Sigh.
A disappointed breath escaped him as he paged through the weathered, dry parchment of the fairytale book.
Contrary to what he was expecting, most of the texts were little more than made-up tales meant for teach young children a lesson—stories of lost cities, a sorcerer who founded a city of magic, and heroes who slayed dragons and rescued princesses.
There were no mentions of divine beings granting blessing mortals with power or delivering prophesies, just your textbook, run of the mill fairytale where everything ended with smiles and rainbows.
Another sigh left his mouth as he rested his elbow on the desk, lazily flipping through the pages as he scanned the stories contents.
This one in particular made him pause, not because of any divine mentions but rather because it felt somewhat similar to what he was doing right now—or at least endeavouring to.
It was about a scholar, desperate to save his dying mother, had chased an old legend about a library hidden in the vast desert said to contain knowledge beyond mortal reach…
But that was where his interest ended, as the final page was him returning to his mother having found the method for creating the cure in a scroll and them living happily ever after.
"What was I even expecting?" He said aloud to himself, fingers mindlessly playing with the corner of the page.
The anticipation he had built up on his way to reading the book made it feel like almost a waste with how little pay off he had received.
No. It was more like he was scammed, and instead of answers, all he got was a mouthful of disappointment.
'At least these pictures are nice…' He thought, consoling himself with being satisfied with at least that much.
Even with how old the book looked, the illustrations still maintained an air of elegance and nobility that held one's eyes despite the slightly faded ink.
As he moved to turn the page and close the book, his fingers caught slightly on the corner.
He paused.
The page hadn't turned cleanly. And when he held up his index finger in the sunlight, a tiny paper cut was there, deep enough to draw a small trickle of blood.
Thorsten's swifty placed his finger in his mouth; eyes darting over his table for something to cover the wound.
But as his gaze ran over that same corner, something odd caught his eye—the paper somehow had two edges.
"Huh?" He sounded out, the taste of blood and iron filling his mouth.
He paused his search to carefully pull at one of the corners, causing the parchment to part far enough that this wasn't something that could be dismissed as a simple tear in the page.
Slowly, very slowly, he wiped off his finger with a nearby handkerchief, before carefully gripping the two corners.
Then he pulled them apart, slowly, as if to delay the inevitable.
Finally, after a few minutes of carefully pulling to separate them, the pages came apart with a satisfying sound that tickled the back of his head.
But what was on those pages washed away any satisfaction he had felt when the pages came apart—leaving him to feel a dreadful chill as his eyes were naturally drawn to the illustrations on the page.
Where the earlier pages had been bright and deliberate, these were harsher—rendered in heavy strokes and uneven lines, as though they had been carved into the page rather than drawn.
Thorsten frowned.
A faint, creeping cocktail of confusion and unease brewing in the back of his mind.
He forced those thoughts down, choosing instead to read the words instead of making a premature judgement.
Shifting his attention upwards, to the text, he struggled with reading most of the words.
The ink had bled and warped where the pages had been pressed together, the words fractured and difficult to follow—but not enough to obscure their meaning.
With a trembling finger, he slowly ran his finger along the lines, guiding his eyes through the pages.
_____
The scholar was actually a prince… heir to a withering kingdom… praised for his integrity…
The first image showed him standing before a crumbling city, its walls fractured, its people gaunt.
…who sought peace where violence was the only law…
The next image shifted—his hands no longer empty, behind him was a large building hidden within a sandstorm.
Thorsten's eyes narrowed.
Rolled parchment. Symbols etched in sharp, deliberate strokes.
Not gifted. Taken.
The knowledge they contained too enticing to pass on obtaining.
…blueprints… weapons beyond their time…
Steel followed. Lines of soldiers. Not defending—advancing.
…he drove back those who oppressed his people…the bringer of salvation.
The strokes grew harsher. The formations larger.
The direction changed.
Not outward—forward.
…and in victory, he sought more… to rise higher.
The next page was darker.
A great desert.
Endless, sand spilling over the borders of the illustration—and stained.
Not shaded.
Stained.
…the desert ran red…
His grip tightened slightly on the page.
The following lines were harder to make out, smeared where ink had bled into ink—
… a sickness… spreading…
The image beneath it showed no battle.
Only bodies.
Fallen not from battle, but a force unbeatable even with the greatest arms.
…he returned… sought answers once more…
The structure appeared again—the library, half-buried, its form distorted beneath jagged lines of sand. [seen]
…denied…
…judgement…
His punishment.
The next illustration fractured entirely.
Figures—no, what remained of them—scattered across the crimson dunes.
And at the centre…
One man remained.
Blood-red tears streaming down his blurry face as he cried out towards the heavens
The text beside it was barely legible.
…all that remained…
The final lines were the clearest.
As if they had been written last.
Or meant to be read.
…and so, he was left—
to remember.
—The End.
_____
As he turned over to the next page, a strange sense of dissonance settled over him.
Instead of a continuation, he was greeted by the sight of bright colours—an illustration of a vast, jewel like sea stretching out beneath an open sky.
The start to a different story.
"What? No—that can't be it…"
He flipped back.
The image of the prince remained—frozen in that final moment.
His fingers moved to the edge again, more frantic this time, picking at the seam where the pages had been forced apart.
But it didn't give.
There was nothing left to see.
That was the end.
Thorsten stiffened in his seat.
For a moment, he could only stare blankly at the prince's final moment, his thoughts failing to catch up with what he had just read.
This was supposed to be another boring fairytale, nothing more.
So where was the happy ending?
He had saved his mother—so why didn't it stop there?
The questions pressed in, one over the other, until a single thought rose above the rest: 'Was this the only one?'
Forcefully swallowing the lump in his throat, he paged back to a previous story he had already read.
Among all the ones he had seen, this one was the closest to the ones he could remember from earth.
It began with a brash rash and restless boy who dreamed of more than the quiet, nameless village he had been born into.
One day, while tending to his herd, a lone hunter emerged from the surrounding woods. Sensing something within the boy, he offered to take him on as a student.
The boy refused.
He spoke of duty to his grandparents, of the family he could not abandon, and the life he was bound to.
The hunter did not press him. Instead, he left the boy with a parting gift: a short sword, and the knowledge of how to wield it.
Days later, the village burned.
With nothing left to remain for, the boy sought out the man. And in doing so, unknowingly stepped onto the path of a knight.
Years passed.
Under the hunter's guidance, the boy's once reckless spirit had been tempered into resolve, his untapped potential shaped into strength and skill.
In time, he came to be known not as another upstart, but as a swordsman of rare talent.
It was during these years that word reached him of a kingdom in distress—a distant land plagued by a great beast that had taken roost in the mountains overlooking its capital.
A dragon.
It was said that the creature's shadow alone could swallow the sun, and that its flames had reduced entire battalions to ash.
Many had tried to slay it, yet none had returned.
Drawn by equal parts duty and ambition, the young knight set out for that kingdom.
The journey was long, and the trials many, but in the end, he stood before the beast.
Cold steel met red scales.
Insatiable greed faced an unshakable resolve.
And when the flames had died and the dust had settled, it was the dragon that lay still.
The kingdom was saved and its people freed.
And from the depths of the dragon's lair, the knight had stumbled upon a peculiar tower—where the kingdoms princess was being imprisoned by the beast.
Where others saw only a hero, she saw the man beneath it.
And where he had once sought purpose, he found something more.
In time, the two were wed.
And when the ageing king, with no heir to succeed him, passed the crown on, it was the former farm boy who took his place upon the throne—
Now, as both a hero and a king.
Thus ended the tale of the boy who chased a dream… and claimed a kingdom at its end.