POSSESSION OF THE SOUL

 

-- by Blue

[ trigger warning: mentions of self harm ]

People have heard rumors. They say a flock of monsters have snuck into town and disguised themselves, blending in with the folk to conceal their true nature. They say these beings don't have true faces. They are like dolls with no paint on their faces, no stitches to show where the mouth and the eyes were. They are mere empty bobble heads, with probably empty brains as well. They say these monsters are stupid, but what they lack for sense they fill in with their confidence. 

"That's how they're so fearless to even fool the King's daughter from the East," the young lady tending for the bar of the tavern whispered in a rather conspicuous way so that all the men and women could hear, ale held back in their throats.

Hearsays and tales probably laced with lies were not new in a place such as this tavern. Every gathering posed chances of spreading stories. The truthfulness behind them didn't matter. What people liked to check was how interesting a tale can be. 

But this particular rumor was no simple rumor at all. Everyone knew it, but that doesn't make the story any less terrifying. 

They heard it from the King himself. 

A little over a month ago, a festival was held in honor of the princess's 16th birthday. The kingdom was splashed with colors and merriment as banners of different hues were hung all over the street. Performers from neighboring empires and kingdoms were invited to showcase their talents in front of the royal family. Not a frown could be seen. It was practically a crime to be sad in the middle of the happy occasion. 

But every smile soon turned upside down as screams spread like wildfire from the maids of the palace to the merrymaking men.

"The princess! Oh, the princess!" the maids shouted in fright. 

The King, filled with dread for his daughter, asked her maid with fervor, "What happened to the princess?"

The maid cried and trembled in the presence of his majesty. 

"Speak woman!" the king ordered her in rage, 

"The princess... she's been cursed by a demon!"

No one knew exactly what happened to the young princess. Only the residents of the palace and the poor King and his wife knew. There have been speculations but no one could prove if those were true. 

The maids have become tight-lipped as ever. Many assumed they were afraid of what the king would do to them.

 Others were certain it wasn't the king at all that they feared. They were afraid of something else more horrifying than a mere human ruler. 

"Do you really think it's them? The faceless monsters?" a man asked the chatty lady who was serving customers a glass of wine and a generous meal. 

"What else could've left those poor maids in such distraught? I bet my fanciest dress that they did as the rumors say. They stole the princess's face and fled. They're probably roaming the streets of the East Kingdom, chin held up high as we speak."

Every men inside the tavern laughed at her bold statement. "Fanciest dress, lass? We know you don't have any. Spare us the jest!" They laughed some more and playfully slapped her bottom. 

"Filthy men!" the tavern lady shouted in anger as she slammed the door of the kitchen closed. "I hate it when they do that. How dare they even suggest that I am making jokes about this. Right, your highness? They don't have a single inkling of the truth!"

There in front of a boiling soup in a pot and a ladle in hand was a girl. Her shoulders were shaking as if she was laughing but no sound was coming out her to make anyone sure. 

She was average in every sense of the word with her disheveled hair and worn out dress. She also wore an apron with a bit of gravy stains on the hems. But, as average as she looked and dressed, one thing was different that would've put anyone in surprise. 

"Oh, I wish you can laugh at me or berate me at times like this. I miss hearing your voice," the tavern lady said. 

Her highness, the young princess of the east, hiding inside this washed up kitchen of a tavern in the outskirts, lowered her head in somberness. She couldn't speak. That has been taken away from her. She can never seem to find a way to take it back. 

The princess looked at the lady of the tavern, but she couldn't exactly. She could see her, but she had no eyes. She had so many things to say but she couldn't talk without a proper mouth. She wanted to cry but nothing was there to let out the tears that was built up from a time of suffering in silence. 

The woman with the princess was once a maid in the palace. Her name was Dylia. She knew the stories and knew they were true. She was there. 

The princess, with her face bare and blank with not a trace of features prove as much to her than the horrors of the monsters her fellow maids called demons were real. They were out there, somewhere. 

Dylia couldn't help but give her poor princess a hug. She cried for her for she knew the princess might never cry again. Dylia sobbed loudly, mourning for the gentle voice that looked after her inside the daunting halls of the palace, one she might never hear for the rest of her short life.

She can still remember reading the letter from the princess, retelling every horrific detail that she couldn't see for herself. She couldn't bear to read it a second time, but the words were already engraved in her mind, visiting her through nightmares, fueling her hatred for the demons who cursed her mistress. 

--

"I remember that day to be joyful. It was finally my sixteenth birthday, the day I was to be introduced to the world in this epic social debut that my family and I planned ever since I was a kid. It was supposed to be a happy day and so I was smiling from the moment I woke up until that fateful moment.

Was it fate that played a role in making this tragedy of mine happen? If so, fate is cruel. 

Fate has brought those beings in my presence through a gift. They were skilled performers from an unknown foreign land, our messenger said. They were beautiful men and women, and yet they praised my beauty as if they themselves were not a treat to behold. I admit I was starstruck by their likeness.

But the deceit all but started through their saccharine smiles and flowery praises. 

One moment I was revelling in their stories from beyond the walls of my kingdom, the next they were gone, leaving me with a curse that restricted me of the things that made me feel alive. 

They stole everything that was mine, perhaps even my name along with everything else that made me "me". They were nothing but monsters. 

My maids called them demons. They were not far from the truth. 

I wanted to cry and mourn for the things that I have lost, but I couldn't. I wanted to scream and shout, curse those demons and pray for their souls to burn in the pits of hell, but I couldn't. It was a torture like no other.

The thought of knowing that they might be out there, smiling with the lips that once curved at my will, talking and speaking out with the voice that once voiced out my thoughts is sickening. I wanted to hurl, but I had to cut out a mouth for myself in order to do that. So I did. 

With the knife I took from the palace kitchen, I carved out new lips that would never smile at will. They are but mere means for food to enter and nourish my now ailing body. 

I am broken. 

I do not know what to do. I have lost even my claim for the throne as no citizen of the kingdom would ever bow down to the likes of a faceless monster of a princess. 

I hid when I did nothing wrong. I lived, but I am not certain if I am truly alive. I am convinced like the rest of the East that the princess died on that fateful sixteenth birthday. 

The princess has met her early grave."

FIN.

_______________ Thank you so much for reading ^^

art used made by yours truly, blue.

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