Disclaimer: If only

It was a true miracle that she lived, nothing short of a divine intervention that she was able to survive the trauma her brother had so dotingly inflicted. But the truth was she had only lived thanks to Belphegor's childish mistakes. Had Olgert not been alive to find her tattered body, she would have bled to death. But he had been there, he had taken her under his left arm with a bloodied, equally unconscious Rasiel on his right and taken them both to the hospital. They both lived, both owed their lives to the burly man.

Yet the moment she had recovered, the young princess was shipped away. Rasiel was left to rule as king under the guidance of Olgert while she was sent off to a distant kingdom on the other side of Italy, it was the kingdom of her future husband. Now, this had been a marriage arranged far prior to her parents' brutal deaths and she was left with no decision but to leave and to grow up alongside strangers and the brute of a man she was to marry.

At the tender age of five she had been torn from everything she knew, she had been torn from her family, from her home. At the tender age of five she was forced to grow up, to accept abandonment and learn to fend for herself because in the end she was all she had.

The family she was forced to live with attempted at first to accommodate her, to please her, to make her feel comfortable and at home but as the years passed their efforts dwindled and the young girl spent more and more time alone. She would often lock herself in her room and occupy her time with drawing, putting the fragmented memories of that fateful massacre down onto paper. She often wondered what Rasiel was doing, she knew he would never die without re-encountering Belphegor, without proving his superiority or at least trying to. Belphegor. That was another frequent thought, his sadistic smile and blood chilling laughter were often found at the epicenter of her worst dreams. Yet she could not say she hated the man.

For a reason she could not name, she felt a burning indifference toward the male who had nearly taken her life and that was far more unsettling than any white hot rage.

No, the only thing she could say she hated that much was living in this foreign castle. As she grew, so did her hatred. Her foster family adored her blindly, her husband to be grew with her and lusted after her as they grew, but all she could return those feelings with was disgust. She hid behind a mask of apathy and kept herself locked in her room to avoid their contact. The mere thought of her groom Charles and his smile made her stomach lurch with unease.

The male was brash and round with a loud personality; a man who carried himself with an unwarranted sense of superiority. He was a man of arrogance and ill humor. He was incapable of surviving on his own and the young princess often held onto the hope his horse would someday abandon him in a forest far, far away from wherever she was.

The princess had only been eighteen for a few days when it happened. When she followed her brother's bloodied path, when she became Princess the Ripper.

When Belphegor had abandoned his castle the night of the massacre, he left behind numerous knives and, just as she had done from the moment she could walk, the young princess took a few for herself. She had slipped them into her knapsack the day she left for her new "home" and to this day, she never went without one strapped to her thigh.

It was a warm spring day and she had fancied herself a stroll through the garden. As she walked past a pleasant bush of white roses she encountered Charles. Although the mere sight of him sent a shiver down her spine she attempted to be cordial, offering him a curtsy and a polite bow of her head. But her gracious actions sparked an unnecessary surge of her companion's ego and within seconds he was leaning in toward her, his sticky breath hitting her skin as he complimented the way her dress fit around her breasts in a low voice she knew not to belong to him naturally. She averted her gaze, jaw clenched as he continued on in his sick speech. She was powerless, unable to pound her fist against the underside of his jaw in such a public place.

She bristled as his stubby fingers brushed a portion of her hair back from her face, exhaling slowly as she tried to maintain her composure. But without any further warning he dipped down and pressed an open kiss to her mouth. The contact had been so undesired, she snapped. With her rage bubbling over, she reached up and shoved him away roughly. There was no time for him to speak, to try and deter her as she reached under her sundress to pull out the knife she had so dutifully strapped to her thigh this morning. The young princess reached up to wipe the saliva from her mouth, "You dirty fucking pig." She laughed then, shaking her head and twirling a sparkling knife between her thin fingers as she stared Charles down. The heavy set man had soiled his pants in fear. He tried to stumble backward and call for the guards, tried to yell in fear, but his profanities did not deter her, his threats did not slow her down.

"Stay away from me, you bitch!"

"Oh." She shook her head pitifully, "Oh no, sweetheart, that is not how you speak to a lady."

And with that she brought her arm back, flicking her wrist and watching in morbid delight as the knife impaled itself into his forehead. Charles gasped then, his eyes rolling backward as blood dripped steadily from the wound, pouring down his face and over his open lips. She had imagined the act of killing someone as one which would weigh heavily on her heart but as she stared at the motionless body of the man her parents intended her to marry she felt no remorse. She only felt exhilaration, satisfaction in knowing he was dead and she was not.

She walked over daintily, reaching down and pulling her knife from his skull with a small laugh, "If only you hadn't been such an ass, dear." Laughing a bit louder she stood only to find herself surrounded by three guards. A grin broke out on her face when they aimed guns at her small body, "Hello, officers."

She stepped over their bodies hours later as she walked out of the castle for the last time. Killing them had been the hardest, armed only with a knife she was forced to sustain a shot to her shoulder in their fight. But it was easy to run inside and tell the residential doctor Charles had mistakenly hit her, easy to have him perform a short operation (the bullet had skimmed rather than pierced her flesh) and stitch her up before she used the scalpel to slit his throat.

With the warm spray of the doctor's blood staining her face a brilliant red, the young princess had eradicated every living person within that castle. She simply used the weapons she could pick up; a frying pan for her favorite maid, a brilliant machete for the honest chef, the blunt side of a statue for her art loving "mother-in-law", and a croquet mallet for her dear "father-in-law." She was unstoppable and by the end of the day she was showered and on permanent leave from the estate, feeling content and most of all alive.

She felt absolutely reborn, a stinging sense of understanding underlying her thoughts of Belphegor and memories of his similar crime. But she was unlike her older brother in one very important way, she did not make any mistakes.

The eighteen year old princess had made sure every soul to occupy the walls of that castle perished and now she was free. Free from the chains of a life she never asked to lead and with this burden lifted from her shoulders, she could finally live.

The only question was, where to begin?

The keys clicked themselves.

Comment.