A fourth day of quiet decorum and uneasy murmurs has finally come to an end. It is an exhausting affair, to be so demure all the time when one needs to be killing each other. The Princesses endure as best as they can, but they are also relieved that it is finally time to slit someone’s throat open. Oh, dear. That does not come out particularly noble, does it?
One particularly confident Princess step forward and points at Trigger, with convictions in her eyes, “Time’s up, Princess!”
Trigger laughs derisively. “For what?”
“To pull the Trigger!” Shouts a Princess, loudly.
“No! Don’t pull the Trigger!” Another replies.
“Pull it!”
“NOPE!”
This goes back and forth rapidly and then the Princesses start to realize that the two who has been shouting back and forth are two rather plain looking characters. They have dressed up in ball gowns, sure, but as they say, money does not buy class.
“Just do it!”
“Don’t! Don’t do it!”
Trigger, watching these two fighting over her fate, becomes more and more aggravated by the minutes! Losing her composure, Trigger shouts sharply!
“SILENCE!”
Startled, one of the two arguing ladies… pulls the trigger and shoots Trigger in the chest.
“Oh.” She remarks. “I pulled the Trigger!”
“Ha-ha!” Her sister says, mockingly.
As Trigger lays in her own growing pool of blood on the floor, she wonders what she had done in her previous life that gives her these two imbeciles as daughters.
Sighing, she surrenders to the darkness that plucks her away from this realm, dumping her back in that other world, where everything is 100% less magical and 100% more ordinary.
. . .
Trigger feels a sharp poke on his back. It wakes him up. The back of his chair has a blunt nail that sticks out so that he can’t rest whilst he’s working. He looks around with tired eyes. He’s still at work. It is half past two in the morning, but the factory does not stop. The factory does not stop ever.
Yawning, he picks up the fabric at his hands and looks for the thread of its matching colour. He is stitching up some brand name onto a pair of sports shoes. If he is lucky, he will get fifty cents for every hour he has laboured. If he is luckier, he can finish his shift in time for his twelfth birthday.
