Jun's POV
I was walking back from a meeting that we just had. It's already pretty late in the night when I walked down the open hallways. Stretching my arms out, I let out a yawn and made my way back to my room. As I walked to my door, I heard distant footsteps and stopped in my tracks. The footsteps were light. I knew who's footsteps those were.
"Jun!" Nagit shouted out my name as he ran towards me.
"What do you want, Nagit?" I leaned against my door and waited for my youngest brother.
"You forgot this paper at your desk." Nagit was breathing a little heavily as he held up a piece of paper.
"He ran from the office to me for a little piece of paper?" I said to myself as I rolled my eyes. "What's it for?"
"It's for the recent assassin attacks." I raised an eyebrow with interest and took the piece of paper from Nagit's hand and looked through it. "Yet the human trafficking and drug dealing has gone down, the killings and thefts have been going up."
"Alright." I said to him after a moment of scanning through the paper. "I will put this with the recent documents and we'll talk about it on the next meeting."
"Okay brother." Nagit said to me. "Goodnight now." He bowed to me and left.
I went into my room and turned on the lamp next to my desk. Sitting down at my desk, I looked through the paper once more, then opening the last drawer of my desk, I took out a file with the other reposts of these assassinations. I scanned through the rest of them and they all seemed the same to me. Drug dealing has gone down, but robbery has gone up. Human trafficking has gone down, but murders has gone up. All the same reports. I sat on my desk staring at the multiple reports. Resting my elbows on the surface of the desk, I rubbed my eyes and sighed.
"Something's gotta change." I said mentally to myself.
Looking out the balcony window, the sky was clear of any clouds and the new moon was out, but it was still trailed with a dim moonlight. Standing from my seat, I went into the bathroom and stripped myself to take a shower. Unbraiding my hair, I felt it swiftly move against my waist as I walked into the shower and feel the warm water hit me. Soaking my hair, I put a handful of shampoo on the top of my head and gently massaged it into my scalp. Rinsing out of my hair, I take a small squirt of conditioner and ran it through my long, burgundy strands. Wringing out my hair, I braided it again and had it in a loose braid. Putting it up, I grab a sponge and put some AXE body wash on it and rubbed it all over myself. Rinsing my body off, I stood in the running water and just started getting a random flashback of when I wasn't a prince.
"Let's go!"
I heard a familiar, cheerful voice. A girl's voice. I don't remember her though.
"Julian!"
I remembered how she used to call me that.
"I'm coming!"
Then I saw myself running after her as we played near the river bed. But that memory of her and I playing together turned into a nightmare in a second.
"Help me!"
I saw her crying. And what did I do? Watched her. Being punched by the bullies that picked on her everyday. I did nothing but see her fall to the ground, coughing up blood. She cried for help. I heard it. But I didn't do anything.
I heard her scream one last time before my mind and body came back into reality. The water that was running out of the faucet was already twenty degrees colder. So turning the water off, I wringed out my hair and walked out of the shower. Grabbing a towel, I dried my body and got dressed into some sleep pants. I stayed shirtless because of the warm weather we've been having for the past few weeks.
I stared at myself in the mirror and pictured myself growing up again. Then seeing myself as a kid again, I saw that girl again. I remembered how beautiful she looked. But then, that beautiful girl disappeared and she reappeared with bruises, cut, scars, and blood all over her unconscious body.
My eyes opened up and I saw my normal self in the mirror again. I was hallucinating again. But I haven't hallucinated in years. Looking through one of my cabinets in the bathroom, I found my old bottle of pills that I used to sleep. So it never gave me nightmares. It was still half full from me not needing to consume two for the last five years. Taking two capsules out of the bottle, I tilted my head back and swallowed the pills. Going back into my room, I opened the balcony window door slightly and shut off the lamp on my desk. Looking over the assassination reports again in the dark, I slowly closed my eyes and sighed. Walking over to my bed, I pulled over the covers and slid under them. As I felt the comfort of the bed, I felt myself drift off into a dreamless sleep.
~~~~~ The Fourth Prince ~~~~~
"Julian!"
I don't know how long I have slept, but I somehow felt refreshed.
"Are you awake?"
The same voice was making me want to open my eyes and see who was speaking to me. But as I was about to, I felt a slight sting in my arm. Opening one of my eyes, I saw a man in black standing next to the bed with a needle into my arm.
"Assassins." I narrowed my eyes and quietly took out the dagger I kept under my pillow. You know, just in case.
In a swift move, I stabbed the dagger into the man's stomach and he backed away from me. The needle fell out of me and onto the bed. Getting up from the bed, I looked down at the man and in one strike, I slit his throat and he fell onto the floor. Instant death. As I saw him on the floor, out of the corner of my eye I saw another black figure charge toward me.
"You son of a bitch!" I quickly took out my sword and block a strike from the female assassin. Her weapon was an iron forged pin ornament that looks to be used for slicing throats. But with my sword, there's no chance.
"You really gonna kill me with that little thing?" I smirked at how pathetic she was.
"It's way better than yours!" She screamed as she charged at me again.
"I don't think so." I swiftly swung my sword and I sliced her on the chest. But not too deep. I looked down at her as she was on one knee, struggling to get up again.
"You bastard."
"Good. She stopped screaming." I rolled my eyes as she tried talking down to me.
