Yea so it' been a while, but initially I didn' know what direction I wanted this story to go in

But I think I know now, so let me know what you think

PLEASE excuse any errors


Lucy sat reading. From what she could it was a rather simple story: one about a girl in a tower and a man that rescued her. The story would have normally enraptured her, it would have sent her on a journey where her mind could escape the tutors and maids waiting on her. It would send her to a place that felt just real enough to actually be real.

But there was an insistent tapping. Almost like a fingernail on a tin can, except more persistent. It was a scratchy sound, one that had her cringing. It was in her mind, that much she knew. But it wouldn't stop. No matter how loud she screamed the words of the book into her head, that god awful tapping did not cease.

It gave her the same feeling as when chalk would squeal against the black of a chalkboard.

It was coming from wherever Erik was. Wherever the cool air swarmed bones; wherever isolation was your only company; wherever it was that Erik found himself trapped.

He was strikingly similar to the girl in the story. Lucy felt like laughing as she imagined that. She did not know his appearance, but she still imagined that high, raspy voice yelling out from the top of a tower – it was enough to send her hand to her mouth to muffle a snicker.

The tutors words were muffled and Lucy realised she was indeed speaking. She was reading, but she wasn't; half of her was in the over-priced chair, holding an equally over-priced book, and the other was listening to that needy tap tap tap.

The tutor was following along with her words, listening as she spoke flawlessly. She wasn't in any state of mind to care, she was too busy worrying about Erik.

Was it even real?

Maybe he didn't exist; maybe he was someone she created to deal with her own loneliness. Maybe if Erik existed, then maybe – just maybe – she could pretend her mother wasn't dying.

The thought sent her mind screeching to a halt. The fear of him not being real almost made her reading pause. But she continued. Each sentence in her mind ending with tap tap tap. Erik had to be real. He was the only child she had ever spoken to. The only person who knew how she felt. Almost as though he felt it. She could feel him too. She could hear the tapping, she could hear the screaming when things got really quiet. She found herself wanting to save him.

Maybe he was the girl in the book – just as fictional.

But there was something too human about Erik. Something that Lucy knew her naïve mind couldn't have conjured. He was too complex, too different to the people around her - someone a mere eight year old couldn't possibly create.

"Are you there Erik?" It was difficult not to speak the words out loud. Almost like she was splitting her mind in half, forcing herself to be in two places at once. Then the cold of that place seeped into her bones, and Lucy knew he was there.

"Yeah," the tapping grew louder, almost throbbing. "I'm tired, Lucy."

She forced herself not to bite her lip, knowing that she would stutter while reading.

'Do you get taught anything there – wherever you are, I mean?'

'No, not really. . .Why?'

Lucy cut off the memory. "Can – can I show you something?"

Erik didn't speak, but she felt him nod, as if there was a part of her brain that could see him too.

She didn't know how she did it, but she opened her mind; a splintering pain that only lasted a few seconds washed over her. Then she imagined herself grabbing the two worlds – wherever Erik was and her seat in the chair – and she merged them – her mind smashing them together with enough force to do the impossible.

The words she had been speaking amplified and became sounds, rather than the faded away syllables she had been saying before. Erik was there, almost looking over her shoulder as she read.

The tap tap tap became as loud as her speaking – but somehow, Lucy pushed it to the back of her mind, and then she read to Erik.

-0-

He had been shocked for a few brief seconds, his eyes had widened and his pickaxe's pace seemed to stutter. None of the guards paid him any mind, which was good, because if they were to beat him, he certainly didn't want Lucy hearing it. The thought of the guards finding out he had magic sent his mind into a frenzy.

When he dug deep into the nearest guard's mind – which he didn't do often, thankfully – he heard just how terrible the idea would be. There was a different procedure for magical abilities. They didn't get beat like normally. They were usually slaughtered, their powers stored in lacrimas as their soul was ripped from their body.

It would not be wise for them to know.

Erik took his pickaxe and reset his pace. They wouldn't know. They couldn't. there was too much riding on their ignorance.

