Abdication.

I rushed over to the man and helped him onto the level floor. He was still incredibly weak, so my efforts to get him to stand or even sit up were wasted. I remembered the disgusting food over on the table and thought he might be up for trying it. Although I didn’t enjoy a single bite of it, he looked like he would eat just about anything at that point. I grabbed a few small bites of soft stuff like bread and even a little cup of water. As I expected, he took it whatever he could stomach. Trying to get him to eat was like feeding a baby though. Nevertheless, it worked.

His name was Jin, a deposed ruler of a kingdom from another time. This place didn’t resemble any kind of kingdom from what I could tell. But just by the fact that he responded when I called the name, I knew that he had to have been the man in the pictures by the throne. There are parts of a person’s face that never change. Bushy eyebrows, a long and skinny jaw line – yeah, it was him. “Jin,” I said, causing him to turn his head to me. He didn’t say a word, but the look on his face was one of satisfaction, like he knew I recognized him even if he had no clue who I was.

“C-c-ccssse,” he quietly moaned.

“What?” I asked.

“C-cuuurrrssse, he said again.

“Curse? What curse?”

Jin struggled to lift his hand and gestured back toward his throne. “I don’t get it,” I said, “is there something over there about a curse?”

He kept trying to point at it, so I left his side and went over to the throne. I looked back at the box of pictures, but Jin groaned as if that wasn’t what he wanted me to find. I searched high and low all around the chair until I came across a small compartment underneath it. Inside was a book that looked just like the one from the chest that I was still holding. I opened it and could tell immediately that it was a journal…his journal, impeccably authored and written in English that I understood. Jin tried to laugh at my success of finding what it was that he wanted me to find. I brought it back over and tried to hand it to him, but all he could do was barely grab my hand and guide it through the pages of the book until I stopped on the one he wanted.

“This one?” I asked, to which he wearily nodded. I cleared my throat and began to read aloud from the book.

“Day sixty-six: Mont Lac was even drier today. The level had lowered 36 microns from my last measurement. I know it’s only a matter of time before it empties completely. The weight of the Green Room is much more than I expected it to be. I’m not sure why that is. I’m sure I did all of my calculations without a flaw, but I do wish Alexi was still here to help me double-check my figures. Like everyone else though, he’s just gone – washed away after the antidispersement machine failed. I’m starting to think that my reign was the cause of all of this. All the wealth I’ve collected over the years, in time and society, it means nothing anymore. I know that me and the Palaza are on Chaotica’s short list to be destroyed in its path.”

I looked back over at Jin’s sorrowful face. “What’s Chaotica?” I asked. He grabbed my hand again and positioned it in another place in the book: a short paragraph of hastily scribbled words. “The end times of all miserable creatures brings about the eraser, Chaotica, to smote all suffering.”

Is sounded ominous, even biblical, but I couldn’t wrap my head around the belief that some mysterious entity would erase things. Jin suddenly tapped me on the arm and pointed violently at himself. “Me-e-e-e…” he cried. At that point I heard a creak followed by a ferocious jolt as the Palaza settled even deeper into its basin.

“Who – are – you?” I asked with a curious tone. Jin lowered his head. “Well, how do I fix it? What do I have to do? Just tell me, what do I have to do?!”

Jin slowly raised his head and stared back at the throne. “There,” he whispered. “P-p-put, me-e-e, therrrre.”

I wasted no time fighting to get Jin on his feet, and with one arm around me for support, I carried him while he dragged his feet along the floor. We got to the throne where he plopped down in the comfort of its velour-like cushions. Almost immediately, I started to see a change in him – not just mentally, but physically too. He started filling out in the areas where he was skinniest, and even his face looked as though the clock was being turned back right before my eyes. Wrinkles and liver spots disappeared. His hair got thicker and firmer. All over, he just started appearing younger-looking.

He then opened his eyes wide and stared into mine. “Go,” he said.

“What? I can’t go,” I instisted. “Go where? I don’t even know where I am.”

All of the sudden, a raspy cry of anger echoed through the atmosphere beyond the walls of the Palaza. I ran over to the windows to see a weird white shape coming over the horizon. “It’s approaching,” he revealed. “Go. You need to get out of here.”

“Chaotica?! No, it’s not—

“It is,” he repeated. “The prophecy is being fulfilled, but you are an innocent. You must leave.”

The walls of the room started shaking, and I told Jin to come with me.

“My place is here,” he said. “I’ll be fine. Leave me.”

I paced around a little more as things were starting to fall off the walls. After that, I did fear for my safety and I wanted to get out of there. However, I wanted to do something for the newly rejuvenated Jin before I left. The emperor still had no clothes, so I grabbed a robe that was resting on a nearby table and threw it over him. “Here, put this on,” I suggested. Jin reached down and pulled it up over his body.

“Thank you,” he uttered.

“Goodbye,” I announced. Jin smiled slightly just before I turned around and bolted back down the long staircase to the room. When I re-entered the previous chamber, the little Bendo figurines I organized on the floor had spread apart due to all of the shaking. I quickly ran past them and wedged myself through the door to the treizuro, but the pile of riches I had built up was no longer there. Instead, I dropped down into a large pool of water. Somehow, it had become flooded, and the lighter object of the room floated past me as I was carried to the main door to the long hallway. I spilled out with a lot of other objects into the dark hall where a strong current began pulling me deeper into the lower levels of the Palaza. That’s when I struggled with everything I could to swim against it and get back to the door from which I entered. I didn’t want to drown in this; I wasn’t going to drown in this. I had come too far.

I got to the entryway and grabbed hold of the top of the wall by the door. The only way out at that point was underwater, so I took a deep breath and pulled my weight under the barrier and out to the exterior where I surfaced in a much higher and much more full Mont Lac.

previous : back to top : next