truly escape prison, that he would never be free.
No response came. He fell silent and kept running until it started to rain. He ducked under a tree to seek shelter. Strangely, the sun was beginning to set. A whole day had passed since he was brought to the witch in the middle of the night, yet he had no memory of the hours in between.
Lost and alone, he finally lost his grip on reality. He began to scream, thumping his head against the trunk of the tree, lightly at first, but then with the desperate thought that perhaps dying was better. A life of imprisonment was not something a little boy like him could face.
Yet, he feared the pain and stopped smashing his forehead, which had already begun to bleed. He hadn't had the guts to end it in previous years; how could he do it now? A numbness began to settle over him, chilling not only his body but his mind. He couldn't and didn't want to think anymore. He looked up at the dark purple clouds and began to walk aimlessly through the rain.
He took a good look at his surroundings: the green grass that felt funny beneath his bare feet, the colorful flowers that people said held a sweet fragrance, and the strange animals hiding in the trees. Having never been outside, everything was new to him. They had told him that on the planet Vexis, flowers only bloomed where the Grand Witch Medea resided.
Since Vexis was a planet inhabited mostly by demons, black magic was the source of its life.
As Leif walked further, a strange sensation pulsed in his head. He lost control of his limbs. His body began to move faster, compelled toward a specific direction. He only stopped when he reached a massive crack in the ground. A moment later, his body controlled by an unknown power, took a step forward and plummeted into the abyss.
Only then did Leif regain control of his body. He screamed as he plunged deeper into the darkness, but luckily, he hit the water. He struggled to find firm ground; fortunately, it didn't take him long to get out of the water, and he started coughing and hacking up the liquid that had filled his lungs. Having his body controlled by an outside force had terrified him; he cursed his life and everything that had happened to him.
Once he finally calmed down, he began to crawl until he found a wall to help himself up. He continued to walk, leaning against the cold stone.
It felt like a cruel joke. He had been wandering for a long time, starving and lost, with no idea where he was going. He didn't know what was keeping him moving forward, but he knew he had to get out of there.
After some time, his feet sore and his energy spent, he spotted a source of light coming from a hole in the rock. He stumbled toward it and crouched down to peek inside. To his surprise, a massive civilization lay spread out underground. The houses were carved from stone, and rivers of glowing red flowed between them. Humans with dark wings flew through the air.
"Demons?"
It was strange. The maids had told him they were ugly, with black skin, no hair, and sharp, oversized teeth. But even from a distance, he could tell their silhouettes were gorgeous. They had long, shining hair and skin as white as marble.
The strangest part, however, was his eyesight. His vision had changed; he could see distant details with magical clarity.
Then, he saw a group of demons flying toward the surface. They were armed and looked furious. They were led by an eye-catching demon with long black hair tied in a ponytail that nearly reached his waist. His skin was bronze, as if he had spent a lifetime under the sun, and his wings were a deep, blood-red rather than black. Even from afar, Leif could feel his power.
"That's the bastard of a Prince. Kill him." Medea finally spoke, her comment as cold as it was useless.
But right after she spoke, the Demon Prince stopped mid-air. His gaze shifted, falling directly toward Leif's hiding spot. Leif's eyes widened, and he scrambled away from the hole. "Shit!"
He started to run back into the darkness. Even though he could barely see, he pushed forward until he spotted another source of light. He rushed toward it, only to find a small cave containing a pool of thick, black liquid. Torches lined the walls, their light illuminating the existence of the pool as if to highlight it.
It was a dead end.
And then, once again, his body started to move on its own.
"No, please... no!" He closed his eyes, terrified of what was about to happen. He only felt his body jumping into the water.