CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION

Waking up…

God, I always hated waking up…

Same shit, different day for me…

Except…

Why did it feel like I was… Restrained? Why couldn't I move?!

Opening my eyes, I finally saw why. I really WAS restrained. Tied down to… the throne? And was I wearing… My old king uniform?! Concentrating hard enough, I could feel the cold metal of the king's crown placed upon my head too, my hair carelessly slicked back to accommodate its presence on my head.

"Looks like he's finally woken up." A cold voice spoke out from just in front of me, making me shiver. I knew exactly who that voice was. Looking up, I saw the face of my father, the former king, standing right in front of me. He wasn't alone, though. Beside him was Sally, my sister, Sonic, the rest of the Freedom Fighters, civilians from the kingdom, EVERYONE I knew was standing right in front of me, giving me looks of disapproval and disgust.

"Wha… What's… Going on? Why… Why am I tied up? Why are you all here?" I managed to say, my eyes aimlessly wandering as I was unable to comprehend the situation or figure out who or what to keep my eyes focused on.

"We're here… Because of YOU. You're tied up so you can't possibly foolishly run away again like the coward you are." My father's voice eerily said, beginning to approach the throne I was unable to escape.

"I-I'm… I'm not a coward-! I just…"

"You just WHAT, Elias?!" Sally growled, approaching me too just like my father had begun to do. "You just HAD to run away when we all needed you most?! Just HAD to abandon me and the rest of the family?! Leave us in the dust like we meant NOTHING to you? Did our conversations seriously mean nothing to you?! …ANSWER ME FOR GOD'S SAKE!" She climbed up the final step to the throne, grabbing hold of my head and forcing me to look her in the eyes. As my blue eyes stared into hers, all I could see was vitriol and hatred. For me. Because of what I'd done.

"Sally, I… You gotta hear me out, ok! I-I didn't want to leave! I swear, I didn't! I just… I couldn't take it! Being king! It was so… Draining! I couldn't… Couldn't make the right decisions for the people. I was a fuck up! They all hated me! I had to leave! I HAD to!" I began looking down the more I spoke, coming to the harsh realization. Father was right. I WAS a coward.

"Couldn't make the right decisions? Hah! Yeah, you've DEFINITELY kept that side of yourself. Look what you've done now that you decided to selfishly run from all of us!" She took a step back, forcing me to stare out into the crowd.

"You left us without guidance!"

"Yeah! We couldn't figure out how 'tah keep goin' without 'ya word to go on!"

"Oui, I've never been so ashamed to serve ze king in all of my are ze pathetic and selfish."

"I can't believe you'd just up and leave us like that! Did you seriously think we'd just forgive and forget you just like that?"

"GUYS-! I-I'M SORRY, OK?! I'M SO, SO SORRY FOR WHAT I DID! PLEASE, JUST STOP!" I finally shouted out, not wanting to hear the berating from my friends any longer.

But it didn't stop. Instead, everyone began to walk up to me, surrounding me as they all began to shout insults and hurtful words into my ears, making them begin to ring as the room began to spin uncontrollably, being unable to collect my thoughts as everyone shouted at me.

Pathetic!
Worthless!
We never want to see your face ever again!
You disgust us!

I tried to scream, but no one heard. I was trapped in this nightmare, unable to wake up, the voices repeating those words over and over again as I was rendered unconscious again.

I finally awoke to the real world with a start, shooting up from my laying down position, breathing heavily as I placed my hand firmly on my chest. My heart was racing, and I was sweating. Was I about to have another panic attack? I tried to steady my breathing as I stared up at the ceiling, thinking to myself.

It was just a dream, Elias. Just a dream. Calm down, you're safe away from everyone. Besides, did you REALLY dream that Sally ACTUALLY said that to you after she's been nothing but supportive to you after your decision AND still comes to visit you whenever she can? Get over yourself. You're being ridiculous.

After repeating those words to myself in my head for a while, I was able to calm myself down, beginning to breathe normally and restoring my heart rate to a normal rhythm. I finally looked back down to the bed, looking to my side and seeing that nobody was beside me. Looks like she'd had to get up early again whilst I was heavily sleeping. I looked at the alarm clock and saw that I had actually woken up half an hour before the alarm was supposed to go off for me to go to work, so I decided it was best for me to just get up now and get a bite to eat before I had to go out and do my job for the day. I stood up, albeit still quite shaky and got my work clothes on. As I was getting dressed, I eyed the sleeping medication on my bedside table. It had been prescribed to help me sleep easier at night since I'd been really struggling recently, not give me night terrors about every single person I knew back home hating me for running away.

