Chapter 2

    It was with another jolt that Kat found herself standing on a cold stone floor in a dimly lit hallway. The only light seemed to be coming from torches arranged in rows along the walls, spaced several feet apart. The walls were made of the same dark stone as the floor, in fact the more Kat looked around the more it seemed like she was standing inside some ancient castle, the kind built during the middle ages. Was this another part of Matthew's mind, like the cave had been?

 

    "Matthew?" she called out, hearing her voice echo down the hall. There were multiple doorways along the hallway, but she had no idea where any of them led, or where she would need to go to find him.

 

    "Excuse me, Miss," a soft voice said right behind her, nearly causing Kaitlyn to jump a foot in the air in surprise and shock. The hallway had been completely empty just a second before, she was certain of it. Yet turning on her heels, she found herself face to face with the speaker. How they'd gotten there, she didn't know, but as her eyes scanned up and down along them, the more important question seemed to be... What were they? The face was androgynous in bone structure, the hair medium length and brushed straight, offering no hints of gender through it's styling. The person was slightly shorter than Kat's 5'5", yet the voice had been just a touch masculine. The skin was pale, too pale, the kind of stark white that made you think the flesh had never once been touched by sunlight. The teeth were just a touch too pointed, too sharp. Not like those of a shark, but just enough that looking at them made you instinctively think of predators. The fingernails were long, clawlike, and the eyes... The eyes were not only dark, but the pupils were too wide, like someone on drugs. Seeing that they had her attention, the speaker went on. "Are you here to see the prince?"

 

    'It's not real,' Kat had to remind herself, rendered speechless for a moment. 'It's just part of Matt's mind, like a bad dream.'

 

    "Miss?" the speaker prompted when she didn't reply for several seconds, moving a step closer.

 

    "The prince?" Kat finally asked, getting a hold of herself. "Is the prince Matthew?"

 

    "Prince Frost reigns here, Miss. I'm afraid I've never heard of a Matthew," the androgynous creature answered, tilting it's head slightly to the side as it studied her.

 

    That was enough to give Kat another moment's hesitation. But if this really was like a dream, then names really didn't mean anything. Matt could be called anything, in this place. She didn't quite know what would happen if she went to meet this prince, but she did know that standing around in the hallway by herself wasn't going to get her anywhere. Either the prince would be Matt, or maybe he could tell her how to find him.

 

    "Prince Frost, right. Yes, I'm here to see the prince," Kat replied. "Could you take me to him?"

 

    "Of course Miss," the creature said, stepping past her and beginning to walk down the hall, obviously expecting her to follow. She did, although she allowed a few feet of space between them, just in case. "Is the prince expecting you?"

 

    "I don't think so," Kat replied, trying to catch glimpses through the empty doorways into the rooms beyond, but finding most of them dark and unlit. "Does he get a lot of visitors?"

 

    "Not really, Miss. They call me Sharp, by the way, Miss. I'm one of the caretakers of the prince's castle," the creature stated. She could hear its toenails clicking against the stone floor as they walked.

 

    For a second Kat wondered at the strangeness of the creature and their surroundings. Had the tables been turned and Matt been inside her head, would he have been somewhere equally weird? She'd certainly had her share of strange dreams and ideas in the past. How did one know what the inner workings of one's own mind looked like? For all she knew, there were dozens of creatures just like Sharp running around inside her head. The thought gave her a little shiver.

 

    "So, uhm... Sharp. What does a castle caretaker do exactly?" she asked after a moment of walking in silence.

 

    "Why, we keep the order around here, Miss. We make sure people get where they're going. We deal with the prince's enemies should they be foolish enough to show themselves. We make certain everything is neat and tidy. And if the furniture gets hungry, we feed it," Sharp informed her.

 

    "If the furniture..." Kat sputtered, unable to wrap her mind around that one.

 

    "That last bit was a joke, Miss. Furniture doesn't eat things you know. At least, most furniture doesn't. This way, please," Sharp said before hanging a left into another hallway.

 

    "Oh, uh, ha... Ha ha... Very funny, Sharp," Kat did her best to humor the creature.

 

    "I thought so, Miss. If I may say so, try not to appear so nervous. It makes you a bit of an easy target," Sharp informed her.

 

    "Thanks for the advice," Kat muttered. This Sharp was certainly an odd one, beyond their appearance. She still hadn't quite figured them out yet. "So, does the prince have many enemies around here?"

 

    "Not anymore, Miss," Sharp said, flexing their hands in such a way that it really showed off the clawlike fingernails. "Not anymore."

