The once alluring young woman, royal in heritage but no more than a peasant now in the shadowy, doomed city of Tarra, rushed down the cobblestone streets.  Her eyes were wide in panic yet she saw nothing, hearing so heightened that her ears bled crimson, tarnishing her pearl earrings, and legs weak.  She found it hard to continue her pilgrimage to find the cure for what she was carrying.

“The princess!  Oh, not her too!  What should become of our kingdom,” the people had cried as news spread of the youngest and last surviving royal’s illness.  The disease had killed so many, driven subjects, guards, nobles, and royal alike to panic and madness, and there still was no known cure.  At least until now.

Tarra, the capital of the maiden’s kingdom, had been doomed by the unidentified illness.  But, now another type of news was spreading.  A young doctor in the village had supposedly cured his young apprentice of the illness.  This was the princess’s last chance.

So, the girl did run, fantasy fighting reality as her mind raced in the throes of it’s panic.  She had to run, find the cure, and bring it to the court physician before it was too late.  Her betrothed, her brother, her mother, and her father had all fallen victim to the disease.  She would not follow, she couldn’t leave her people in such a time of dire need.

“Help me, please!  Please help,” groaned the voices of those who had not made it far enough, who had been forced to their knees in the streets, hearts racing, ears bloody, and eyes blinded, only to be left to die.  The princess silently mourned for them, promising once she had found the cure and had been crowned, that she would give them a proper memorial.  She promised because she knew she would live, god, she had to live.

“You okay, pretty lady?”  The shout was cruel and gravely when it reached the girl’s ears, and she cringed, ears beginning to produce more and more blood.  She cried out in pain, stumbling, running past the man who remained in the shadowy alley, grinning like the Cheshire cat as she rushed past.  She had to get to the young doctor’s home, she just had to.

“Princess?  Are you alright?  Where are you going,” a kind voice asked meekly as she passed a hut she had not seen.  It stopped her dead in her tracks.  She knew this voice, the one of the peasant boy who had been beaten after sneaking into the palace.  “My name is Jonathan, princess.  I want to know where you are going?  What is wrong?”

The princess had not yet turned to the man yet.  Jonathan had pleaded with her to let him go.  They were both so young then, now he had to be her savior.  She felt guilt fill her, forgetting her illness for a moment to feel regret.  But, she could not do so for long, pain and panic making her mind lose focus once again.

“Jonathan,” she whispered, turning around and hearing the sharp gasp as if it were amplified and materialized into metal arrows.  “I have heard you saved your young apprentice and I know you owe me nothing, but I’m begging you, please help me.”

“Princess,” the doctor whispered, lifting his hand to her face, pausing when his feather light touch made her his and withdraw slightly.  “I have no clue what you are talking about, but I will help you.  Please, come in!  This way,” he whispered again, his voice thick with fear.  He knew as well as any other that this was deadly, that this could kill.  The princess was the last royal, and if she died…

He grabbed her wrist gently, careful to step quietly and not go overly fast.  Once in the hut her pushed her slowly back onto a cot, rushing over to his bench and sweating, nerves making him nauseous.  There was no chance he could save her, she was too sick.  But, he had to try, and so he set to work.

He mixed herbs, exotic spices, elixirs, and a shining liquid into the mixture, glancing up at the whimpering woman on his cot.  He had to hurry, he had to try.  The princess was the future of the kingdom, much kinder than her other family and much smarter than any other.  She was the reason he studied under her court physician and snuck into the palace grounds when she was ill. 

He was so entranced in his herb grinding that he failed to notice that the princess had stopped moving, stopped making those small whimpering cries.  He failed to notice that her ears had bled into gruesome puddles on the dirt floor.  He failed to notice her unblinking gaze at the poorly patched roofing of the hut.  And in his panic, he failed to notice the slight trickle coming from his own ears and the growing panic.

And so the kingdom fell, city to city the disease spread.  Unnamed and unknown, it killed indiscriminately.  The young and the old, young and the weak, wealthy and poor.  They all died and it all started in their capital, their princess’s namesake. 

So, it all started and ended in Tarra, the place where the last person fell.  And it all ended in Tarra.  It all ended with Jonathan, the young doctor in Tarra, who had failed the kingdom.  And all of the kingdom fell into sinister silence, no citizen left to share the story of Tarra.  And so the disease stopped, no bloodline to follow, nowhere to go.  And the great kingdom crumbled to nothing, lost to history.

It all crumbled down.