Once I'd finished getting dressed, I finally walked out of the bedroom, immediately going over to the kitchen, where finally I saw her, Alexis in arms and looking quite tired. She'd clearly had a worse night than me. Regardless, I walked over and sat across from her as she looked up at me, giving me a tired-looking smile.

"Morning."

"Hey. Did she… Wake you up again?" I unconsciously began to grab the cereal and made myself a bowl of it, beginning to haphazardly eat it.

"Yeah, she did. I didn't want to wake you up, though. Since you have to work, and well… You were knocked out by those sleeping pills anyways."

"I definitely was. I keep… Having that dream too. I don't know why, but everytime I take the pills I end up having that dream. It's starting to really mess with me. Do you think it's some sort of side effect?"

"AGAIN? Ugh, seriously, you NEED to tell them to put you on some other stuff, or just stop taking them all together for your own sake. You can't live like this, Eli!"

"You wanna see me have sleep deprivation again? Wanna deal with me having hallucinations again because I physically and mentally could not sleep without medication?"

"...You raise a good point. After you leave for work, I'll call the doctor and tell him what's going on and see if he can put you on something different. How's that sound?"

"Sounds good to me. Thanks. I appreciate that a lot." I ate more of my cereal, pretty satisfied with the idea of being able to finally be able to stop having that dream.

"Whilst I'm at it… I'll be talking to him about trying to talk you into quitting smoking. It's not healthy, Elias. I get that it's your coping mechanism after everything that's happened, but you need to quit it before any serious side effects come your way." Yep, there was the kicker for all of this. I knew she'd bring this up again. Wouldn't it be MY choice what I did with my body?

"But Meg-!"

"No buts, Elias! I want you to at least try to quit, for me. Think you could try? …Pleaasseee?" Damnit, I couldn't say no to her. Not when she does the pleading voice.

"...Fine. If I manage to quit, you buy me… ANYTHING I want. Deal?" I held out my hand, and she smirked at me, happily shaking it.

"Deal. Now, you better finish up breakfast and get going, my dad's waiting for you. You should ask him for some advice on how to quit smoking, he'd know how."

"Alright, I'll talk to him on a break or something and see what he has to say. See you later." I proceeded to stand up from the table, grabbing my axe from next to the door and opening the door to leave, giving Megan a goodbye wave as I proceeded to shut the door behind me.

Ignoring all of the looks of disapproval from some of the people of Feral Forest who knew who I was, I made my way to where Joss was waiting for me. I approached him as the clock struck exactly for my shift to start, getting his attention.

"Hey, I'm here on time. What's the rota for today?" He turned around, giving me a smile and nod of approval.

"Hey Elias! You're just on time, great job! We're working together today. The boss wants us to cut down some trees near the back of my house, apparently they're gonna start building more houses 'round here to bring in more residents." He pointed to where we were going before starting to walk to the area, making me have to run to keep up with him.

"Wow, more people? That's fun! Seems like this place just keeps expanding more and more recently since I got here." I marveled at the idea of more people. Maybe I could… Finally meet some people my age… Make some friends since I… Had none.

"Yeah, it'll be nice to have more people! Who knows, you could make a few friends from it!" He gave a low laugh from his seemingly funny prod at me, but I remained silent. The truth hurt.

We continued our walk and made it to our work place for the day. Mountains, and mountains, and mountains of trees to cut down to make way for houses. God, I'd never been so sick of trees in my entire life… Though of course I couldn't complain, it was what gave me a job and a way to make cash, so I guess all I could do was just suck it up and get on with it. Which is exactly what I did, proceeding to just get on with it and begin the process of cutting down the trees within the circle. I wracked my brain the entire time, trying my best to remember the techniques I'd been taught in training for how to safely cut down a tree without being crushed to death.

Though of course, me being me, I made a sloppy mistake. I got too caught up in my thoughts, thinking about my dream I'd had during the night, so I barely noticed when a tree began to come crashing down in the direction right where I was standing. Thank goodness Joss was there to push me out of the way since we would have had a serious case of roadkill had he not. Once he'd safely pushed me and himself out of the way, he firmly grabbed my shoulders, giving me quite a shake that pulled me right the hell out of my thoughts.

