CHAPTER 133: THE FALL OF THE PRINCESS (PART THREE)

Alexia POV

The flames are gone.

The throne room... gone.

The silk on my skin has vanished, replaced by something rough. Scratchy. My bare toes press against a cold, cracked floor. I blink... and everything around me is smaller, faded. Peeling wallpaper. A broken couch. That smell—mold and sourness, and something sharper... like alcohol.

I know this place.

I know this pain.

I’m little again. Six years old.

My belly growls like it’s trying to eat itself. My ribs poke out beneath my oversized t-shirt. It used to be white... now it’s a mix of brown stains and yellow. I don’t know if it’s old soup or piss.

Mommy said if I drank water, I wouldn’t feel hungry. So I’m drinking. This is my fifth glass. It’s warm and metallic from the pipes. But my stomach still aches.

She left hours ago.

She said she’d be back with food.

I wait. My fingers curl around the edges of my cup. I count the minutes.

Then hours.

Until my eyes are too heavy and I sink into the old couch, curling up like a kitten, hugging a pillow that smells like cigarettes and something bitter. My little arms wrap around my stomach like maybe I can trick it into thinking it’s full.

When the banging starts, I jerk awake.

"Open the goddamn door, Lexie! You deaf now?!" she slurs from the other side, pounding with the side of her fist.

My heart leaps.

She’s back!

I scramble from the couch, my thin legs wobbling, my oversized shirt flapping around me like a ghost sheet. I fumble with the lock and swing the door open, eyes wide, mouth already forming the words—

"Mommy, did you—"

She stumbles in, nearly knocking me over.

No food in her hands.

Just that same brown bag she always carries, the bottle inside clinking as she drops it on the table.

My stomach twists.

"Mommy?" I try again, more carefully. "I’m hungry."

She turns slowly, and I already know I shouldn’t have said it. Her eyes are bloodshot. Her lipstick is smeared like clown paint. She looks like a monster.

"Hungry?" she spits the word like it offends her. "Ain’t I just gone out tryin’ to fix your miserable life?"

"I didn’t mean—" I try, voice shaking.

But she grabs the bottle. Twists it open. Takes a deep swig. Then she looks at me, her lip curling.

"Fine. You want something?" she growls, marching forward.

I back away, but she moves too fast.

She grabs my face with one hand and jams the neck of the bottle toward my lips.

"Drink it!" she hisses. "You so hungry—have this! That’s all we got! You’re always needing, always whining—just like your daddy!"

I shake my head, sputtering, but she forces the liquor between my lips.

It burns.

It burns all the way down my throat like fire. My eyes water. I choke. It feels like I swallowed a torch.

I start to cry.

I can’t help it.

The tears come fast—half from the pain in my throat, half from the confusion, the fear, the betrayal.

"Stop crying!" she yells, slapping the side of my head. "You ain’t no damn baby! You always crying! Just like that bastard—"

Then she stumbles toward the couch, grabs a cigar from the ashtray. She lights it with shaky hands, eyes glossed over with a faraway rage.

I don’t want to be here.

I want to go back to the palace, even if I was cruel there.

At least I was powerful.

At least people looked at me.

Here, I’m nothing. I’m furniture. I’m a noise to be silenced.

"Please, Mommy," I whisper. "It hurts..."

"What hurts?" she says sharply, glaring at me through the smoke.

"The—cigar..." I say, voice trembling. "It burns me..."

Her face twists into something almost gleeful. "Good," she mutters. "Maybe it’ll teach you some manners."

And then she stumbles closer.

She raises her hand—holding the burning end of the cigar—and presses it to my stomach.

I scream.

The sound I make isn’t human. It’s animalistic. Raw.

The pain—white-hot, sharp—it rips through me, a thousand needles exploding at once.

I feel it.

I feel it even now, even older, even dying in that bed back in the real world.

My hand twitches.

The burn. That same round mark on my belly. The one Aiden stared at once, squinting at it, saying it looked like a bad tattoo. He didn’t ask. I didn’t tell.

But now...

Now he knows.

He hears it in my fevered cries.

And maybe now, he’ll understand.

I wasn’t always the monster.

Sometimes, I was just the prey.

I know it’s not real. I know it’s a dream—some fever-induced spiral tearing through my mind like a storm. I can hear Aiden’s voice, faint, calling my name. It echoes, like he’s standing at the edge of this nightmare, trying to pull me out. But the cries—the screaming, the scent of burning flesh—they’re louder. More powerful. They swallow everything, even his voice.

And the pain. God, the pain

. The fire clings to me, hungry, eating me alive. It doesn’t feel like a dream anymore. It feels like punishment. I scream for him.