 

    Swallowing hard, Kat let that one slide, not knowing how to properly respond and not sure she'd want to if she knew. "So how long have you been serving the prince?"

 

    "Why, I've always served the prince, Miss," Sharp answered, sounding mildly shocked, as if there could be no other answer and she was a bit foolish even to ask such a question. "Here we are, Miss, nearly there."

 

    Following the frightening yet surprisingly polite creature, Kat made one last turn into a short hallway leading to a large set of double doors. As they approached, the doors swung open of their own accord. No knocking, not a single bell rung, rather it was like there'd been a motion detector which had sensed their presence. Kat's steps faltered a little as Sharp walked through to the room beyond, but after the split second's hesitation she pressed on.

 

    What she found herself in was perhaps the strangest throne room she'd ever seen, not that she'd seen that many. At one end was a throne made of deep red stone. It almost seemed like it was carved out of some giant ruby, as if you could ever find a gemstone of sufficient size to carve into something like that. Just to the sides of the throne were two rows of smaller seats, which she could've sworn were made of alternately sapphire and obsidian. A short distance in front of the throne were two large stone slabs, big enough for a person to lay on. In fact, on each slab were four sets of manacles, positioned approximately where someone's arms and legs would go. There were faint traces of red liquid having dried out in the cracks of the stone. From what, Kat didn't even want to think. Beyond the slabs were a number of different tools and devices, and it only took one glance to tell what they were for. Torture. Set to the sides of those were even more seats, as if to create a gallery for whatever went on there.

 

    To be honest the place would've terrified her if not for the fact that there, seated on the throne, surrounded by a number of strange creatures, was Matthew. "MATT!" she shouted his name, unable to help herself as she began sprinting across the room towards him. To see him conscious again, aware and looking around, stirred inside her feelings and hopes that had almost been too much to bear seated by his bedside that past month, longing for him to open his eyes and look at her just once.

 

    At the sound of her shout the creatures seated around the throne turned their heads almost as one towards her, and Matt's head shifted, his eyes fixing on her. She almost expected him to leap off the throne and rush towards her, the way she was running towards him now, but he didn't, he just sat there and stared with a sudden look of amusement on his face. It was then, as she began to near him, that she noticed more and more details she'd missed in the exhilaration of her first sight of him. The normal warmth in his gray eyes was absent, in fact his eyes were a couple shades paler than normal, and the look in them was icy cold. The way he was holding himself showed a sort of regal and contemptuous confidence that was completely unlike Matt, whose body language usually seemed just a touch self-conscious. Matt's hair was almost always neatly combed or mussed into a careless tangle, but the hair of the boy on the throne was slightly spiked in places, creating sharper angles to his appearance. His skin was a touch paler than Matt's, his lips a slightly darker red. A dozen little differences that caused her run to suddenly grind to a halt just past the stone slabs as she realized that as much as he might look like him, this boy was NOT her Matthew.

 

    "Prince Frost," Sharp's voice spoke up behind her. "I bring you a visitor, sire. I found her in the halls, looking a little lost."

 

    "So I see," the boy on the throne said. Even his voice was colder and just a tad deeper than Matt's. "She seems to have mistaken me for someone. Come closer, pretty one. Tell us who it is you thought I was, just now."

 

    "I... I thought you were my boyfriend, Matthew," Kat replied, hesitantly shuffling a few steps closer, a cold knot forming in the pit of her stomach.

 

   "There's no Matthew here, I'm afraid," the boy told her, smiling coldly as he beckoned for her to approach further. "Whatever made you think I was him?"

 

    "You... Look a lot alike," Kaitlyn answered. Suddenly worried what might happen should she refuse, she took several more steps forward, enough to place her directly before the throne and in line with some of the seats surrounding it.

 

    "Did you hear that, Sharp?" the boy called towards the back of the room. "Apparently there's a commoner with my likeness running about."

 

    "If any of the caretakers come across him, he shall be brought before you, sire," the creature called back.

 

    "Very good. Now as for you," the boy said, turning his attention back to Kat. "How did you gain entrance to my castle?"

