Total pages in book: 58
Estimated words: 52915 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 265(@200wpm)___ 212(@250wpm)___ 176(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 52915 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 265(@200wpm)___ 212(@250wpm)___ 176(@300wpm)
“Come with me, my princess.” I reach for her.
Her eyes go wild and she begins to flail like a cat. She is holding a bag full of heavy tomes, and it is with this weapon that she attempts to beat me.
Again, this is not how a king wants to claim his would-be queen, but time is running short. The dragon is close, and if he comes here, this entire world will be forever disrupted. I need to take my princess and return back where we belong before the dragon finds us.
“NO! FIRE!” She screams and slashes out at me with some soft metal spikes. I ignore the mild pain of them brushing against my body as I pick her up and carry her into my royal ship. Our technology has made it appear to be something unobtrusive to the people of this world. In this case, it is called a Ford Transit Van.
Emma
He’s taking me into a van. This is how it all ends. I fight tooth and nail. I can’t scream because of the hand clapped over my mouth. I can’t get away from him, because he is incredibly strong compared to me. I am too weak to stop this from happening to me, and I am absolutely terrified.
“Easy, princess.” He attempts to reassure me, his voice deep and hot in my ear. “I’m not going to hurt you. I’m going to take you to your rightful kingdom and marry you in a grand ceremony. You and I will reign for a thousand years in perfect wedded bliss. We will live happily ever after. I promise you that.”
I can tell by his tone he is trying to be comforting, but there is no comfort to be had here in the back of what seems like a builder’s van. There’s old stained carpet, a paint-spattered ladder, and several drop sheets and tarps, not to mention rope. I am now officially terrified. This feels like a montage of the last things an abducted college girl ever sees. I can already see the disgusting specials dedicated to the events of this evening, the re-enacted shots of some girl who isn’t me walking down the street with a shadow looming over her, followed by an appeal for any sightings of the van. This is every true crime podcast, every online interrogation video, every opportunistic murder porn show melded into one terrifying encounter.
I know if he takes me, I’m done. The odds of me living another twenty-four hours are close to nil, and even if I do, I’ll probably be chained in the back of a shipping container or something equally hideous. I have to fight for all I am worth. Or wait, do I have to humanize myself?
I do both at the same time.
“My name is Emmaline Spratt!’ I shout. “I have…” This is the part where people usually say they have children or parents who love them, or something relatable to the crazed attacker who sees them as nothing but meat, but I’m coming up very short.
“… a paper due tomorrow!” I end up shouting, knowing how sad that is. I’m facing the potential end of my life and I can’t come up with one meaningful connection.
“Some of my customer’s dogs like me! I did a fun run once to raise funds for a friend who was going on a mission! I think my parents might have some objections to this, though I haven’t seen either one of them in a while, so I’m not entirely sure!”
While I shout these things, I clench my fist and I punch him as hard as I can, which I am dismayed to discover is not nearly hard enough to make any kind of impression on him at all. I’m also swinging my book bag, and that’s doing sweet fuck all as well. It’s almost like he’s not a normal guy. It’s like his skin is thicker, or harder, or, I don’t fucking know what. Maybe he’s on something, some kind of designer drug that makes you hallucinate princesses while crouching under the bedroom windows of small children and also makes you immune to pain and the repeated bashing of Kant and Hegel against the side of your head.
“Cut it out, before I bare you and thrash you for this unseemly behavior! You’re not acting at all as a princess should!” He has the gall to lecture me, though it is cut off as a pamphlet on Materialism falls out of my bag and sort of catches him in the mouth.
“You’re not taking me to a second location!” I make a lunge for the back doors. The whole van is rocking back and forth with my efforts to escape, but it is nothing for him to stop me from reaching the handles. He grasps me by my wrists and hauls me back against his body. He is tall, powerful, and just as muscular as I imagined he would be, and that discovery is not comforting.