I Will Always Love You by Whitney Houston

I was sure I died maybe an hour ago. The King had shot me from the back, and I'm pretty sure my lungs stopped working anymore. So are my other organs. But everything around me is moving in circles. Above me were the brightest of the chandeliers dancing like that in a kaleidoscope. Then I heard faint voices around me.

"...not gonna hold on for long."

"Antonio…need...help here."

"She's dying…."

Someone scooped me up in their arms, and it looked like they got me out of the palace. The palace is the grandest structure up in the air. All the Kingdom's palaces are up in the air. The guards mentioned Dalums. Maybe this one saving me is from Dalum. Kingdom Uno was not as grand as it was before. Some parts crumbled, some parts were gone. Bodies were on the marble floors. This man in black airsuit carried me to an airship I'd never seen before. We went through a long tunnel before he laid me down on a leather table. Bright lights were all over me. Those didn't help. It got me more tired than ever. I just wanted to sleep. Sleeping makes me forget the pain. But I felt nothing now. Not even air in my lungs. Before I blacked out, someone held up one hand and a familiar face showed up above me. "Brie."

But it's too late. Too late to save me, Rey.

---

I know it's been forever since the last time I got my consciousness back. Everything ached all over my body. I couldn't move, but I could clearly see everything. A lot of tubes are sticking into my body. Virtual monitors all around me were the last thing I could see. The oxygen mask I was wearing was almost transparent.

I saw my name "Gabriela Sila'' on one of the monitors and my vitals under it. I didn't know how it happened, but I could clearly read and understand everything I'd never done before. Well, it said everything was more than okay...but a robotized surgery is going to follow.

What the hell was that? My mind told me instantly that they were going to make me a machine. That is not good. I forced myself to get up, which I did instantly. I didn't know how, but every move just got easier now I have fully woken up. A moving monitor robot ran up to me and lit up red. Then the rest of the monitors did. Oh no. They are going to warn everyone. I took out all the tubes in my body. It didn't hurt a bit. It would surprise me, but maybe it was just an adrenaline rush.

I was naked except for the white apron hanging in front of my body. The room was as white as my prison cell in Kingdom Uno. I got shocked when something virtual popped out right in front of my eyes. What the hell? It showed the blueprint structure of the room. There are three men coming right through the door on the other side. The visuals say I should go through the ventilation on the other side. Without further ado, I took a metal tube from one of the monitor's bodies and slammed it through the ventilators. I might have done it so fast that the three men haven't opened the door yet. I took out the damaged ventilator's cover and went through it. The air tunnel runs forever, but I still went on. My visual says to stop. It showed an arrow. It was a tunnel down to an empty room. I have to get away soon enough. I'm not going to be anyone's prisoner. Not again. I jumped and slid down the tunnel. It was open at the end, but before I went through, I saw my wrist blinking. Shit, a tracker. No shit. The visuals that were leading me are untrustworthy. I stopped myself from sliding down through it. I pulled myself up, and I saw another tunnel on my left and I decided to do the opposite of what my visuals said. It says down but I'm going left.

I went through and through, then I found a way out. I peeked through the ventilation and it was a big empty room. I carefully switched off the ventilator. I kicked it out slowly, then jumped out and rolled over. I returned the ventilation cover to its place. Cover my tracks. That I should do. Now I have to do something with the tracker and visuals. The room which I went through is what I thought of as a normal room for a normal person but bigger and more spacious. One bed against the wall. And a lot of tech tools all over the place. I guess it's my lucky day. They say...all these technologies have one downfall...electrocution. If the user is electrocuted only enough to blur the IFs, it would just die out. Any external power not matched with its requirements will destroy it. I found a portable battery on one of the tables. I ran for it, turned it on and found its power wires. I found a cloth on the floor and stuffed it in my mouth. I injected the hard-wires into my wrist. I was not told that it was really electrifying enough to fry my body. I felt an entire bolt go through my body. I was terribly shaking and I couldn't control it. Not until the portable battery exploded. That was when everything stopped.

Far away, I could hear footsteps. Shit. Someone's coming. I immediately got up and took out the needle wires. I tried to check if there were cameras, but there were none. I saw a large closet nearby then hid in it. As I closed the closet door, two people went inside the room. I could as well borrow clothes in this closet. I checked my wrist, and it was not blinking anymore. No visuals appeared. But I immediately got tired. I feel sleepy and breathless.

"What? She got away. That's impossible!" a deep voice yelled. I tried to peek, but I had no energy left.

A deeper, shaky voice answered, "I know you're upset Antonio, but we are still searching for her. It's going to be hard since we started to robotize her and some of the features are already in function. She's not a normal 16-year-old anymore."

"This is all my fault. I should have been there. She is surely scared and lost right now."

"Our comrades say she hasn't gotten out of the palace. She's surely stuck now in one of our ventilator tunnels. It says in my IF that her tracker has just turned off and her visuals are not connected anymore. Tunnels could block signals. She hasn't registered yet on our Webber so it's going to be a lot of work but we can find her. I assure you, Antonio."

"I won't forgive myself if something happens to her. She almost lost her life because of me. And it's not going to happen again, Uncle."

"No, Antonio, not again. Let's go and find her. Now, go and get that remote."

Seconds after they were gone, I decided I should get going but I was entirely exhausted. Electrocution is not a joke. I figured out I'm going to sleep for a while now.

Few hours had passed and someone barged into the room and slammed a lot of things around. There are crashes and banging. It woke me up and sent me into a panic. Being in the closet doesn't help at all. I couldn't breathe..being in prison for so long with no human contact, being hospitalized for so long did have some bad effects on me. I was sweating and restless while the person who got inside the room went wild.

"Uncle, this is all my fault. She's gone and unsafe!"