 

    Kat was frozen, speechless, unsure how to answer that. If she told him she'd simply appeared there because it was all part of some fantasy in Matt's head, she wasn't quite sure she'd get the reaction she hoped for. Then she remembered, something the person who'd given her the way into Matt's mind had told her. It no longer came to her as a whisper, but nevertheless seemed to have a sharpness of clarity far stronger than any normal memory. It had been a warning. She couldn't wake Matt from the not-quite-dreams he was trapped in, but she could jar his awareness. To do so though would be very, very dangerous. "Play along with the worlds his subconscious has created", the person had told her. "If there comes a time to try to jar him from them, you'll know it. Until then, go undercover. Find the things plaguing him, and help him fight."

 

    Alright, she could do that. She just had to play along until she could figure out what in the hell this place was supposed to represent and how to help him deal with it, right? Taking a deep breath, Kaitlyn scrambled for an excuse that would fit in with everything she'd seen so far, something that might satisfy the boy before her.

 

    "I... I came through a secret entrance, sire. I'd heard it said how much like my Matthew his highness appeared, and I came to see for myself if it was true," Kat threw out. It was all she could think of to say.

 

    "Oh, is that so, pretty one?" the boy murmured, studying her so intensely she could almost imagine that the cold of his eyes was boring holes into her. "And now you're satisfied as to the truth of these rumors?"

 

    "I... Yes, sire," Kaitlyn replied, unsure what else to say.

 

    "Well then, we'll just have to keep you as a guest for awhile, won't we? See if this Matthew comes to collect you himself. I'd very much like to meet this man who shares my face," the prince said in an icy tone.

 

    "As you say, sire," Kat told him, inclining her head a little in acceptance. Well, she'd found her in, but where did she go from here? It was clear Matthew wasn't inside the castle itself. Was it possible that Prince Frost was some strange incarnation of him? That a piece of Matthew lived on inside him, representing some dark aspect of his personality, with the body changed to match?

 

    "You never did tell us your name," the prince suddenly prompted, still watching her.

 

    "Kat, sire," she quickly replied.

 

    For an instant, at the sound of her name, his face twitched, and Kat thought she could see the faintest signs of recognition in his features. But just as quickly, it was gone, as completely as if it had never been there at all. "Well, Kat, this is my court, or at least what of it is here at the moment," the prince said, gesturing to the seats to his sides and to the creatures who dwelled within them, all as frighteningly strange as Sharp had been. "And of course, you've already met one of my caretakers. I'm sure you'll meet the others later. Tell me, do the peoples outside the castle still love their liege? It's been so long since I last left the castle and saw them. In fact, I can't even remember when the last time was."

 

    "Of course, sire," Kat broke in when she saw the confusion spreading over the boy's features. The fact was that in this world there probably was no place outside the castle, and it wouldn't do for the prince to remember that. She needed to change the subject if she could. "Tell me, your highness, what are those for?" she asked, gesturing back to the slabs and the torture devices behind her. Matt was neither a sadist nor a masochist, and he wasn't that heavily into bondage, so she had no idea what purpose they had within his mind.

 

    The prince's eyes focused once more, and a cold smile spread slowly over his face. "Why, those are for the prisoners, of course."

 

    "Prisoners, sire?" she pressed.

 

    "The last of my enemies, captured and held in the depths of this castle. Occasionally they try to flee, but not one has escaped us yet. The Weak Ones, we amuse ourselves with the suffering they so richly deserve. You'll see it for yourself, later. One would almost think the disgusting things breed down there, for all that we've killed and yet still so many remain," the prince stated with a look of contempt.

 

    "You... You torture prisoners to death... Here, in this room?" Kat asked with a sense of revulsion as she turned to look behind her. The red liquid dried into the cracks of the stone slab. She'd known it was probably blood, but she'd been able to push it out of her mind, keep from focusing on it. Now she knew for sure. How many people had died on those slabs? And the torture devices that lay beyond? She couldn't help but tremble at the very thought. 'It's just a dream,' she quickly told herself, struggling to get a grip on herself. 'Just a fantasy. It's not real.'

 

    The prince clearly noticed her discomfort. "It is nothing less than they deserve," he stated firmly, still smiling that cold smile.

 

    "For what? For defying you?" Kat demanded as she rounded back on the boy.

 

    "Of course not. For being weak. The lot of them couldn't stand against me if they tried. Defiance from them would be meaningless. But their weakness... Their weakness sickens me," the prince said, his eyes narrowing, filling with a look of twisted hatred. Slowly, he rose from the throne to a standing position, and the creatures around him rose as one to follow him. "They are pathetic. Unworthy of the breath they draw. My air, from my kingdom. And so we carve their weakness from them piece by piece. We search for the strength inside them, but there's never any there, not in any of them. So we take them apart, until there's nothing left."