"Still think it's better?" Her little pin was on the floor away from her. And as I saw it, I smirked more and also spotted the needle on my bed.
I heard some faint movement and saw that the assassin was about to jump at me. So I quickly took the needle and hid it behind my back. She held a boot knife at me as she jumped towards me, but I caught her by the neck and quickly inserted the drugs into her.
"You should really stop trying." I said to her and got a better look at her face.
"Her face..." That's who the girl is in my memories. As I saw all those features on her and compared them to the girl who played with me down by the river bank, I dropped her and stared down. "It's her..."
"Julian."
Her voice echoed through me head.
But my thoughts were interrupted by footsteps coming through the hallways.
"Jun!" Lambert shouts out my name as he ran into my room with Nagit, Alvah, and Chezem behind him.
"Jun, are you alright?" Chezem asks me as I suspect they saw the blood on the floor and my sword.
"Yeah." I quietly answered him.
"What happened?" Alvah asks me.
"Nothing happened. Just an assassin." I turned and looked at them. They all had their eyes widened as they saw drops of blood on my body and face.
"Guards!" Nagit shouts out the door and summons some guards. But before any guards got here, Alvah shouts out.
"Jun!" Turning around again, I saw the female assassin jump at me again and I quickly grabbed her by the throat again. Throwing her, she hit my bedpost and fell to the floor. Still and unconscious.
"Jun." I heard Lamberts calm voice again. "Are you really okay?" I was hearing static and my vision was turning blurry.
"I don't know." I fell onto my knees and onto the ground unconscious again. The last thing I heard was my brothers yelling out my name.
~~~~~ The Fourth Prince ~~~~~
After some time, I slowly opened my eyes and stared up at a bright ceiling light. Feeling a cushioned bed under me, I guessed that I was in the doctor's room. Sitting up, I saw the doctor at his desk examining the needle with just a small millimeter of drugs in there.
"Doctor?" He looked up at me.
"Oh Prince. You have woken up." He set down the needle and walked over to me. "How are you feeling?"
"I have a slight headache." I rubbed my head as I said this.
"Probably the drugs that they have put into your system."
"Drugs?" I looked at him curiously. He walked back to the counter and took a small bottle with it half full of a clear liquid in it.
"Meet METHAMPHETAMINE."
"So, meth?" I looked at him confused. "They put that in me?"
"Yes. Not enough to give you an overdose, but enough to give you some feeling of the symptoms. Such as headaches, dizziness, increase of heart rate and body temperature, anxiety, paranoia," He paused and studied me. "Violent behavior."
"I did that bad of a damage, didn't I?" He slowly nodded.
"But also, we found these in your drawer." He than took out my pills that I used for sleep.
"Yeah." I averted my eyes away from him. He was the doctor who prescribed them to me when I first started having trouble sleeping. He kept asking me if I stopped, I was truthful and said yes. Until now.
"How long?"
"Just before bed." I answered him quietly.
"Prince, you know that you can't take these. The dosage is too high for you right now, and it affected the drugs that were put into you." He paused again. "You could have had cardiac arrest."
"I know. But it just," I bit my bottom lip before looking back up at the doctor. "I'm seeing her again." His expression doesn't change.
"How long have you been seeing her again?" He finally asks.
"After I looked through the reports about the assassins. I was in the shower then I had a flashback of those days." I shook my head as I tried not to remember her again.
"She's dead. Remember?" He told me as he placed his hand on my bare shoulder.
"That assassin," I looked up at him again. "Looks just like her. But I'm trying not to think that it's her."
"I'll let you stay on these for a while again." He finally said after studying me. "But I'm lowering the dosage so only take one before bed."
"Yes sir." I said to him before getting up and putting on the silk robe that was next to the table. Taking the bottle and putting it in my pocket, I walked to the door and opened it wide before leaving the clinic. "Where did they take her?" I asked him.
"I believe the cells." Then he looked up at me. "You're gonna see her, aren't you?" I didn't answer him and just shut the door behind me.
I walked through the hallways and down the back stairway that leads into the cells under the castle. As I got down to the first door, two of the guards who guarded the door looked at me in surprise.
"Prince Jun," One of them says.
"I want to see the female assassin." I said bluntly.
"Um, are you sure Prince?" The other one asked.
"If I wasn't sure, I wouldn't be down here." I tell them sternly and they finally opened the door. As I walked inside, one leads the way to the assassins cell and the other stayed and guarded the door.
I was following the guard to the end of the hall until I heard a loud thud and some grunts. I ran to the cell and saw that female assassin on the ground arching her back and her neck pushed way back. Blood was coming from her mouth and nose and it looked as if she was having a severe seizure. So I shouted at the guard to open the door.
"But she could be faking it!" I said back to me making me glare at him.
"Does it look like she's faking it?! Open the damn door!" He finally opened the door and I entered in a rush.
Taking a closer look at her, she biting the inside of her mouth and she had a bloody nose from falling from the bed that was next to the wall. Taking the bottle of pills out, I took out two of the pills and grinded them together between the palms of my hands, making them into a powder. Then pulling her head up, I opened her mouth and dumped the crushed pills into her mouth and down her throat. After a few more seconds, her body stopped jerking around and she lied completely still. Her breathing became normal again and she stopped biting herself.
"What did you just do?" The guard was standing at the doorway the whole time and witnessed the whole scene.
"I saved her life."