"Antonio, you have to calm down. Nothing is going to be solved by you being like this!"

"You don't understand, uncle. When I left Uno, I made her promise not to tell anyone where I was going. She held onto that promise because she treated me as her friend and family. What did it get her? Her parents were Mindcleared, they don't even know they had Gabriela. She was imprisoned, tortured and she sacrificed her life just to protect me. Now, this is my chance to repay her loyalty. I want her by my side and protect her! And that was the only thing I had to do. But I didn't make it happen even if I could."

Are they talking about me? But everything didn't make sense. It was all unfamiliar.

"Antonio, I'm sorry. Don't stress yourself out. Our comrades are still out there looking for her. I want you to rest for just two hours. Just two hours. And I'll let you go on searching again. Remember, we are still in a crisis. We need everyone to stay alert. Our nation is at stake. I want you to have a straight, rational mind."

"No, I'm not going to stay here doing nothing. She suffered enough already…"

"Enough! Antonio. I'm not going to ask you again. If you still resist, I'm going to lock you up. End of discussion."

"No!" Antonio ran to the door and banged himself against it.

I have to get out...I can't stand this anymore. My mind went blank. That Antonio was now shouting, going berserk. But I can't let them find me. I just have to hold on more. I guess my plan will not work. Now, Antonio is walking towards his closet. Oh no! His closet goes further back. It was dark but I could still hide. I was on my knees. I still felt weak but pushed myself once, and then I fell once again. I got to….

Then the lights turned on.

As Antonio opened his closet doors, the lights turned on. I found myself in the middle of a miscellaneous of hanged clothes and guns in different sizes and shapes at the far end. I was supporting myself with my elbows and Antonio saw me. He looked utterly surprised and relieved. He ran to me and went down on his knees.

"Gabriela!" He looked at me intently with his ash-grey eyes. Without a word, he hugged me tightly with his head burrowed in my neck. I can feel his tears cooling my neck and my chest. When he looked up at me, his eyes were red.

I was just stunned and scared. "Please don't hurt me…"

He helped me to sit. "No, I won't. I would never. And I would never again leave you nor let anyone hurt you."

I was relieved at the moment that someone's got to take care of me for a while. But I won't let anyone keep me again. This guy is very familiar to me, but I don't know anything about him. The familiarity I had in my mind makes my heart ache. I don't have any fu*king idea why.

"I'm sorry but I don't know you and I don't trust you."

Antonio held my face in his large hands. "It's me, Prince Réal. Your best friend. But only you who call me Rey. It's me, I am Rey."

Still doesn't ring a bell, so I shook my head.

"What? Don't worry. You've been in a coma for a year so it's okay. You're going to get back memories soon. But why did you run away? You're safe here. You shouldn't have done it."

"And get imprisoned again? No way!" I pushed him back but struggled to get out of his embrace.

"No, Brie, that will not happen again. Not here. We are here to help you. " He reached out and took me again in embrace. "And I am very sorry for what happened in Uno. For taking away your parents...for leaving you alone for so long. I know you can't forgive me yet, but I am very, very sorry," he cried again.

This time, I had no energy to resist. But his words gave me comfort and security. I have no choice but to hold on to him and he's going to help me. After that, I'll go on my own.

He helped me stand up, but my knees were giving up.

"Hold on to me, Brie." I put my arms around his neck. He hugged me once again.

I saw our reflection in the surrounding mirrors. My dark brown hair is cut short to my nape. His build is twice as large as I am. He's a few inches taller than I am. His shoulders are broad enough that I look like a thin vine compared to him. I am pale as a ghost and he, on the other hand, is tanned and burned under the sun. He was wearing a gray jacket that matched his eyes and fitted slacks. I wanted to see his face once again to remember this guy who sincerely cared for me. When I moved my face across from his. His clean cut hair was unkempt so that it covered his eyes. I moved his hair away from his face and looked at him intently.

"You look familiar, but I don't have anything to remember you before all of this."

He stared back at me. His eyes drooped to my mouth. I could feel his breath on my face. Inching closer, he mumbled "I missed you Brie, very much."

Then, he closed the distance between our faces and kissed me. I'm sure I have never done this before. His lips were soft and tasted sweet. I thought he was going to do it for only a second, but his lips didn't leave mine. Instead, he demanded a response and continued to search for it in my mouth. My body gets hotter and something in my chest beats loudly. That is the only thing I could hear. My breasts could feel everything that is pressed on them, and something down in the middle of my legs aches.

I don't know how to, but I imitated him. At first, it felt awkward, but when he got wild with his mouth, my lips moved naturally. My movements flowed like I experienced this before. His tongue played with mine. His lips and mouth just became mine. We are both breathing hard and fast. The ache in between my legs was comforted by the big bulge between his own.

I know we almost got no breath already, but it didn't stop him. Instead, his one hand glided down on my bare back and grabbed my behind to pull me closer to him. Now, the bulge filled the space between my legs as he picked up my left leg and held it up to his waist. He had his other hand holding me up and the other rough hand caresses the length of my spine, my ass and the length of my legs. Our hot, passionate kiss goes on like forever.

When my body couldn't hold it anymore, I fell completely into his arms. We stopped panting, only our breaths were heard, he scooped me up and took me back to his bedroom.

"I don't want them to find me," I whispered.

"I told you not to worry about them," he answered.

"It's me or them. I won't stay here if that happens."

"Okay-okay. Just don't go anywhere. I don't want to lose you again, Brie."

He looked at me from head to toe with some fire in his eyes as if I was mistaken.

"I'll get you some clothes and I have to go to the bathroom for a while. I just want you to promise me not to go anywhere."

I nodded.

"I'm sorry for all of this mess. I'll fix everything from now on."

He kissed me hard again, and he went to the bathroom. That's it. He left me alone again.