 

    Kat shrank back a step, a terror growing deep inside her. She started to turn, but before she could move any further she found Sharp there, standing behind her, it's clawed hands raised in warning, as if to make clear precisely what would happen if she tried to run. "The prince hasn't given you leave to go anywhere, Miss," the creature told her, icy undertones in the politeness of its voice.

 

    "You don't approve?" the prince mocked, taking several steps towards her, until he stood barely a foot away. "Don't have the stomach for what I do to cull the weak from my realm? Then why wait until later? Let's see just how much strength you have, dear Kat. Sharp, go fetch one of the prisoners. Bring him to me."

 

    Sharp watched her for a few seconds more before finally turning and striding off towards a doorway on the opposite side of the room from where they came in, disappearing through it after one last glance back at them. For a split second Kaitlyn had the impulse to try to break and run without the caretaker there to stop her, but one look at the prince convinced her otherwise. His eyes followed her every movement with a cold glare, and she was somehow sure he was much faster than she was. Not only that, but the other creatures were edging closer, a sort of cruel glee in their expressions.

 

    A long moment passed before the clicking of toenails against stone in the distance signaled that Sharp was returning. At that moment the prince gestured to one of the creatures, nearly seven feet tall and bearing a nasty resemblance to many drawings she'd seen of a minotaur, and then pointed to her. "Chain, hold her."

 

    "With pleasure, my liege," the creature grumbled as it stepped forward, grabbing Kat's arms in grips like a vice and drawing them behind her back, where it held her wrists firmly together, almost like an officer about to cuff her. From the strength she could feel behind the hairy hands on her flesh, she got the sense that trying to struggle would be a very, very bad idea.

 

    It was only a couple seconds later that Sharp came walking back through the door, the end of a leash in one hand, the other end of the leash attached to a collar around the neck of a person that was being tugged after him. At the sight of the prisoner, Kat's heart leapt into her throat. It was Matthew, the real Matthew this time. Only there was a look about him, a look she'd only seen in him once before. Haunted, defeated. He moved as if he didn't even see the people and creatures in the room. As if he was blindly following the pressure on the leash towards a fate which he'd already accepted, and there was no fight left in him.

 

    As she saw him being pulled helplessly towards one of the slabs, she felt his name tearing its way out of her throat, and she couldn't stop it. "MATTHEW!"

 

    "Matthew?" the prince asked sharply, his eyes turning first to the prisoner and then back to her with an incredulous look on his face. "This is the Matthew you spoke of earlier? The one you think looks like me?"

 

    Confusion flashed through Kat at the words. "Can't you see it?" she demanded, using a quick jerk of her head to gesture towards him. "He looks exactly like you."

 

    Rage consumed the prince's features, and his hand flashed out. For a split second, Kat was sure he meant to hit her, but the hand stopped short a scant inch from her face. Four fingers moved in to rest gently on her cheek, the thumb moving around to her other cheek, and then suddenly all five fingers tightened, the prince gripping Kat's face and holding it in place as he moved his own head in until their eyes were millimeters apart. "You dare?" the prince whispered, not just anger but raw hatred in his voice. "It's true the Weak Ones all look alike, but they look NOTHING like me. NOTHING. Do not speak such filth in my presence again."

 

    The prince released Kat's face and stepped away as Sharp pushed the prisoner down onto his back on the slab. Matthew didn't even try to resist as one by one, the manacles were locked around his limbs. Kat's thoughts were racing desperately. The Weak Ones all looked the same? So they all looked like Matthew? And that's who the prisoners were that the prince had been bringing here and torturing, and killing, for who knew how long? In some corner of Matt's mind he'd had creatures from some bad dream, and some twisted version of himself, slowly ripping him apart over and over again?

 

    The prince strode past the slab, stepping over to a rack holding a number of different objects, and selected a wickedly curved and very sharp looking blade from it, testing the weight of it in his hand before turning back, his features now consumed by his hatred.

 

    "Sire!" Kat called out desperately, not wanting even to imagine what the prince intended to do with that blade. "Help me understand. I want to understand. Why do you call them the Weak Ones, what's weak about him?"

 

    "Can't you see it?" the prince practically snarled the words, the rage in his expression making him seem almost as monstrous as the creatures around him. "Too ugly. Not smart enough. Not funny enough. Stupid, weak, pathetic. Always says the wrong thing. Always does the wrong thing. Never gets things right," the prince was chanting it almost like a litany at the prisoner as he walked a circle around the slab, and the prisoner simply laid there with that defeated look and accepted it.

