The land of Sanitatum is said to be filled with magic, but it is also plagued by a contagious curse that threatens humanity's survival. It is the purpose of the heir to the throne, Simba Adofo, to inherit his father's crown and find a way to vanquis...
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June 12th, 1611.
I had written far more words about far less riveting things. Perhaps that's why I'm writing at all now. Every last drop of ink threatens to strangle my final journal entry. After the violent murders, Simba's complicated disposition, and realizing that the pegs hold no power over me anymore, I thought it was time to let it all out before I leave this place for good.
My horse trotted down the path, remembering where it had came from with no instruction from me. He was a well trained horse from the Royal Palace after all. There was no need for my direction.
I rode for hours until the path followed the familiar trench in the hillside, and then the forest erupted from the horizon like a spire of shame.
As the horse came to the threshold of the forest, the pegs grew closer until they were right before me. I never imagined I would see the wooden stakes from the mirrored side. I was stuffed in the carriage with Simba while we crossed the barrier. It felt almost like dreams I've had.
So the magic was now broken with my crossing, and the curse was free- if Nanna's story was even real. Simba mentioned that the curse existed everywhere anyway. I didn't need to be here anymore nor did I ever have to; yet here I am again. I put my hand up against the invisible wall, but my hand fell through. There was nothing there.
I suddenly felt foolish expecting there to be a solid wall. Perhaps this "magic" was only as real as the way Nanna strung her words together for a kid who didn't know any better.
That kid believed her for ten years.
Even knowing better now, this decrepit place still held some kind of power over me. The world slowly began to re-sync from my absence. I was once again succumbing to the affirmation of my disgraceful being. I had returned in early morning; around the time I usually awoke from my sleep. It would be easy to jump back in where I left off.
"Time to do the laundry," I said to himself, but it felt wrong. I didn't know why, then. I didn't yet know that I was angry.
The day's chores battled with me, as if to answer my strange feeling. I found myself distracted while washing my clothes in the stream.
I thought about the refined and beautiful clothes of the Prince. Somehow,the rags I wore day in and day out seemed lackluster and inadequate to wear over my body. I had never felt so strongly that this life wasn't good enough. I was told it was my disease that made me think this- it made me illogical.
I clenched my fists. It felt both wrong and right for me to feel like I had been robbed of nice clothes to wear despite me robbing world around me from health. It was so selfish. But I still felt it.
"Time to tend to the garden."
Even with a bucket filled with water, the brittle ground the plants sprouted from just let the water fall between it's cracks. I remembered all the clean water I wasted on blighted vegetables in dead dirt. Perhaps if they were planted in more nutritious soil out of the forest, they would have grown a plentiful harvest.