"Elias, what the hell were you thinking just standing there like an idiot?! You've had training, you KNOW you're supposed to get out of the way if you can clearly see it's gonna come down on you! You need to get your head in the game or you can GO HOME!" Great. Just fucking great. It was looking like I was yet again a disappointment to another parental figure. God dammit, why couldn't I just be GOOD ENOUGH? Now increasingly more angry, I responded with my body language, shoving him off of me and turning around and beginning to rant. I couldn't help it, I ranted when I was angry or too far into my own thoughts.

"FUCK THIS! FUCK ALL OF THIS, MAN! I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHY I TRY, I DON'T! I REALLY DON'T! YOU THINK I ENJOY THIS?! I DON'T! FUCK THIS JOB, FUCK THE TREES, I CAN'T! I JUST- I- I-" That was about as far as I could get into my rant about hating trees before Joss approached again, putting his hand on my shoulder again and basically forcing me to sit down on the ground. Once I was on the ground, I took my cigarettes out from my pocket, taking one out and lighting it up to smoke it. It was the only way I could calm myself down when I got like this. I feel like Joss felt like he'd crossed a boundary with me with what he said, since he sat down next to me.

"...Sorry about that, Elias. I probably sounded like your own old man there chewing you out, didn't I? I don't actually think you're an idiot, you're a smart guy. Just not able to think clearly sometimes which causes you to make idiotic mistakes. I'm… Actually kind of worried about you, you don't seem like you're doing all that well recently. Is something going on?" I looked at him as I quickly took another inhale of my cigarette before beginning to speak.

"Can you be honest with me here? Do you… Ever get sick of doing this job? Like, come on, all we do is cut down trees all day. Surely you've been sick of doing this at least once? At all?"

"Yeah, I guess you could say I've gotten sick of doing this gig sometimes. But, it's how I make my living, so I don't really have a right to complain. So, I just get on with it. Are you sure that's what this is all about? You're just… Sick of the job you're doing?"

"...Well, I guess you could say that's part of it. I've been… Having this recurring dream, or nightmare, whatever you wanna call it, whenever I sleep. I dream that… I'm tied to the throne, and everyone back home is there in the room with me, hurling insults at me and telling me I'm pathetic and worthless for making the choice to abdicate and running away here. It's REALLY starting to mess with me, skew my perception of people back home and what they really think of me for doing what I did. On top of it, I'm still suffering from the effects of it, which I guess is manifesting itself as depression, smoking and well… Anxiety." There was a moment of silence between the both of us as he processed what I said before he began to speak to me again.

"But, isn't abdication what you wanted for yourself…?"

"I don't know what I want for myself, Joss!" I suddenly stood up, staring down at him as he stared up at me. "I have absolutely no idea what I want to do with my life! I used to live on Angel Island and be an explorer for fucks sake, now look at me! I'm wasting away here in Feral Forest working as a damned lumberjack, smoking to no end because I'm completely and utterly depressed and anxious and think everyone hates me! I don't even know if abdication was what I wanted at this point, but it doesn't even matter now because my own father hates me because of my actions!" I put my head in my hands, unsure if I was about to cry or have a panic attack, the words of my father ringing loud and clear in my head after he'd discovered that I wasn't coming back to take my rightful place on the throne. The same words I kept hearing in my dreams every single night.

I was sharply brought back to reality before I had the chance to decide by Joss, who was shaking my shoulder hard again, causing my cigarette to fall out of my hand. There goes my nicotine hit for the hour. I stared him in the eyes as I tried my best to calm my breathing.

"C'mon, Elias, deep breaths, calm yourself down now. You're ok, you're safe. Just, sit down for a while. I'll tackle the trees for a while so that you can calm down. Join me once you're ready, no pressure." He smiled at me, and I nodded at him, letting him know it was ok for him to go back to work. He finally let go of me, picking up his axe to get back to work, leaving me sitting there to calm down as I hastily watched him. I envied his work ethic and ability to not get bored by his job.

In case you couldn't tell. Hello. I'm Elias Acorn, I'm currently 23 years old, and as of right now in my own eyes my life is a huge mess. I don't truly know who I am right now or what I really want to do with my life, but I knew I was destined for something more than just being a lumberjack in Feral Forest. I wanted to do something more exciting, more adventurous. Just like my life back on Angel Island.