One

I tried looking around to see if there was anyone still sane enough to help us, and that was when I saw my father trying to fight off three guards with Nathaniel’s father as his mother held mine in her arms on the floor. I saw the blood on her dress, but I tried to convince myself that it wasn’t hers. I lied to myself as I called out to them. Nathaniel’s father turned to us, and told us to run, but a guard saw this as an opening and ran him through. 

    Nathaniel yelled out to him, and I was paralyzed in fear. He started to run towards him, cutting down any and every guard that tried to attack him until there were too many of them. My father was the only one of them left and he swung his sword over and over again as his wife died on the floor next to his best friend. He eventually cleared the guards around him, but as soon as he did, a young man walked into the room and said gibberish out loud. 

    I now know what he did. He ordered all the guards in the room to kill my father, and that’s what they did. He tried to protect Nathaniel’s mother, but they surrounded both of them like a pack of lionesses surrounding their prey, ready to attack at any given moment. Nathaniel must have grasped the situation faster than I did because I didn’t realize that we were in the middle of the ballroom. He yelled my name multiple times, but my eyes didn’t wander off the image of my mother lying on the ground and my father about to be killed. 

He grabbed my arm, which brought me back to the scene in front of me. Our two bodyguards, the same ones who practically raised Nathaniel and I. The ones who were like brothers to each other were trying to kill each other, or at least George was. Donatello begged him to snap back to reality, but his murderous intent simply increased with every swing. George saw an opening and stabbed Donatello in the side before he turned to us. Nathaniel stepped up and began to fight him, but George’s superiority in sword fighting was evident. Soon he had Nathaniel against a wall with a sword to his throat. I grabbed him and begged him to stop. 

I’m not sure what happened, but he suddenly just dropped the sword and looked around in terror. Like he didn’t know what was happening, or how he was in that situation in the first place. Nathaniel went to swing at him, but I stepped in the way thinking that George was really George again. I am well aware that I could’ve died doing so, but that feeling that George was back, just took over me. And I’m glad it did because George really was back. 

He asked us what was happening, but we didn’t know either. He turned and saw a guard about to stab Donatello, who was lying on the floor. George stabbed the guard and fought everyone off as Nathaniel and I picked up Donatello. At first, Nathaniel tried to pick him up by himself, but I swallowed my vomit down and helped him as he was struggling to pick him up. Donatello was much taller than us, so his feet were dragging on the floor as we ran with him in our arms. We didn’t realize that he was leaving a trail, until George pointed it out. 

We originally planned to go to the most secure room in the palace, my room, but it was too far, so we left through a secret exit in the wall and made our way to the servant’s quarters. There, Nathaniel and I tore up the  jacket he had given me and the bottoms of my dress and wrapped up Donatello’s wound. As we were trying to stop the bleeding, George turned at a rustling sound and pointed his sword at someone who was hiding behind a bed. A young boy named Luke, who was a little younger than I was, poked his head out and offered his help. “How do we know we can trust you?” George asked without lowering his sword.

“I am only a stable boy, sir.” Luke began, “I was talking with some of the guards by the stables when they suddenly just turned and left for the ballroom mid-coversation. Whatever is happening, it’s not natural.” George told him to swear his allegiance to the crown right then and there, and Luke bowed to Nathaniel on the floor without hesitation before George approved him. 

He properly dressed Donatello’s wounds and safely led us to the horse stables while avoiding any and all guards. I was put on one horse with Nathaniel and Donatello was placed carefully on George’s steed. We asked Luke to come with us, but he said that he’d rather help others get to the surrounding mountains until the castle was safe. Apparently, the royals weren’t the only ones being slaughtered. The guards were murdering everyone in their way, so Luke and two of his friends were sneaking around the castle to find people and lead them to safety. Like us. 

We thanked him and went towards the wall that surrounded the castle’s South gate. Our only way out was through the woods. We got to the courtyard undetected, and even made it to the gate, but there were guards waiting for us. George told Nathaniel to follow closely behind him, and Nathaniel told me to hold on tight. They then dashed towards the gate, and the guards drew their swords to meet us. 

As I was bracing for impact, the wooden crates fell from the top of the wall onto the guards heads. I looked up and saw Luke waving to us. He and his friend, Ella, scaled the wall and opened the gate for us. They asked us to go with them, but George declined their offer and decided to use a different path. As we were speaking, a few guards spotted us and sounded the alarm. 

We immediately took off into the woods and the guards dispatched soldiers after us and Luke and Ella. We went in opposite directions, so I don’t know what happened to them. They chased us through the woods, until they were right on our tails. I turned to see what was happening, and I saw them drawing their arrows and yelled it to George and Nathaniel. They began to weave between the trees, using the darkness at our advantage, and we shook them off for a short while too.  

As we got away, George suddenly told us to jump off the horses to the side and stay low. I wasn’t sure what to do, so Nathaniel grabbed me and we jumped off right after George did with Donatello. The horses kept going and Nathaniel grabbed me by my mouth as I asked what we were doing. A short while after he did, guards rode past us as we laid in a death like silence in the long grass of the wood. 

After the coast was clear, Nathaniel helped George put Donatello on his back, and we started walking, rather, following him. I asked him where we were going, and he told us that we were heading to their only safe haven. “The home of a man that I trust with my life.” were his exact words.