Rough Draft Part 7.5 (Or maybe just 8)
And now for the conclusion
Welcome to my little corner of the internet! I’m so glad you’re here. Below you’ll find the final chapter of my fantasy short story Rough Draft. It starts like you might expect: our Hero is on a mission to rescue the Princess. I’m excited to show you where it goes from there.
Want to start at the beginning? Here you go:
Anaxl pulled himself up to the next mountain plateau, pausing to rest. His breath formed before him, a misty cloud that was quickly drawn away by the wind. The snow made a soft crunching sound beneath his boots as he bent down to help the princess climb up beside him. The same narrow staircase he had first seen almost a month before was still carved into the rock, open on one side. It curved around out of sight, inviting him to the top.
The witch stood in the middle of the plateau, surrounded by her pack of wolves.
“So it comes to this at last,” she said, her voice again seeming to come from everywhere at once, despite the fact that she barely spoke above a whisper. Anaxl moved in front of the princess. Despite this, his unease showed through his expressions. They still had not figured out how to utilize the weapon they had recovered.
“But of course you haven’t,” the witch said. The companions started, looking at each other uncertainly. “Oh! Oh that is wonderful,” she continued. “You believed you two were the only ones who could hear the master’s words?” She lifted her hand, palm facing toward Anaxl. A sense of warmth began to radiate from his pack.
“You thought, perhaps, that all would be revealed when you arrived here?” She closed her hand into a fist, and Anaxl started screaming.
“It burns!” he yelled as he struggled out of the pack. It fell to the ground. The witch pointed, and one of her minions ran over and grabbed it in its mouth. It dropped the pack near the witch and retook its place next to her. She held the pack up briefly, then turned it upside down and emptied its contents. There had been no place for the companions to stop for supplies, leaving only a length of rope, a spare cloak, and one other item. It fell last of all, hitting the ground and rolling a few feet. The weapon, the thing that Anaxl and the princess had pinned their hopes on, was a simple ____. The witch walked over to the ____, then kicked it with her foot. She laughed again, forcing the companions to cringe.
“You see? Even now, at your moment of greatest need, your hope comes to nothing. An unformed idea.”
“He still doesn’t know what to do…” Anaxl said, sinking to his knees. The princess hugged herself but did not lower her eyes.
“Doesn’t know?” the witch responded. “Or doesn’t care? Your precious princess has done nothing but fight the master since the beginning. And in the end, she turned you away as well, oh ye of little faith.” She moved suddenly, crossing the distance between them in a flash. Reaching down, she grabbed Anaxl by the shirt and flung him toward the stairs. He landed with a thud and was quickly surrounded by the wolves. They held back, but allowed him no room to escape.
To her credit, the princess stood her ground. “I will not be intimidated by you, creature. The narrator would never…”
Her voice cut off as the witch slapped her, hard, across the face. She fell to the ground, holding her cheek.
“What do you know about anything?” she snarled. “You have no memory of the past. You have no home, no family.” She knelt down, positioning herself inches from the princess’s face. “You have no name.”
The princess recoiled as though she had been struck a second time. She felt the world begin to spin, her grip on reality loosening. The witch was right. The princess had no name, was not even important enough for that. It was all meaningless, her part to play as significant as a snowflake.
Then another thought popped into her mind, and she knew it was the single most important realization she had ever made.
She started laughing.
The witch slapped her again, then lifted her high into the air by the neck. “At the end, even your mind is deserting you!” she said.
The world started to lose its color, whites and blues turning to dull grays, and the princess realized she would pass out soon. She tried to speak, clawing at the witch’s arm, but no sound made it past her lips. The witch brought her closer, intrigued by the prospect of hearing the wretched specimen’s last words. She loosened her grip slightly.
“You… said I have… no name,” the princess gasped. “But… neither… do... you!”
The witch’s eyes opened wide, and the princess saw something wink out inside of them, like a candle flame being blown out by a sudden gust of wind. Her arm was no longer able to support the princess’ weight, and it snapped at the elbow, dropping the princess to the ground.
She climbed to her knees, looking up at her enemy. The witch was standing still. Her forearm and hand hung loosely from where it had torn, but there was no blood or even bone showing from the wound. In fact, the arm, and the rest of the witch’s body, had taken on a two-dimensional appearance.
The princess walked around her, then reached out a tentative hand and touched the back of the witch’s head. It was flat and hard, like a piece of cardboard. She pushed harder, and the witch fell over on her side, landing with a soft puff on the snow. The sad creature continued to draw in on itself until it disappeared completely.
Turning toward Anaxl, the princess saw him doing the same thing to the now board-like wolves. They fell over easily and lay lifeless. Anaxl stepped over them and met the princess.
“That was… unexpected, your grace,” he said. “And troubling.”
“What do you mean?”
“The story is unraveling, there isn’t enough to hold it together any longer.”
“All the holes,” she said, “what happens if they aren’t filled in?”
Anaxl began to reply, but paused as the ground started vibrating. The shaking increased, and the companions ran to the base of the stairs.
“We must climb to the top,” he said. “To the cave!” As he placed weight on the first step, however, his foot went straight through. The staircase had become as flimsy as the witch and her minions.
“Anaxl!” the princess yelled, pointing. “Your hand.” Anaxl looked down to find that his fingers were flattening. Within seconds he could no longer move them. The transformation extended to his arm. He pried his eyes away and stared at the princess. For the second time in her life, she saw resignation in them.
“What happens now?” she asked, her own body beginning to stiffen. The ground beneath them turned to cardboard, and the mountain caved in on itself with a mighty ripping sound. Even the sun began to droop in the sky as it became a thin circle instead of a heavenly sphere.
Soon they were in total darkness, a blackness so complete that any thought of direction was now meaningless.
“Anaxl?” she called out, groping about in the dark.
“I am here, your grace,” he replied. She found his hand, but the flatness that was now their reality made it difficult to hold on.
“Are we dead?”
“Were we ever alive?” His voice was fading. She felt herself getting thinner as well.
“So this is the end for us? Alone in the middle of nothing, all because he wasn’t good enough to write the whole story?” Her voice was not sad, but there was a sense of disappointment in it.
“Yes. And no. Parts of us, the best ones, will live on in other stories. We were only meant to be an idea… or, an outline. A draft. It is difficult to think, your grace. But I am happy to have… known you…”
“Thank you for rescuing me,” she said. There was no reply. She knew that he was already gone.
She closed her eyes, floating through the nothingness. It wouldn’t be long now. “What was it all for?” she asked the darkness. “Will we be remembered? Will anyone even know we existed, if only for a moment?”
Just before the last threads of the princess’ mind evaporated, she heard a voice from the darkness. It came from everywhere at once, from outside of her dimension. The voice was not Anaxl’s, but she recognized it immediately.
Yes, your grace. You will be remembered.
Suggested music for Part 8: I Will Follow You into the Dark by Death Cab for Cutie
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