Sanity returned. The thick chains that held him bound dug deep into his chest, arms and legs, cutting his flesh in places where the padding in his clothes had been pushed aside. He should be in agony from it all but, where his sight, hearing, smell and taste had all increased since his cursing, for whatever reason, his sense of touch had all but vanished. In a way he was grateful for that aspect of his curse since his body didn’t heal as quickly as it use to and the accumulation of his various wounds would have been unbearable otherwise. Still, there was the hunger to deal with. It wasn’t a physical hunger, but rather something deeper, instinctual, ravenous.

  One of the stairs leading down into the basement squeaked. He looked, the hunger flaring up from the depths, as the woman descended into view. He groaned and shut his eyes against the urge to loose himself.

Breathe, he thought, reasserting what humanity he had. Every morning it was just a little harder to wait to unlock himself, took a little longer for his mind and body to be truly his again. Eventually he would never wake from the nightmare. He could smell her, she’d bathed recently and the scented soaps were like the savory seasonings on a fine meal.

Breathe, he continued as her footsteps moved fully into his room. The bestial part of his mind took hold for a moment and he strained against the chains, snarling. But still he managed to keep his eyes shut. Her footsteps stopped.

  The other things, hidden beneath the barrels and crates, thudded from within their confines. It was quiet, she probably couldn’t hear it. They had fallen mostly silent over the last several days but perhaps the presence of his guest had stirred them from their slumber.

  “You alright?” She asked, her breath as sweet as ever.

  Strange that she would be concerned for him, considering she knew what he was.

Breathe, the mantra lost a bit of its power each time he used it but he didn’t dare give it up.

  “I’ll be fine,” He said at last. “Just give me a bit longer.”

  She didn’t leave as he’d hoped she would. Instead she sat down on a crate. The Unfortunate thing beneath it protested against the added weight, but again it was so quiet she didn’t seem to notice. He opened his eyes and the beast within didn’t stir. The sun had risen in full and he was safe once more. The woman sat with her back to the wall, drawing with her finger on the dirt floor. The crate beside her was open, its contents already sifted through. False hair pieces, make-up, padded clothes, all symbols of what his life had become.

Strange, he thought, he didn’t hear her going through it.

  The keys clinked as he began unlocking himself and she turned immediately, reaching for something in her jacket pocket. She stopped herself halfway, though, and rested her hand in her lap in a failed attempt to conceal the motion. She watched him unlock his bonds with mild curiosity.

  “You use so many,” She commented after the fifth lock.

  “Yes,” He muttered. His throat and lips were dry and made talking difficult. “So?”

  “I’ve just never seen anyone take such precautions.”

  He snorted. “So that’s your game.”

  “What?”

  “What’d you do?”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” She said a bit too quickly to be believed.

  He laughed, a dry, cracked sounding laugh. “You slept in my house, knowing what I am…you’re desperate.”

  She huffed in response but said nothing to contradict him. Instead she turned her attention to the box beside her. Nothing in them would have been of use to her. The hair pieces were all styled for men, the make-up would only replicate real flesh tones, not enhance. The clothing would only serve to make her look fat with the added padding.

  He suddenly felt very self conscious with her there, looking back and forth from him to his contraband. His make-up would be smeared if not all but removed from the past nights insanity. He didn’t even know what he looked like, not entirely at least. He always applied the base coat to his skin before looking in the mirror to finish his work.

  As if realizing his inner discomfort, the woman looked back to him and said, “You don’t look so bad, considering how long you’ve been Unfortunate,” She mused for a moment. “I’ve seen much worse.”

  “They don’t eat,” He said as the last of his bonds fell loose.

  “You do?” She asked and he saw a glimpse of horror in her eyes. “But I thought you chained—

  “Eat normal food,” He interrupted her. “It doesn’t satisfy, but it does help.”

  The hollow feeling in his stomach grew intense for a moment but he pushed it back with the promise of a fine breakfast.

  “Come on,” He said, “You look half starved yourself,” And he lead the way back up the stairs. A few thumps from the floor below called out as they left the basement.

  The woman sat, stiff and ridged, with her back to the wall so she could keep the windows and doors all in her view. She ate the food he gave her, but only grudgingly. Her pack never left her side nor was the pack ever closed, in case she ever needed anything from it in a hurry.

  The man ate. The food needed little seasonings for it to become savory to his enhanced senses but, like everything else he ate, it failed to satisfy the ever-present gnawing in his stomach that threatened to consume him.

  “So,” He said, wiping his mouth and pushing his empty plate aside. “What would drive a High Born Lady like yourself to go and willingly spend the night in the house of an Unfortunate?”

  She stiffened even more, if that were possible. “I’m not High Born.”

  “Says the Lady with the True Mirror and strange torch that brings clarity to an Unfortunates cursed mind,” He guffawed.

