The war was near, and if I wanted to survive, I had to run away. I was in my little office packing all my stories, scientific documents and other important stuff, when I heard a canon exploiting. The army was closed to the castle and all the royal family was evacuated. A second canon explosion made the people of the kingdom scream with dread. I, as a servant, had to be the last to leave the castle with my other companions. In fact, the king gave us important and indisputa-ble instructions, we had to protect the castle. But my mind was far away the war, my only thoughts were about surviving today no matter at what cost.
I could talk about the war, but that is meaningless, what I am going to talk about is why I was chased by the army, how I manage to hide and how I escaped.
During one of my travels, I ran out of money, food, shelter and I lacked clothes. One week eating what I found in the streets and in the forest, was making a havoc inside my body. The rainy days were coming and without a shelter where to live, soon I would die, I thought. However, I arrived at a kingdom where the royal family was hiring people to be serv-ants. They asked me what my strengths and weaknesses were. At the end, they did not listen to what I said, and they sent me to so many areas, from hard work to take care of the little kids of the royal family. I was from here to there for almost one year. I was never allowed to go outside the castle, but with the big gardens inside, it was enough for me; although I nev-er had time for me, as I had to woke up at six and finish my tasks before sunset, if I wanted to have a long sleep.
While the months passed, and I became one of the servants of confidence of the king, I began to have more and more free time. And within two years, I became the personal assistant of the king’s alchemist. We made a lot of work with stones and other minerals we had found, but what we really care about was the philosopher’s stone and the elixir of life.
After five or six months of searching, we managed to get less than one gram of gold for almost a kilogram of lead. It sounds like a waste of time, but it really was a great advance in science. Other studies involved looking for mythical crea-tures and how their parts may be useful for medicine. Unfortunately, we did not find any of those creatures. So, we contin-ued with the commit asked by the king.
We stayed awake for uncountable nights in order to get the philosopher’s stone. One of those nights, we melted a portion of the stone we had and tried to apply the chemical methods to get more gold. However, some drops felt over a dead lizard and in one hour it started to move again. We recorded everything we saw, and continued the experiments with plants, mice and insects. The new “elixir” worked in plants and animals, but it was never tested on humans.
It was just before the queen’s birthday when her grandson became ill. Dozens of doctors tried to cure him, but eve-ry new method or antidote made him worst. He was pale and unable to speak. He was shriving, in short, he was living his last days or even hours. For the alchemist and me, it was an opportunity to test our “elixir”. We immediately ran to the room of the child, when the granddaughter came out of the room running with a horror face, also pale and weeping. Her brother had died. We did not expect her, and we collide, making throw the “elixir”. The “red ink” as we called it, was all shed over the marble floor. This ink produced a soft flame over the floor, which immediately burn out, showing a big black stain.
The alchemist, my new friend, and I, realized that it was impossible to survive to this. We ran to our office, package docu-ments, clothes and some stuff, then said goodbye to each other and leave the castle, escaping to totally different places. In less than a day, we both were the most wanted on the kingdom. And again, from having shelter and food, I had nothing.
I ran–away to a distant kingdom, where I was also “wanted”, and so it happened to the next and the following vil-lage. My long walked took me to a place I did not know. I just remember I felt unconscious near a garden of such colourful flowers. For how long I was like that? I do not know. But there, I was waked up by a gorgeous girl. He asked me couple of things, but I could not speak as my mouth was dried. I had not strength to do anything, and my stomach started to eat it-self. The girl helped me to move to a place where the sun rays did not hit me, and after a while, she brought me some food and wine. I tried to stand up, but my legs did not let me. So, the girl stayed with me until I could stand up. In the meantime, we talked about our lives. In that moment I realized she was a princess and I immediately jump, I could feel the adrenaline flowing through my veins. I asked with fear
—Am I wanted here? —
She replied with a no, then she asked
—Why? —
I did not answer.
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Mic Castle Torri 