XSYKOTICA

 

Xia.

I am the ruler of this land. I have the most power, but I have the biggest burden. I didn’t get this power rightfully, I lied.

 

 

I’m not the next in line, but I’m about to take over. When I was a baby, my tribe swapped me out for the royal baby. They had good intentions though. The royal baby was very weak, not nearly strong enough to rule the land. He was going to die, and if he died there wouldn’t be another ruler. Without a ruler the land would fall into complete anarchy, we’d all end up killing ourselves.

 

 

Our land is barren and grey. There is next to no life, the air we breathe is slowly killing us. Many choke on the air, but we have no other choice. We can’t just stop breathing. Everything in this land is broken, even the castle. It was once the only building that stood tall in all its glory. But like the rest of the land it slowly eroded and collapsed on itself. But we keep it alive with treasures.

 

 

The lion is the most important relic. The lion is what the gods use. Lions were the last animal to survive, they used to attack dying tribes to survive. But they died out so long ago that the lions are only stories now. The very last one was said to be a god, he was old and they said you could see the grey in his mane. He was weak, but the people still feared he would kill them. One day he walked into the castle, and walked right up to the ruler of the time. He looked right into his eyes, and the royal thought the lion would kill him. But the lion only bowed his head after looking at the royal and turned around. He laid there, curled up with his head on his paws and stared at the ruler while he died.

 

 

You would think that being from a peasant tribe by blood would make me a better ruler, but it did nothing. I was horrible, I was unjust, I was a filthy, lying, greedy man with power. When the ruler, my ‘father’ died, I didn’t even mourn. I just leapt straight into the throne and started changing everything. If I knew while I was being raised, that I was a peasant, maybe I would’ve been able to save the world. But no, I just ruined it further.

I surrounded myself with slaves, peasants that had become robotic to serve, just to feel good. I had beautiful female slaves to make me feel in control, and tough male slaves to protect me and make me feel strong. I used to enjoy their company while I sat on my throne, but that all changed. One night, they kidnapped me and brought me back to my tribe. There was an older lady who looked very sad, and when she looked up at me she expressed how disappointed she was in me. The whole tribe looked horrible and disease ridden, and I wanted to get back to the castle. The old woman started to lecture me on what I was doing while ruining the land.

“You are becoming more powerful at our expense. Do you even realise how you are hurting these tribes?”

“No, why would I care? You are all unhealthy and going to die anyway.”

“We are only unhealthy because we aren’t machines. You only accept slaves that are machines, robots who do as you say. They don’t think, they aren’t there for you. They are only there because they don’t know how to think for themselves.”

“What are you saying? If you are all sick because you are lacking robot parts, just convert yourselves! You can all come to work in the castle and be healthy!”

“We won’t be any healthier if we convert, there is no point. The only people who can survive are those who are still strong and in health.”

“The only people who are in health are the royals and the stronger peasants working for me. The stronger peasants that visit tribes like this to report what goes on back to me.”

“It is true that only the strongest of us peasants and the royals are in health. But you are no royal.”

“How dare you talk to me like that? You had better shut your mouth if you want to live until tomorrow.”

“Listen to me you fool. Every royal has fallen ill at one point during their reign. But you have not fallen ill once. Why would that be?”

“I’m just healthier.”

“Your ignorance can only last for so long boy. You are a machine. You are a peasant.”

“Lies! You’re lying!”

She didn’t reply after that. She just looked at me with sullen eyes while some men brought out a robot head. They handed it to me and I held it to my face. I couldn’t believe my own eyes.

It was a perfect fit to my head, even the eyes were the same unnatural colour.

I dropped the head and ran straight back to the castle. I didn’t want to see those peasants ever again. Even though they were my blood, I didn’t want anything to do with them.

But my encounter with them came back to haunt me.

 

 

The leader of the strong peasants burst through my door with strong slaves behind him. I really didn’t like this leader. He had caught a sickness, and it spread through his eyes, turning them an eerie grey.

He had burst in like this many times to inform me of outbreaks between the peasant tribes. I sat in my throne unmoved by his rage. But something seemed different about this. He came in yelling at me, not the usual rage about the peasants, but about me.

 

“You are a disgraceful lying bastard!”

He was waiting for me to react, but I stayed still.

“Who are you really? We know you’re not who you say you are.”

