Chapter 2

Chapter 2: A Glimpse of Hell

Through the crack of that door, Princess Anastasia saw two men holding a half-naked man by his arms. There was also a third man who was standing in front of that beaten-up man.

That poor man was covered in his own blood and sweat, most probably after the extreme torture that he endured. His upper body had a lot of bruises and cuts. And he looked like he was on the verge of death.

But that was not what frightened the innocent Princess. It was what happened after.

The tall and fierce-looking man who was standing in front of that injured man stepped closer to him. And before Anastasia could blink, that devilish man made a swift movement and snapped that injured man’s neck.

And in the next moment, he dropped down to the cold floor... lifeless.

A soft gasp escaped Princess Anastasia’s lips when she witnessed that horrifying scene. And followed by her gasp, she saw a pair of glowing red eyes slowly turning in her direction.

The Princess swiftly moved away from the crack of the door and clasped her mouth as well as her nose with her palm. She held her breath while her body began shaking like a leaf. And her eyes, they looked as though she had just witnessed a glimpse of Hell.

.....

Seeing the Princess in that state, Tilla didn’t even dare to ask what she saw inside the room. She could tell that whatever she saw was very terrifying.

Tilla wanted to grab the Princess’s hand and run away from there. Or at the very least, she wanted to comfort the petrified Princess.

However, before she could do any of those, her body stiffened when she heard a chilling voice from inside the room.

“What shall we do with the body, Your Majesty? Shall I ask a servant to dig a grave?”

‘Your Majesty?’ Anastasia repeated it in her head with a stunned expression in her eyes.

Her heart began to pound very rapidly as if it wanted to escape from her chest. The Princess was already shaking like a leaf. And the sudden realization that she was betrothed to a murderer made her knees give out.

Anastasia suddenly felt like she would collapse right then and there. But Tilla swiftly stepped forward, both of her hands clutching the suitcases tightly, and lent her shoulder for the Princess to hold.

From inside the room, a grim cackle echoed throughout the hall followed by a hoarse voice, “Dig a grave? For this worthless man? Just save the trouble and dump him into the river.”

“Oh, don’t be such a fool, Caspian.” Another man spoke in a relatively less frightening voice. However, what he said next didn’t make him sound any better than the previous two, “He’ll only make the river dirty. You better bury him somewhere in the forest. At least his body could be nutritious to some trees.”

“I highly doubt that.” Anastasia and Tilla heard the King’s voice again. He scoffed and then mocked the man they had just brutally tortured and murdered, “I think even his body would be as useless as him. He didn’t even taste that good.”

Both Anastasia and Tilla glanced at each other in utter disbelief. “He didn’t even taste that good...” This sentence pierced through those frail human hearts and sent a chill shiver down their spines.

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At first, Anastasia thought that she could have misheard her to-be husband. She thought that her ears were playing tricks on her because of what she had witnessed not long ago.

However, the Princess was proved wrong when she heard the first man agreeing to the King, “Ugh! I agree with His Majesty. He didn’t taste as good as I expected.” That man kept on speaking in a complaining tone, “Hunting this man down was such a waste of our energy. His blood just spoilt my taste buds.”

‘What are they even talking about? Did they hunt that man? They were... eating that man? Are they cannibals?’ Anastasia’s mind was bombarded with thousands of questions at once and her mind went fuzzy.

Anastasia wasn’t even able to perceive the mortal danger that the two of them were already in.

Tilla, on the other hand, was already a complete mess. She was tightly shutting her lips and was silently shedding streams of tears. Her knuckles had already turned white because of the pressure that she was using to grip the suitcase handles.

Though Tilla had not witnessed the brutality that the Princess saw by accident, the insensitive comments that those men were making about a dead man was enough to shatter the last shred of hope that she had, hope that the rumors about the King being a monster were false.

And the handmaid ended up completely breaking down before the Princess did.

She kept on gazing at the Princess with pitiful eyes. She hated the fact that her childhood friend and her beloved Princess was about to fall into the hands of a cold-blooded killer.

As if it wasn’t already the worst day of both of their lives, both of them heard even more shocking statements from the King himself, “Shall we cleanse our mouth with some sweeter blood? I can smell two delicious humans right behind that door.”

“I don’t think they are just any humans. They smell like mouthwatering ladies,” another one spoke as though he was thinking about the most delicious meal in the world.

All this time, Anastasia was trying really hard not to completely surrender to her fear. However, those sadistic remarks that she just heard finally managed to get to her.

She felt a chilling pain in her heart. Sweat beads started to form all over her forehead. Her breathing got heavier and heavier. And she started feeling light-headed.

To add to that, her vision also started to get blurry. She was sure that she would collapse at any moment now.

Before the ladies could slip away from the looming danger, they heard some footsteps slowly approaching the door.

Anastasia could feel that they were in grave danger but she couldn’t bring herself to even move an inch. Her whole body went numb.

‘They’re going to kill us!’ Tilla thought to herself as she imagined a fleeting image of her and the Princess’s dead bodies floating in some unknown river.

And in the desperation of the moment, Tilla suddenly entered the fight-or-flight mode. She threw the suitcases in the air, grabbed the Princess by her wrist, turned around, and then bolted from that place.

Tilla led the Princess towards the main gate of the Palace in the hopes of getting away from the murderers and saving both of their lives.

She led Anastasia through the same hallways which they had walked earlier. Tilla was making the Princess run so fast that the petrified Princess was already out of breath.

“Tilla, I don’t feel good. I don’t think I can run any longer,” Anastasia pleaded breathlessly for her maid to stop pulling her. Her heart was pumping so loudly that she felt like her heart was going to explode.

Tilla felt sorry for the Princess but they didn’t have the luxury to rest, especially when those monsters were most probably coming after them.

“Please hold on for a while, Princess. I will take us out of this slaughterhouse,” Tilla promised the Princess even when she was unsure if they would be able to walk out of the castle alive.

They were outside the castle in no time. However, to Tilla’s dismay, the path that led towards the main gate was already well lit-up with countless torches. It sabotaged her plan to use the darkness to their advantage and run while hiding from those killers.

Still, Tilla had some hopes left for them because she didn’t see any guards anywhere in the vicinity.

“If we are lucky enough then we might be able to hitch a ride from a passing carriage,” Tilla thought to herself as they were getting closer and closer to the main gate.

However, it looked like Lady Luck was not on their side.

While struggling to match her pace with Tilla, Anastasia saw a dark shadow of something flying above them. At first, she thought that it was a large bird. But could she be any more wrong?

It was not a bird but a handsome young man.

He gently landed in front of the Princess and her handmaid and blocked their path.

Anastasia and Tilla abruptly stopped running to avoid bumping into that man.

For a brief second, Anastasia and that man’s eyes met each other. And a chill shiver ran down her spine because she recognized those pair of blood-red eyes. They were the same pair of eyes that she had seen in the room earlier.

Without wasting a second, Anastasia grabbed Tilla’s wrist this time.

“Run!” the Princess turned on her heels and dragged her maid in the opposite direction.

They had only taken a few steps when two more men appeared out of nowhere and blocked their path. Anastasia tried to run to the side but those three men had already closed in and encircled the powerless ladies.

It was very na?ve of them to think that they could outrun the literal monsters.