Lucy's voice was clear, and the words on the pages of her book where flashing before him – luckily he was still able to clear the stone. They were words he had heard before, although they were words he had never had the privilege to see written. He had never read a book before. He had only ever heard words – had never seen them written and the symbols used to represent each sound. He didn't imagine the characters to have swirled starts, or flicks, and he didn't know what the words actually said, he relied on Lucy for that.

Someone behind him tensed, he heard the muscles freeze, then the tell-tale crack of a whip; the hallmark of this horrifying building. He kept his pickaxe steady, his mind in that room with Lucy, his body in the tower chipping away at stone, his magic alerting him when something changed.

The scream pierced the air as terribly as the wind. Erik blocked it. Lucy didn't need to hear that. Not when her soul was so happy. The woman was being dragged away, her body immobile after they put the tranquilising shackles on her – the shackles saved mostly for women. Erik didn't know why those shackles were reserved for girls and women. He did not want to know.

"…let down your hair,' cried the prince," Lucy read. He frowned.

"How long's her hair if it reaches the bottom of the tower?"

Lucy paused, not in her reading, but her thought process, which was when she occasionally had to tell him the meanings of words he hadn't heard before. The reading faded into background noise as she spoke to him, "Way too long." He could imagine her shaking her head, "Do you know how hard it is to brush hair?"

"My hair's not really long enough that it needs brushing…" He found himself feeling shy all of a sudden, as if Lucy was going to hold It against him.

"Lucky,"

"Do you think," he started, "that if my hair got long enough I'd be able to get out of here?"

Lucy's soul strummed a low cord, a sting of sadness coating her thoughts, even the way she was reading. "I'm not sure, Erik." She scrunched her eyebrows, "I think you'd need a really big brush , though."

-0-

When her tutoring had ended, Lucy had moved into the library where her father's large collection of books sat, dust free – thanks to the servants that polished them all. She read Erik another story, one that was easy to understand, but one she thought he would enjoy a little more than Rapunzel.

So she read to him, until the tap tap tap stopped and Erik bid her goodnight.

But as she lay down in her bed, the tapping started again, the same obnoxious tapping as before. Only louder, as if Erik was dreaming about it.

Her head throbbed with every agonising and repeated beat, until a sweat broke out and it was hard to breathe. She sensed Erik there again. He didn't say anything, but somehow, a breeze blew over her – even though all of her doors and windows had been locked – curtesy of the maids.

Her ceiling changed first. The usual cream colour morphing from the boring colourless paint and into a deep blue sky – almost cloudless. Birds were chirping and there was a peaceful shushing that urged her to look in front of her; to turn her eyes away from limitless blue sky.

She turned her eyes away and instead of a limitless sky, a limitless ocean greeted her. Beyond the ocean, there was a never-ending sunset. One that painted the sky with pinks and reds and oranges and purples. It shone brighter than anything she had ever seen, yet her eyes remained unharmed, as if the brightness was there but only to soothe.

She stared out to the horizon, staring at the silhouette of a small boat. Lucy watched it sway left to right, until finally it seemed steady.

She ran her fingers through the sand, knowing it was too incredible for it to be true. But the sand ran through her hands like any other sand.

She kept staring at that boat, her eyes narrowing and relaxing the longer she kept her eyes there.

A limitless ocean? Yes.

A never-ending sunset? Yes.

Still, there was more than that.

As the tide rose, the water scraped her toes and cooled her body. Lucy blinked and found herself staring back at her colourless roof.

She closed her eyes; the tap tap tap silenced. As she drifted into a deep sleep, she found herself dreaming. She was sitting in a boat, the limitless sky above her, a limitless ocean below her; sailing into a never-ending sunset.

And although she couldn't see him – Lucy could sense that Erik was there too.


Ta-da! that's that, I hoped you liked it

Drop a review, they keep the fingers typing

Hope you enjoyed.

Until next time :)

~MyFictionalFantasy


Next update (hopefully) on the 24th