He threw a robot head across the carpet, the loud clunk as it hit the floor was bone chilling.

“This is your head, you haven’t finished becoming a slave.”

The head finished rolling towards me and stopped in front of me. Its jaw moved, as if it was trying to tell me something, but the end wires sparked and burned the circuits inside. It slowly died, right in front of me. Something went through me as I watched that, something that made me uncomfortable for it to be under my own skin.

 

 

“Do you know what that was?”

The whole room fell into an uncomfortable silence as we waited for his answer.

“He spoke everything you’ve ever said that wasn’t a lie...”

“Nothing.”

 

 

Although I appeared un-phased by his words, they were slowly tearing me apart inside. What was going to happen while everyone knew? I didn’t have a wife, or a son to take the throne from me, so I had to continue ruling in discomfort.

 

 

I had dyed my hair blue with chemicals to make sure everyone knew I was the leader, but now even the peasants accused me of dying my hair to show that I was fake. Every one demanded that I make my appearance fake like my reign. I wore fake nails, they were metallic and shiny like the robot skeleton that held me together. I lined my eyes with a metallic blue to bring out the artificial colour of my eyes.

Everyone shamed me and every day I was reminded of my life that was a lie.

 

 

The peasant tribes were suffering greatly now. They no longer wanted me ruling, they wanted the leader of the strong peasants to take over the royal line and fix the world. But he has an even bigger greed than I do. He just wants to look good so that he can have total control.

 

 

They couldn’t directly murder me, but they wanted me dead. So they took my robot head and melted it down into a syrup for me to drink.

 

 

They called it the drink of lies. They wanted to feed me all the lies I fed them, they wanted me to suffer like they did. The colour was metallic and fake, and it was thick and gluggy.

 

 

I had to sit and watch them pour my drink from the machine. No one else was to touch the drink but me.

 

 

I saw my drink slowly ooze out, I had to accept my fate. They were going to kill me like this, and I couldn’t stop it.

 

 

I looked around for someone to tell me I didn’t have to do it. But they all waited for me to drink it. I slowly lifted the cup to my lips and tried to take a sip.

 

 

It was so thick that it stuck to my lips. I couldn’t finish this drink, they could all see that.

 

 

They told me to wait for my meal, the meal they seasoned with the drink of lies. I couldn’t help but hide my face. I was so ashamed that I couldn’t just drink the cup and get it over with, but now I had to eat a meal full of my ‘lies.’

 

 

I made up my mind that I wouldn’t let them see me again. I’d run off into the lands behind the tribes. I’d isolate myself and die alone, so they wouldn’t have to torture me with their words anymore.

 

 

They agreed, they liked that plan. So they sent me off with nothing but the clothes on my back. That was the last that they saw of me in that form.

 

 

I thought that dying by myself would be the end of my story, but unfortunately it was only the beginning. I closed my eyes as I leaned against a dead stump and died, but when I opened my eyes I wasn’t in my clothes, but a gold outfit and lying against the paw of a giant lion. I was a god of sorts, neither dead nor alive. There were other royals too, previous rulers who had died.

 

 

They told me that I wasn’t finished with my reign. They told me I still had to do something. They said if I at least had a son that I could live watching down on the land, but I wasn’t able to live comfortably up there with them.

 

 

They sent me down to the tribe of peasants that showed me my head. I had become one of the dying tribe members. It was the royal baby that the tribe swapped out with me. He was still weak, and died in his sleep. But then next morning when he opened his eyes, it was me.

 

 

The tribe was depressed, living off only some fires and dead plants. They barely spoke to each other, but moped around in silence. I had long, greasy hair and a black line across my face. Everyone in the tribe looked after me well, but only because I was supposed to be in the castle.

 

 

Everyone in the tribe was dying, even little children. I waited for them to all go to sleep, then I turned them into machines, into slaves. I wanted them to be looked after, so I sent them to the castle.

 

 

They were even scarier like this. It was wrong for them to be machines. Very wrong. I had no idea that they got even sicker after being converted, they needed to go to the castle to get treatments, to look like their old selves.

 

 

I wasn’t the right person to tell people what to do. I should never have been swapped into the royals. I ruined everything, so now I had to try and fix it.

 

 

I just hoped that this time I would be able to make things right.

