Princess (1)

She wandered for days, many days of night in the dark forest. And as time went on she sensed more and more strongly that she was being followed... stalked. The night grew blacker, and the slight hint of grey that had indicated the possibility of day gradually disappeared. She was blinded. Pursued by an unknown creature. She began to run. She ran for years, or seconds, or hours. She felt breath at her neck and claws at her heels, and yet the monster hardly seemed to be moving. It kept pace with her effortlessly, as if it was floating alongside her, or worse still, the harder she ran the closer it was drawn to her, and she to it. It smelled the blood in her veins, as if she was mutilated and bleeding rivers as she ran. And perhaps she was. Running blindly through a hostile forest with groping branches, razor thorns and stones like broken glass. It tasted her fear as if it had already sunk its teeth into her throat, dragging her to the ground and holding her fast until she bled to death or suffocated, She gasped and stumbled. No, it did not have her by the throat. It was much too large for that. It had swallowed her whole. She fell. No, these were try leaves and twigs, not the digestive slime of a monster's mouth. But it was upon her and would tear her limb from limb in mere seconds if she did not do SOMETHING. NOW!
She turned towards it.

She was standing. There were no trees, no thorns, no stones. There was only a vast nothingness: neither empty nor full, neither light nor dark, not colorless, but without color. Her vast horror stood before her, so dark as to make the former blackness of the forest seem bright as day. So dark, but luminous in its malice. It was hungry, but did not devour her. For the moment there was stillness.

"What do you want?" she said. Her voice was strangely clear and steady, or perhaps it only seemed that way as it was the only sound that had ever existed in that nothingness. It glowed and resonated with newness and singularity. She saw malevolent eyes, smelled hot rotting breath, heard cracking bones, tasted bile and shame, and felt chasms of emptiness torn through the center of her being like filthy, disease-ridden claws penetrating her flesh and sending her into spasms of impossible pain and madness.

And then it stopped. It had never happened. And a voice said...

"I want to devour you, your warmth, your happiness. I want the end of existence and the end of myself. I want your love and your defeat. You deny me, you are the root of my suffering as I am the root of yours. We belong to each other. Our two worlds cannot be separated, so our one shared existence must be destroyed. Your nightmares feed me. Your tears quench me. You have nursed me on your loathing and now your loathing is my life's blood. I can no longer bear to live and so you must die."

How small she was compared to it. As an atom to a star.

And she saw that what the monster spoke was true. It was her own fear, sorrow, anger, hatred, and loss. The great evil that engulfed her was born of her womb, one facet of her soul. Her only life belonged to it, it's only destruction was hers. She pitied the poor beast.

When she returned she found that she was alone. Still queen, but queen of what? of whom?