Pamela was the King’s favourite. The most beloved of the King’s women, also the most beautiful flower in the society.
However, she was deemed as a vulgar woman and someone who couldn’t walk alongside the King.
Men praised her beauty while looking at her with lustful, greedy eyes, while the women looked at her with contempt, yet jealousy.
The sky was particularly dark tonight. The man she had been accompanying for six years approached her. the King’s face and build was already printed into the back of her mind, now felt so distant. Pamela looked at him with cold eyes as she gripped the railing tight.
“Your Highness, welcome.”
That night, the chilly breeze swept away Pamela’s crimson red locks.
She fixed her scattered hair into her ears and smiled at the man,
“Leeno-“
The emperor called Pamela’s nickname softly. Madame Leeno, the surname of the late king’s wife, a nickname given to Pamela to show off his affection to her.
Instead of promoting her humble status of a commoner, the name was a shackle to announce that she was a woman of the King.
“What is wrong with you?”
The man looked at her with his tired eyes, yet he remained expressionless. He was really the King, to be able to kept his composure even to this moment. Even though she had been with him for six years, the man didn’t notice the woman’s heart.
“Your Highness, you know what?”
He had the kind of face that stopped you in your tracks, His thick and lustrous hair was ebony black, in contrast with his mesmerizing crimson red eyes. There were times when her heart fluttered seeing his appearance.
But, not right now.
“Your Majesty always said you love me but are you sincere? I mean something like ‘true love’ was not easy to come by.”
“What do you mean?”
“Your Highness says you love me. That’s what I meant here, but…”
“…”
“Your Highness, have you ever been sincere?”
The soft light in the room revealed the man’s startled looks.
“I’ve always wondered. Every single day.”
Even though someone had hurt her, she struggled to lift the corners of her mouth, giving her a habit of doing fake smiles.
‘I’ve lived like that all my life. To be beautiful in someone’s eye.’
‘Always.’
“Your Highness, can you tell me? No, let me rephrase that…”
“…”
“Have you ever been sincere to me, even once?”
The thing that had been piling up in her heart for a long time was spilt. It was the first time she uttered her sincere thoughts.
Even at that moment, it seemed that her rational side was trying to stop herself from doing so.
The moment felt very long.
Finally, the answer from him was…
“You’re talking nonsense.”
It was more indifference than contempt.
“What’s wrong with you? You’re not that kind of woman.”
“…”
“That’s enough. Come down now. Leeno.”
‘Such a woman…’ he said.
King Ian Verimell II always told her so, ‘You’re not like any other women. You’re the only woman who understands my mind.’
Pamela had thought the remark was a genuine expression of affection. Being special, being unique, made her think of herself as the only one for him.
But in reality.
Pamela closed her eyes quietly and recalled the past. The days of the King’s governance, many days of standing by him despite the criticism, and the days of her arrogance, thinking that she was the only being loved.
In the end, it was meant to end like this.
“If that’s all you have to say to me, that’s enough.”
the King’s countenance seemed a little brighter at Pamela’s words. He seemed to think that this little banter of theirs was over.
Yes, this time it’s really the end.
Pamela, as usual, showed her beautiful smile to the King.
“Goodbye, Your Highness. Let’s not meet again.”
She then let go of her hand, which was barely holding onto the railing, toward the air.
The chilly wind swept past her as if to say its last goodbye. At the same time, her hair that was tucked behind her ear, scattered around in the wind.
Pamela’s body, wrapped by the wind, crashed toward the ground.
“Leeno!”
Ian’s urgent voice became farther and farther as Pamela’s body disappeared into the darkness.
Pamela was falling into the endless darkness.
She was just falling without knowing where she was or whether she was already on the ground.
Her mind went blank.
***
Pamela slowly regained her consciousness. Amidst the confusion, she tried to open her eyes only for her sight to be filled with various colours.
‘Where is this place?’
Pamela was trying to remember where she was. She immediately remembered that incident with the King. she had fallen into her death.
With the gaze of her old lover in the dark sky, she throws herself into the ground.
I couldn’t remember anything after that.
‘Am I dead?’
By the look of it, this place did not seem to be her room.
It would have been reasonable if her whole body was full of wounds, but it didn’t.
‘Well, I guess I’m really dead.’
At the end of her dull life, she felt relieved but despondent at the same time that it had ended so quickly.
Pamela learned from her childhood that when a person dies, they go to heaven.
But didn’t they also say that a person who committed a dirty crime in their life falls to a place called hell?
‘Then here….’
She must have fallen into hell.
There’s no way God will take her to heaven. Because the life she has led was far from a sinless life.
It didn’t matter anymore.
Even if this place is hell, would it be harder than living?
She was so tired.
Pamela was content to have a rest. She wanted to be on the sideline without doing anything, and not thinking about anything.
The blinking light from afar has grown big enough to engulf her body, making Pamela’s whole body surrounded by white lights.
Pamela was unhappy that her rest had been disturbed.
As if to laugh at her misery, a white light distorted little by little and began to flash with a crackling sound.
‘What is that?’
A faint image was reflected in the distorted light.
It’s so blurry that I couldn’t see clearly what it was.
Then the blurred images came into shape, and soon a clear form began to appear.
‘Have you ever been sincere to me, even once?’
The first thing she saw the last moment of her life, when she asked the King how he felt about her.
‘What do I expect…? What kind of answer do I want to hear?’
Strangely enough, she didn’t regret her action..
‘Should I say that I feel better now that I asked him at the end?’
Now that she’s dead, it didn’t matter anymore.
-Slap!
The following scene was a scene where someone was hitting her.
It was when she was running away from a nobleman who had tried to harass her.
The man, who looked down at her, was quite satisfied with the fact that he hit her, and had a big smile on his face.
“How dare you refuse me when you’re a dirty prostitute? I can’t believe you’re the King’s woman!”
For a moment, Pamela gulped down as the scene changed.
‘You seem different from other women.’
‘I like you.’
It was the morning after she slept with him for the first time.
That was a long time ago. Watching the scene, Pamela felt heartbroken.
She was elated at his special treatment towards her.
The days she spent with him wouldn’t have been so painful if she hadn’t inadvertently handed him a little piece of my heart.
The scene distorted and turned into a black thing, and soon the black thing climbed Pamela’s hands, elbows, and began to swallow her whole body.
“Agh!”
Before she knew it, Pamela was sucked into an unknown vortex
Her body was spinning.
She reached out her hands in dizziness and swung them into the air, but nothing was caught.
Then the last scene played in her head.
“Goodbye, Your Majesty. Let’s not….meet again.”