 

    "Not confident enough. Not athletic enough. Not special enough. Not good enough. Worthless. Loser. You knew it, you always knew. You knew you'd never be enough. And still you thought you could hold her!" the prince spat out, and the prisoner shuddered in pain, as if the words were an actual physical blow. "You're a failure, a monster, a freak. And you're weak. You've always been weak. You don't deserve anything good in your life. You never have! What is there in you worth loving? Worth wanting? What worthwhile thing could anyone see in you?" the prince demanded, the hand holding the knife suddenly flashing out, slicing a long deep cut into the flesh of the prisoner's upper right arm, blood immediately welling up and beginning to flow down onto the stone slab. "IF I CUT YOU APART WILL I FIND ANYTHING WORTH KEEPING?" the prince shouted the words, his hand flashing out again to slice another long cut into the prisoner's upper chest.

 

    With each slice of the blade the prisoner shut his eyes tight and gritted his teeth, his body shuddering with the pain, but he didn't scream or cry out. His eyes slowly opened after the second cut, tears leaking from their corners as he answered, his voice choked with sadness. "No."

 

    "STOP IT!" Kaitlyn shrieked, trying to struggle forward, but finding the creature's grip on her far too tight to escape. The sight of Matthew in pain was tearing her apart, but she understood now, she finally understood. This was a place of insecurity, of self-doubt. Every time he'd ever felt unsure of himself, every time he'd ever wondered if he was good enough at something, all of it was manifested here.

 

    The look in the prince's eyes as he stared down at the prisoner, though. It was more than that. There was genuine hatred there. Matt... Hated himself. She'd never known, never guessed. The prince was the manifestation of that hatred, a representation of cold anger, of unflinching uncaring judgment that would spot every flaw, every mistake, and forgive none of them.

 

    Kat had always known that Matt was a little insecure, though he hid it well in public. With his music, with some poetry he'd written, with the few relationships he'd had over the years, with his appearance, he'd always secretly looked to her for reassurance about those sorts of things, for encouragement. And even when he didn't seem insecure, he still had this teasing, charming way of drawing compliments out of people, a way that led few to guess just how important those compliments were to him.

 

    She'd always just seen it as him depending on her as a friend. She'd found it kind of endearing even, how much her opinion meant to him, how much he valued and trusted in the way she saw him. And it wasn't like she hadn't had her own share of times of asking for his opinion on this or that. And he'd always been ready with the perfect, sweetest things to say. How amazing she looked in a given outfit. How she should believe in her dream of becoming a doctor, and how wonderful she'd be with her patients. Or, after a breakup when she was feeling her worst about herself, how it wasn't her fault. How there was nothing wrong with her that would've caused her latest ex to treat her that way. How beautiful, and kind, and incredible she was. He'd helped her so many times when she was feeling a little down, that she'd found it only natural to encourage him in turn.

 

    She'd known how much her occasional compliments meant to him, even more so after they'd finally started dating and she'd caught real glimpses of the insecurities beneath. But she'd never guessed it was this bad. She'd known how well he covered it in public, how well he hid those insecurities beneath that sweet charm of his, but she'd thought that when he opened up to her about it when they were together, that she was seeing it all. She'd never thought that he was still hiding the true depths of it, even from her.

 

    The prince ignored her shout, instead beginning to draw the edge of the blade very slowly across Matthew's stomach, opening a third cut in his skin with torturous precision. The sight of more of his blood snapped something inside her. She shrieked again, but this time it was a wordless cry, and without thinking she threw herself forward again, only knowing that she had to stop what was happening.

 

    The grip on her arms was firm, but still she fought against it, straining with every ounce of strength she had in her. Her muscles cried out in agony, and it felt like she was going to dislocate both her shoulders, but she didn't stop. She wouldn't stop, she couldn't. A groan of pain escaped her lips, but she didn't care. She had to help him, had to save him, and she was going to do whatever it took.

 

    At the sound of her pain though, the prince suddenly froze, the movement of the knife halting in mid-stroke as in the same instant both prince and prisoner's heads turned towards her. They looked at her almost as if they were seeing her for the first time. "Kat... No..." the same words, spoken together by two voices talking as one.

 

    Kat couldn't say for sure what happened next. It was as if the laws of physics were thrown into chaos. Everything became distorted. Sight and sound shifted so rapidly that the things she saw and heard couldn't be made sense of. It was as if the world around her was ripping apart, falling away, and she was falling with it.