  “And what about you?” She asked. “How many Unfortunates still go to work, still keep in touch with their friends? And why?”

  The thudding from the basement seemed to echo in his mind, though there was no way he could hear them through the floor, enhanced hearing or not.

  He shook his head. She’d come running up to his house last night, panicked and out of breath. She knew he was Unfortunate, her use of the True Mirror established that right away, but how could she have known so much of his day to day life?

  “How long have you been watching me?” He asked, his sense of foreboding growing as he began to doubt the randomness of her coming to him.

  She grew solemn. “You honestly don’t remember, do you?”

  He’d heard of stories where the Unfortunate curse, if allowed to progress, would eventually strip away the Unfortunates memories. But those stories were hardly common, and rarer still were Unfortunates who had lasted long enough to put the stories to the test. But it had been a long time since he’d actually thought about his life from before, he’d lived somewhere else…hadn’t he?

  “Tell me of your life before the Unfortunate curse came upon you,” She said as if reading his thoughts.

  “I moved here shortly before the curse took me,” He said even though he wasn’t so certain of that fact now that he thought about it. “I’ve always been a tailor, though,” He added, “I’m sure of that.”

  “Are you now?” She asked and he nodded his head immediately even though his eyes said otherwise. “What’s your name?”

  That gave him pause. True, there were people at the tailor shop whom he considered to be friends, but the name they knew him by wasn’t his real name.

  “Who are those Unfortunates that you keep hidden in your basement?” She asked without waiting for him to remember his name.

  He thought, again unable to find the answers. He’d guarded them, kept them  hidden, listened as their cries turned to moans, and then into thumpings, and now into hardly anything at all.

  “That’s why I’m here,” She told him, and she reached into her bag.

  He immediately shied back, expecting the True Mirror or the strange torch, but instead  she pulled out a roll of parchment and spread it out on the table. The Line of Kings, the royal pedigree, tracing back to the days before the curse fell upon the land. Along the Line, names had been blotted out, including almost all of the last three generations.

  She tapped on of those most recent, blotted out names. “This was you, ten years ago,” She said.

  Had he been here for that long? It didn’t seem like it, but as she had recently pointed out to him, his memory was not what he’d thought it to be.

  “You came, gave your father and his brothers their burial when the curse had gripped them fully, when you could no longer fight the curse in the nights, and took up your place here.”

  She pointed to the blotted out name just below his own blot. “And this,” She said, “Was me.”

  It took a moment for the new information to sink in. He looked from the blot she pointed to, signifying herself, and then to his blot just above, and then to his father above him. He blinked. He’d come to bury his father, then stayed because he wasn’t fit to rule. But now she was here. She was her because…

  “I don’t remember you,” He admitted.

  “I doubt your father remembered you either.”

  “Those poor Unfortunates in my basement—

  “Are your forebears,” She interrupted him. “And they’ve been granted a proper burial which is more than any other Unfortunate can say.”

  “And now it’s my turn to join them?” He asked, unable to believe it. Surely he could hold off a bit longer before he had to be forced bellow the earth.

  “The curse in the Royal family has always followed the same pattern,” She explained. “The day the current Royal Unfortunate loses control in the day light is always preceded by the next Royal losing control at night. And the first signs of the curse fell on me two nights ago. My heart stopped beating last night.”

    It had, he could no longer see the throb in her neck and the color was already leaving her face.

  “But I—

  “You lost control on your way home yesterday. The guards saw it happen right after they destroyed another Unfortunate next to you.”

  “No I didn’t!” He exclaimed. It was impossible.

  “Do you remember how you got home?” She asked.

  He started to say that he did, but he couldn’t bring himself to lie to her again and so he hung his head and struggled to fight back tears that, since his cursing, couldn’t come. “Does it have to be tonight?”

  She nodded. “It’s only going to get worse,” She said. “You probably won’t let me bury you if we waited any longer.”

  The soil felt good on his skin. He would have liked to have been buried in it, but without a proper coffin there was no guarantee that he wouldn’t claw his way free when the insanity took him. And so, that day he didn’t go to work but instead they fashioned a makeshift coffin for him. The hole was easy enough with the soft earth and both of them working together. Strangely, all that day he hardly felt the effects of the curse, even as night approached. When everything was ready, they set his coffin down in the hole and he climbed in. She began to hammer into place the planks that served as his lid. At last, as he felt the insanity finally starting to creep forward in his mind, she moved to place the final plank.

  “Wait,” He said, and she paused in her work, concern playing on her face. “I, I just, I mean,” He stammered, trying to find the right words as his mind clouded for what would probably be the final time. His body twitched and he struggled to keep control of himself.

  “I love you dad,” She said in a hushed, hurried voice and she hammered the last board into place.

  His screams split the air and he clawed and scrapped against the wood that separated them. Her mind was becoming fuzzy but she had a few hours yet.

Besides, she thought, The soil feels so nice on my hands.