I don’t expect you to understand… it’s difficult to explain. It took me a while to piece it all together in my head myself.

  After the… events… at the forest, I went inside with my father and set about getting you a boat. It wasn’t difficult. Being a prince has its advantages. And I knew Vance had a reputation for getting on with the lizardmen, so she was the obvious choice. I even asked Bo to leave some of his old clothes for Tadwick to use.

  After that I had various duties to attend to. Sit by my father as he dealt with civil disputes in court. Have dinner with my fiancé and her family. Lessons from my tutors in diplomacy, courtesy, politics, and stewardship. Then I retired to my bed.

  I was starting to feel… wrong… before I even reached my room. My shoulder was itching, my chest felt tight and I had a headache. My bedwarmer was waiting in my chamber. Another perk of royalty is not having to climb into a cold bed. You met him in fact, it was Bo, he was probably the closest person to me. He’d been in my service since we were five. He grew up with me. Always covered for me, did as I asked, he did everything how I liked it. He knew me inside and out.

  And you know what, I barely knew a thing about him. Looking back… I really hate that. He’d devoted his life to me… did everything for me… and I couldn’t even tell you anything about him. I could tell you that he enjoyed exploring the forest. I could tell you that he loved playing in the water at the baths. I could tell you all sorts of things. But I don’t even know if any of that’s true. His job was to do my bidding. He may have enjoyed those things. He may have pretended, simply to please me, his master.

  You probably think that I should be saying this kind of thing about my fiancé. But I barely even knew her. She was a noble girl that I had only met a few weeks prior. Her name was Varya. It was an arranged marriage. I didn’t dislike her or anything. She was certainly a beautiful girl. Slightly older than me. In all honesty, I was looking forward to the marriage. In just a few months I would have been thirteen… then I would have been married. I would have had more freedom. I would experience the touch of a woman. Then eventually I would have children of my own and inherit a kingdom. My life was set in stone.

  I spent so long wishing for more freedom. Running out of the city, exploring places that I shouldn’t, taking any chance that I could get to rebel against the life that was designed for me. It was a life that excited me, yet I still seeked to escape it. And the thing is… losing all of that… that isn’t even what’s bothering me.

  I disrobed and climbed into bed. Bo asked me if I needed anything else from him. I told him I felt ill and that I would appreciate it if he stayed with me. Until recently, that was as much as I could remember. It hurt to think that I had taken my life for granted… taken Bo for granted. But I was beginning to accept my new life. It took years, but I had accepted what had happened.

  Then the dreams started… the terrible… vivid dreams. At first it was just flashes… blood… Bo’s face… weird egg looking things. Then things started coming through clearer. Until over time I could remember the whole thing.

  After we had gone to bed, I managed to sleep for maybe an hour or two. Then I was woken up by this… horrible cramp in my jaw. I tried opening and closing my mouth to get rid of it, but it just got worse and worse. Then the coughing started. Just a few small ones at first, then they got stronger and more frequent. Every single cough felt like somebody was kicking me in the chest.

  I felt Bo rubbing my back. He went to the table to get me a drink of water. But that didn’t help. I just kept coughing and coughing. Bo ran to get the castle doctor. While he was gone… I felt this… swelling… in my throat… and this repulsive… taste in my mouth. Before I knew it, I was bringing up these eggs. But they didn’t fit out of my mouth… my mouth couldn’t open wide enough.

  That was when I felt this excruciating pain as the skin on my jaw started to split open. I thought I was hallucinating it… there was no blood… my jaw was splitting open… the pain was unbearable… but it wasn’t bleeding. Then I felt a snap and my jawbone just… split. My lower jaw was in two and these huge eggs were just sliding out. They started in my chest, pushed their way up my swollen throat and out of my disgusting split jaw.

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  I must have brought up maybe ten of them before they stopped. I desperately tried to push my jaw back together, but it wouldn’t stay, it just kept opening again. Then I noticed the skin splitting in between my fingers and down my hands. I looked down and the same thing was happening between my toes.