 

 

I got to the castle, and they wouldn’t let me in. Not that there was much to stop me, the whole front wall had eroded and fallen. They even got rid of the carpet and just had tiles across the floor. There was no one on the chair, I expected that the leader of the strong peasants would be ruling. I told them that I converted the peasants I had brought with me and they took them in to prepare them for becoming slaves. Then I told them about how I was the royal that was swapped out as a child. They took me in and cleaned me up, but insisted that I dye my hair blue and paint my nails silver. They dressed me to look like my previous self, they said that the last ruler was accused of lying and being fake, so I had to dress in the artificial colours to show I lived a fake life leading up to this.

 

 

Nothing had changed, at first. Everything looked the same, but nothing felt the same. I asked where the leader of the strong peasants were, and they told me he died. But something inside me thought he was still alive.

Instead they told me to see the new leader of the strong peasants.

It wasn’t a leader who I met, but a little girl.

 

 

A little girl was practically in charge of every peasant tribe. They told me that they were doing things wrong by letting adults rule when their judgement was clouded by the world. They said that a child was pure and innocent, that a child would be better.

 

 

When I first laid eyes on the child, I thought she was gorgeous, so pure and innocent. But I was wrong. Very wrong.

 

 

She invited me to a dinner, saying that she wanted to know who I was now that we had to work together. She seemed to talk with a very sophisticated manner, I started to doubt my trust in her.

 

 

She asked me to wait while she told the slaves what to prepare. I sat down at the table, in the very chair that I had to drink the lies. I was beginning to lose trust not only in the little girl, but also myself.

 

 

She sat down and smiled a smug smile. Something was up, I was starting to become paranoid.

“Tell me who you are.”

Her words were sweet and innocent, but I only heard the opposite.

“I am the royal baby who was swapped out with the previous ruler.”

She smiled again, and she was starting to get on my nerves.

“Take my hand, you know I’m here with you…”

She laid her hand out on the table, waiting for me to take it. When she saw I had no intention of holding her hand, she spoke again.

“Say my name, ‘cause lies can’t kill the truth.”

“Who are you!? You are not an innocent little girl!”

She just smiled and put her finger to her lips to quieten me. Our food was served, and I immediately switched my attention to the plate.

 

 

“It’s burning up, the truth hidden in lies. It’s being silenced. All the dreams broken on the small lips…”

Something about her words seemed so unsettling, like she had been waiting for her chance to say them. I looked down on my plate again, and noticed it seemed off.

 

 

The fish wasn’t natural. When did we have fish anyway? And there were vegetables on the plate, it was so wrong. That plate reminded me of the drink of lies. The contents on the plate were lies. Nobody can help me, I’m stuck in this world.

“Take me out of the rotten memories. Drench my dried up heart, so I can live for you again.”

I looked up at the little girl. She knew what was going on. She didn’t know who I really was, but she knew how to get her way while she had the power she has.

 

 

“The cruelly trampled flower… looks like love is pain, like broken wings…”

She was playing with her cutlery, but she wasn’t touching her food. She wanted me to eat it, but she knew she shouldn’t eat it herself.

I dropped my cutlery and ran away from her. She was a scary little girl, she knew how to manipulate people to do her bidding. I ran out into the tribe lands, trying to see what tribes were left. It seemed strange, you almost always see peasants lying around places to try and pick a fight with whoever passes by, but the place was deserted. I ran for my tribal grounds, forgetting that I had converted them and the grounds would be empty. I got there, and as soon as I did I remembered. But I saw someone moving near a fire towards the back.

“Hello? Who’s there?”

“It’s me…”

The old leader of the strong peasants hobbled forward and took a look at me.

“You haven’t died yet?”

“What?”

“You left after you tried to drink the lies. You haven’t died yet huh?”

He thought I was still the old ruler, I don’t blame him. I was dressed the exact same. I decided to go along with it anyway.

“Why are you out here?”

“After you left, a little girl convinced the rest of them to let her be in charge. She scolded me and pointed out every flaw I had. Everyone was ashamed of me, so I requested the same death as you. But when I came to try and live with the peasants, they weren’t here.”

We sat in silence by the fire for a while.

“There are countless scars that imprison me, they’re like sad thorns that dig into me.”

His words were spoken sadly, and it was sudden, like he just wanted to get it off his chest.

“I know. It’s a tough world now.”