"Aiden, please—don’t leave me here. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry."

But he turns.

Walks away.

And the flames laugh as they devour me.

Suddenly, I’m not burning anymore. The fire disappears like it was never there.

I blink—

And I’m six years old again.

My stomach growls, hollow and sharp. Mommy said if I drank a lot of water, I wouldn’t feel the hunger. I’m on my fifth glass, my belly bloated with nothing but liquid, but the ache is still there. Angry. Alive.

She said she was going to get food.

So I wait.

And wait.

And wait.

My small hands grip the edge of the table. My eyes droop. I fall asleep, cheek pressed against the cold surface.

Then I hear it. My name.

"LEXIA! OPEN THE DAMN DOOR!"

Mommy.

She’s back!

I jump up and rush to the door, unlocking it quickly, heart fluttering with hope.

But instead of bags of food or even just a slice of bread, she staggers in with a bottle. The strong smell of liquor punches the air.

I look up at her.

"I’m hungry, Mommy..."

Her eyes, bloodshot and wild, narrow on me.

"Hungry, huh? You’re always needy," she slurs, stumbling forward.

Then she grabs my face, shoving the mouth of the liquor bottle into my lips. Bitter, sharp liquid burns down my throat.

I choke. Cough. Try to push it away.

She yells, "Don’t waste it, you little brat! This costs more than you ever will!"

Tears pour from my eyes. "I’m sorry! I’ll be good, I’ll be good!"

She throws me to the floor and disappears into the bedroom, door slamming behind her.

I curl up on the carpet. My stomach hurts. My chest hurts more.

Then the scene flickers—

School.

I’m sitting at my desk, trying to smile, trying to be like the other girls.

Amber walks in with a brand new doll. It’s beautiful. Blonde curls, shiny dress, blinking blue eyes. All the girls squeal, begging to hold it. She lets them, one by one.

I gather my courage and walk up to her.

"Can I hold her too?" I ask softly.

Amber turns slowly, eyes narrowed like she’s just noticed something disgusting on her designer shoes.

"Why would I let you touch her?" she sneers, her voice sweet but cruel. "You’ll infect her with your poverty."

The other girls burst into giggles.

"Loopy Lexi! Loopy Lexi!" they chant.

I shake my head, hot tears burning my eyes. "I’m not poor! I’m a princess! Princess Alexia!"

They laugh harder.

My world crumbles.

I drop my book bag and run.

Run out the school gates.

Run all the way home.

My chest hurts more than my feet.

I push the door open—"Mommy?"—and find her sleeping on the couch, cigarette still burning between her fingers.

"Mommy..."

She stirs. Her eyes open, furious.

"You’re home early?"

"I—I just..." I sniffle. "They were mean to me."

She sits up too fast, grabs her belt from the arm of the couch.

"You always ruin everything!" she shouts.

I scream and try to run but it’s too late.

The first lash hits my legs. The second, my back.

"I’ll be good, Mommy! I promise!" I sob, my voice breaking.

But she doesn’t stop.

She never stops.

The belt lashes stop, but the sting of her words cuts even deeper than leather ever could.

"You don’t deserve to eat!" she snarls, towering over me as I curl into myself, tears streaking my dirt-smudged cheeks. "You’ve been bad, Lexia. Waking me up when I work so hard to take care of your endless needs—you selfish, ungrateful little thing!"

"I’m sorry," I whisper between choked sobs, arms shielding my head. "I didn’t mean to—I just wanted—"

"You ran away from school. Again! Do you know how that makes me look?" She throws her arms up, staggering slightly. "You think I don’t have enough to deal with already? God, you’re just like your father."

The name hits like a slap.

She never talks about him unless it’s to spit his name like poison.

"Useless," she continues, voice dripping with venom. "He left because he couldn’t handle either of us. And you? You’re gonna turn out just like him. A nobody. A drain. You’re already halfway there."

Her breath smells like whiskey and cigarettes, her eyes burning with the kind of rage that doesn’t need a reason.

"I didn’t mean to be bad," I whisper, clutching my sides.

She scoffs, cold and hard. "Just go to your room. I don’t want to see your face. I swear, Lexia, you’re nothing but a curse on my life."

I stumble up, dizzy, sore, the ache in my belly now joined by a deeper pain I don’t have a name for. I shuffle down the narrow hallway to the tiny room at the end—mine, though there’s barely anything in it. A broken dresser. A stained mattress on the floor. A tattered teddy bear missing one eye.

I close the door behind me and sit on the edge of the bed, legs trembling.

I’m not hungry anymore.

I’m... nothing.