"Prince Charming. Step forward."
The words echoed through the frostbitten chamber like thunder over a grave.
Chains rattled as the guards shoved me to my knees. My breath left me in ragged, pale clouds. The marble floor beneath me was slick with melting snow, and still colder than death.
Across the hall, atop his throne of ice and gears, sat Father Winter, his eyes twin storms, swirling with malice and magic. Robes of velvet and steel draped his hunched frame like a shroud. Behind him, that cursed device hummed, a mechanical altar, bound in silver roots and etched with runes that glowed like dying stars.
"Prince Charming," he said, the name slithering from his mouth like a sentence in itself. "Do you deny the charges laid before you?"
"I deny your throne," I spat, raising my head. "And your lies."
Gasps rang out through the court of snowbound nobles and hollow-eyed puppets.
Father Winter's lips curled into something that might've once been a smile. "Brave words from a boy I once raised. You should've stayed a homeless dog."
I laughed, sharp and bitter. "You should've stayed forgotten."
He rose slowly, raising a hand, and with it, the room dimmed. Snow began to fall indoors, whispering in circles around me like ghosts.
"You dared to trespass into my sanctuary. You laid hands upon The Book! You unearthed what was never meant to be found. For that, there is only one punishment."
He extended a single, frostbitten finger.
"Death."
No applause. No cheers. Just silence. And then the march began.
The cold hit harder as they dragged me through the city. The people didn't throw things, they didn't even blink. That was the worst part. Just dull, blank stares, like they'd all been drained of soul.
Because they had.
The whispers of the Book still lingered in my skull like smoke. That damned book… that was the key to everything. The device Father Winter had built to bend minds, rewrite thoughts. Every "choice" the people made, every evil order they followed, every wicked love they chased… it was all whispered through that book.
A single stroke of ink, and Wonderland danced to his tune.
And I'd seen it. Touched it.
I knew the truth.
"Move," one of the guards snarled, slamming his boot into my ribs.
"You ever wonder," I croaked, coughing blood onto the snow, "what happens when the puppet cuts its own strings?"
The other one scoffed. "Silence traitor! You're a joke."
They laughed. I didn't.
The execution square was packed. A huge crowd, waiting to watch me fall.They weren't even hiding it, they loved this. I couldn't blame them though. Under Father Winter's rule and spell I had been nothing more than a cold blooded tyrant to them. All the while thinking I was liberating them.
"Look at him," someone in the crowd sneered. "Murderer of the less fortunate, so powerful, and yet he couldn't even save himself."
"I named a goat after him," a girl giggled. "It died."
The soldiers threw me down at the block. The executioner stood silent, faceless behind a mask of iron snowflakes. Above us, the blade gleamed, shaped like a shard of the very moon.
And still… I wasn't afraid.
Because fear had left me the moment I read my name in the Book. When I realized the man I was was not really who I am. When I found out my entire life was all a lie.
Not Prince Charming. The tyrant who thought he was a hero.
No.
Crypt Hallows. The man who didn't even know who he really was.
That name, etched in black fire upon that book, tied to fate itself. And scrawled beneath it, an image of my own decapitated corpse, rotting beneath a tree. It wasn't a prophecy. It was a command. It was his wish because he knew I had awoken.
"Any last words?" the guard mocked.
I grinned, blood on my teeth. "Yeah."
I turned my head toward the crowd.
"Wake up."
The blade fell.
But death didn't take me.
Not really.
I woke up choking on frost, my lungs useless, my chest no longer warm. The world had lost its color. My heartbeat was gone. My breath, nothing more than steam. My body wasn't mine anymore. And my voice…
It sounded like a ghost had learned how to hate.
"Welcome back, Charming," came the voice I dreaded most.
Samantha Gretchen, The Wicked Stepmother.
Not my stepmother, no. A corpse queen wrapped in silk and bone, ruler of the outskirts, the plantation called The Pumpkin Patch.
"They wanted to bury you," she said, circling me like a vulture. "But I saw value. I saw a lesson."
I tried to stand. My legs buckled. She laughed.
"You'll work now," she hissed. "You'll break your back like the rest of us. A prince with broken fingers and a body that won't die. That's poetry."
They branded me that night.
Not with iron, but with magic. A mark that seared across my chest, glowing when I disobeyed, pulsing when I remembered. I screamed.
They didn't care.
Now?
Now I'm nothing. A walking corpse pieced together each night with my own hands. A name they tried to erase.
But that's the thing about ghosts…
We never forget.
And I swear by every star they've stolen from this sky, I will write my own story.
Even if I have to burn the damn book myself.
Weeks blurred. months, maybe. Time doesn't work the same when you're undead. But my mind? It never stopped turning. Every lash, every insult, every cruel command only sharpened the one thing they couldn't kill:
My hate.
I'd find a way out of this. And when I did, I wouldn't just escape.
I'd burn this whole cursed kingdom to the ground.
The chain yanked my wrist hard as I dragged another load of rusted metal across the yard. Same sludge. Same stench. Different kinds of pain.
"Oi, pretty boy," one of the guards spat. "Smile for us. Ain't you supposed to be charming?"
I raised my head just enough to glare. If I still had spit in my mouth, I'd have used it.