“You need to go take back the throne. Save the world. You were bad to the peasants before, I was bad too. We were all bad. But you need to go back. Save everything while there is still something to save!”

“But I can’t go and do it all alone.”

“Start to overtake her. You can’t let her get to you. She will talk nonsense, then it will start to get to your head. She isn’t just an innocent girl, she knows what she’s doing.”

“I’ll try.”

“As soon as you need power I will fight, as long as you know how to fix this place.”

I nodded, and we sat in silence once again. The sky started to get dark, and I said that I needed to get back to the castle before I raised suspicion. When I got back. The little girl was waiting for me at the table. There was no food, but when she saw me she smiled.

“Come, eat with me.”

I sat down cautiously and some slaves served the same meal as before. I tried to eat some, foolishly forgetting how cautious I needed to be and just listening to the growing emptiness in my stomach. When I realised what I was doing, I stopped and dropped my cutlery, spitting my food back onto my plate. I looked up to her just smiling sweetly at me.

“It’s alright, take my hand. In this arrogant world, even mistakes become big sins.”

I stood up and stared at her. I was so scared, her babble was starting to get to me. She was starting to figure me out. I could feel my eyes stinging as I tried to hold back my tears. I was so angry, I just wanted that little girl to disappear forever.

“Don’t cry.”

She stood up and slowly walked towards me.

“You’ve become the world’s hot topic then you turn into ash, then they take away each piece of you.”

“No! I won’t become ash! I will save what is left!”

She kept walking towards me and held out her hand.

“Your life, your soul, your world they cannot kill it…”

“No! Look at me! I’ve died but I opened my eyes again! I will not let them kill this world!”

She continued to hold out her hand, waiting for me to take it. She smiled an innocent smile and talked sweetly.

“I killed it. The darkness swallowed me but now I’m swallowing you. Piercing through the storm of snow, a deeply rooted flower blossoms.”

“No! No! No! You’re lying! It’s all lies! All li-“

I clenched my stomach which suddenly started to twist and turn. I fell over and vomited, and she just walked back to her chair at the table.

 

 

The vomit was a very unnatural colour, a glowing blue. It felt hot as it rose up my throat and left a horrible burning sensation at the back of my mouth.

 

 

I looked at the vomit on the floor, the bottom looked like a key. But a key for what? My face started to feel very hot again and my hand was suffering a cold burn from the vomit that splashed on it.

 

 

I looked at her for help, for guidance. For anything. She knew what was going on and she knew this was going to kill me. I was having trouble breathing and I wanted to cry, but it felt like my tears were evaporating as soon as they reached my eyes.

 

 

She looked at me and laughed. She laughed straight at my face. I kept eye contact on her, eyeing her until she spoke.

“This is the truth, it may seem like it’s all over. There wasn’t a single door in this world that smothered you.”

I groaned and tried to yell at her, but it felt like if I opened my mouth I would vomit again.

“Everyone goes through this.”

 

 

She got down from her chair and walked over to me. She patted my back in a way that should be comforting, but coming from her it made me uncomfortable.

“I’ll tell you its okay. Even if it’s a small light, the darkness can swallow it.”

She walked away, down the castle into where the bedrooms were. She didn’t even turn around to see how I was coping.

 

 

My body felt hot, but my fingers were freezing. I wasn’t sure if I was hallucinating or if it was real, but it felt like I combusted into flames and died right there in the castle.

 

 

I opened my eyes and once again saw myself in the gold by the lion. Instead of the others looking fairly peaceful, they all looked very sad, and hurt. They didn’t say anything, but they bowed their heads and closed their eyes. I closed my eyes also, and when I opened them I expected to be reincarnated in another dying peasant, but the first thing I saw was a very scary looking mutated horse.

 

 

I didn’t think it even was a horse at first, but it trusted me and I decided to trust it.

It seemed that nothing in this world was normal anymore, nothing was as it should be.

 

 

I mentally prepared myself for what challenges were awaiting me, what battles I had to win. I wasn’t a new body, but the same body when I was up with the previous royals. I thought I would see the other royals by my side to help me fight, but they weren’t anywhere. I was completely alone.

 

Maybe they helped me to get down here, to save the world.

 

Come take my hand, come take my hand,

Drench my dried up heart,

Come take my hand, till the end,

So I can live for you again…