  I was scared… I was so scared… I wanted Bo back… hell, I even wanted my dad. I just wanted somebody to tell me it would all be okay. I wanted somebody to tell me it was all a dream. I wanted to be woken up. But I wasn’t waking up… the pain just got worse and worse and worse. I was in agony.

  By the time Bo got back with the doctor, my arms had split down to my elbows and my legs had almost entirely split. As soon as they entered the room, I could see the fear in their eyes. Bo completely froze. The doctor had brought a priestess with him. She instantly started casting a healing spell on me, but it did nothing… nothing at all.

  The doctor tried to examine me… but I wasn’t paying much attention to him. I was transfixed on Bo’s face. The one who had looked after me since I was five… the one who had been nothing but the perfect friend to me… was looking at me in abject terror. I just wanted his face to change… I wanted him to smile… I wanted him to stop looking at me like that… the pain was unbearable… but the look in his eyes was worse.

  Then I felt something pierce my back and blood sprayed across the wall. I could feel… these strange things… wriggling behind me… like they were connected to me. But the blood… the blood that had sprayed out across the room… it wasn’t mine. The priestess stopped chanting and took a step back. She tripped over the eggs on the ground and started to scream.

  I turned my head to look. It was the tendrils. They had sprung out of me and pierced the doctor… his body was just hanging there… limp and lifeless. The priestess just kept screaming. The sound was deafening. She tried to leave, but the eggs hatched and she was swarmed by these horrid spiders. She fell to the ground and the screaming just, kind of, stopped.

  Bo tried to leave, but I just… I couldn’t let him. I wanted him to tell me that it was okay. I wanted him to tell me that it was all a dream. I wanted him to wake me up from the nightmare. One of the tendrils shot across the room and slammed the door shut. Bo spun round. He was begging for me to let him go… pleading with me. But I couldn’t… I just… I needed him to look at me with the kindness that he always had.

  He was so scared… so terrified… I could see that… I could see it and I screamed at him to stop. I shouted at him to stop looking at me like that. I didn’t even recognise my own voice… it was so distorted. I just screamed and screamed.

  He tried… he tried so hard. He smiled at me… in all of that, he mustered up a nervous smile. But it wasn’t enough… the smile was there… but his eyes… his eyes told me the truth. His eyes were still afraid… his eyes were terrified. I just… I just wanted him to stop looking at me like that.

  The next thing I knew, I had slammed him against the wall. He struggled against me… but I was way stronger than I had been. I didn’t even realise my own strength. I kept slamming him against the wall. I just wanted him to stop looking at me like that. I wanted the fear to leave his eyes. I just kept screaming for him to stop. I’m not sure at what point he died. I slammed him off that wall so many times… his head went… limp.

  When I eventually stopped, I just held him. I held him like some kind of stuffed toy. I didn’t want to let him go. The back of his head was squishy. Parts of his skull were still stuck to the wall. And I was stood there… holding the person who knew me best in the entire world… and I had just killed him.

  I want to say that that is where my memories end… but it isn’t. I don’t know how much time passed. But at some point, my body just kind of… took over. I placed the three bodies on the bed… and using my nails… I… I sliced each of them from neck to naval. I broke and removed their ribs… and… and… vomited this horrible… frogspawn like stuff inside of them.

  The priestess was the worst. She wasn’t dead. The spider bites had only paralysed her. I could see her heart beating as I snapped her ribs… I could hear the beat as I spread her skin to vomit inside of her. She had come to help me… all three of them had come to help me… Bo… had desperately tried to help me… and I killed them… I mutilated them. I used them as hosts for… I don’t even know what for.

  The last thing I remember is one final burst of pain as something exploded out of my back… I think it was the flower. Then everything just goes blank.

  Ever since these memories came back… I… all I can see… all that I ever see… is his face… his eyes… staring at me. That… fear… in his eyes. I… I can’t… I can’t keep seeing it… I need the thoughts to go away… I need them to stop… I need to get these images out of my head. But they won’t… they won’t leave… they won’t go away… and I… I can’t live with them anymore… I can’t.