"Let him be," a voice called out, cool and sharp like a blade wrapped in silk. The guards gave her a look, but they didn't try her.
That's when I saw her.
Leaning against the busted fountain like she owned it. Skin smooth and rich like molasses, but don't let it fool you, she had steel in her spine and a don't-play-with-me glint in her eye. Her patchwork skin was stitched with bright thread, blue, gold, deep rose, all swirling like little flowers across her arms and shoulders. Like art. Like rebellion.
And even though she was stitched up like a ragdoll, her whole vibe screamed, "I survived hell, and I made it pretty."
"You just gon' let them talk to you like that?" she asked me, one eyebrow raised.
"If this were a different situation they would be dead, Unfortunately I have no weapon." I muttered.
She scoffed. "Please. Swords don't scare me. I been cut worse by people who said they loved me."
I blinked. Okay, damn.
She sauntered over with a limp, one leg clearly stitched different from the rest. Didn't make her any less powerful. If anything, it made her more.
"I'm Cindy," she said, looking me up and down.
" Like Cinder-"
"Don't call me that."
What could I say? After knowing where these names come from, they disgust me.
"It's Crypt. Crypt Hallows" I replied.
Her eyes lit up. "I like that. Crypt. It's different."
I had to smirk a little.
"I have had it with this place, how about you?"
" Me too." She leaned in close and whispered, "In fact I'm bout two insults away from choking Stepmother with her own wig."
I actually laughed, first time since I came back from the dead. It felt foreign. But good.
"I ain't never seen you before," she said, arms crossing. "You new or just been hidin'?"
"I used to work at the grand castle in Wonderland. They executed me."
She blinked. "Oh. You one of them stubborn ones, huh? The kind with the everlasting rose curse?"
"Everlasting r...."
"Well, you alive. And now you stuck with us. Welcome to Freefall. Ain't no castles here. Just us slaves."
"You always this welcoming to dead guys?"
She smirked. "Only the cute ones. And the crazy ones. You might be both."
I stared at her, trying to figure her out. She wasn't soft, but she wasn't hard either. She was... just real. Something I have never experienced until now. Everyone in the castle always pretended to be happy when truly, underneath, we were all in pure misery. We barely cared about anyone else, let alone each other. But this one, I could tell she'd bleed with you. Bite for you. Burn the world down if it hurts someone she loves. A lot like myself, if I ever had the chance to love someone.
"You got anyone watching your back?" she asked.
"No."
"You do now."
"...Just like that?"
"Yeah. Just like that." She touched her chest, right over a little heart-shaped patch sewn into her and winked just before walking away.
By late afternoon I could feel my bones literally praying for a miracle. Just as I was about to say "Forget just kill me," the bell rang loud and bitter, like a scream frozen in iron.
That was the signal.
Work's done.
Not because they cared.
Just 'cause they liked to watch us crawl back into our cages.
Chains clanked, and bodies shuffled through the yard, bone-tired and filthy. The cold air crept in like fingers down your spine, one of those nights that made even the dead wish for fire.
I dragged my limbs toward the pit.
They didn't give us beds.
Just holes in the ground. Padded with straw, if you were lucky. Rotting cloth, if you weren't.
I dropped into mine without grace. Who the hell needs grace in a damn hole anyway?
Bones groaned.
Muscles stiff.
Mind racing.
Then I heard her.
"You good?"
Cindy's voice.
She was in the pit next to mine, laying on her back, arms crossed behind her head like she didn't have a care in the world.
"I'm undead," I muttered. "Define 'good.'"
She chuckled low. "You get used to the dead part. What's harder is not lettin' your spirit rot with your body."
I glanced over through the barred hole into her pit as the bars slammed shut above us. Even in the dark, her embroidery shimmered like little stars stitched into flesh.
"How are you still soooo...?" I started, honestly confused. "I mean, they did all this to you... and you still laugh?"
"I ain't soft if that's where yo gettin' at," she said, eyes half-lidded. "I just ain't bitter. That's how they win. If we stop smilin'? If we stop dreamin'? Then we just another slave. Another body. I won't let them have that victory Crypt."
I didn't answer. Just watched her.
"You ever miss it?" she asked after a beat. "Who you used to be in the castle?"
"...No."
She turned to me, brow raised.
"I miss who I was supposed to be," I said, voice low. "But that guy? He was a lie. A puppet in a pretty suit. This? This is real. Even if it's ugly."
She nodded slow. "Then I guess we both broken real ones."
"...You always this calm?"
"Nah," she smirked. "But I'm always ready. If they call us outta bed tonight to throw hands, I'm swingin' in my sleep."
That made me smile.
She turned on her side, facing me. "Get some rest, Crypt. Tomorrow's gonna be worse."
"Why?"
"'Cause I got a feelin'," she said, her voice softer now, "that we're gonna start makin' moves. And that scares people."
I see, she could read my rebellious spirit even though I was trying my damndest to hide it. And obviously, she had one too.
"...You scared Cindy, of what I might do?"
"Hell no," she whispered. "I'm excited."
She smiled at me one last time, eyes glowing in the dark like coals in a storm.
Then she closed them.
And for the first time since I'd died...
I didn't feel alone.