PRINCESS RECORDS, CHAPTER 14
“ANXIETY”

“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” Bianca panted as she shoved Elora into her tiny apartment. “If we’re found, we’ll BOTH be sentenced to death! This is way too risky. I must be nuts.” The girl locked the door quickly and fell against it, falling down to the floor with a nervous whine. She looked up at the Alien and frowned. “You better have something important you want to talk about, but you shouldn’t say anything that might get us in trouble. Even my apartment is not entirely safe.”
“Oh, trust me,” Elora replied, “this is important. Now, when did all of this start happening?”
Bianca crashed her palms against the sides of her head, sobbing pitifully. “I don’t know!!” she insisted. “I’ve blocked so much of this out of my memory. I can barely remember anything anymore. I just want to wait out the rest of these days until the regime stops.”
“That’s not good enough!” Elora shouted, hoisting the Italian girl to her feet. “I need to know these things. I should at least know who I’m killing!” Her hands shook on Bianca’s shoulders.
In reality, Elora was mixed up inside. Part of her definitely wanted to know about the situation in Italy during the 1940s. As the Princess of Invasions, she had been the indirect cause of the wars that had ravaged Italy and the rest of the world, so she figured it was only right for her to know exactly what had happened since the first invasion.
However, there was another side. The peace-loving Alien did not want to know what had happened, thinking it too painful to understand. She was in denial, hoping that her so-called “gift” to Earth had not destroyed the planet since its earliest days. For that reason, she was not so sure why she was insisting to know the truth so much.
Elora shakily took her hands away from Bianca and tried combing out her hair with her long, green fingers, attempting to calm herself. It didn’t work. The blond locks knotted around the digits, adding to the stress the girl was feeling.
This was going nowhere.
“Just go,” Bianca sobbed as she buried her face in her hands. “I don’t want to die...”
Elora knelt down to the girl’s level. “I don’t want you to die either. I just...I...I don’t know,” she finally admitted. “I’m so torn up inside. I want to help you, but I don’t think I can.”
Bianca sniffed. “If only the Princess of History were still here...”
Elora’s head shot up faster than Ebony on a bottle of wine. Her pink eyes stared at the Italian girl, focusing and attempting to draw her in. “...What?” she gasped. “The Princess of History? There was once a princess on this planet?!”
Bianca nodded. “Yes...”
“What happened to her?”
“The...Princess of Death...”
Elora almost smacked herself in the head. Of course! Duh! It was only obvious what had happened to the Princess of History. There was a reason Marane was on the mission to find the six remaining princesses left in the Universe. Elora was sure that the Princess of History was not on that list.
“When was she taken away?” Elora tried to ask as calmly as she could (which, surprisingly enough, was done very well considering her mental state at the time). “Do you remember that?”
Bianca nodded. “I’ve blocked so much of the wars out of my head. I’ve blocked everything from Hitler’s first speech to my parents’ deaths. It hasn’t been easy when you consider that most of my life has been surrounded by tragedies. However, I can’t forget the defeat of the Princess of History. Elora, what you have seen on our planet is not actually controlled. In reality, I don’t belong in this era!”
Elora almost gagged. “What are you talking about?”
“On this planet, the people are not born and raised the way one might think. We are not born just to keep on living our lives in the present. The people here are born by the most present people, the ones living in the 21st century parts of the planet, and they are scattered about history in order to balance the number of people living during that time. I was born and settled here fifteen years ago, but I’ve been living in the same decade all my life.”
It was a difficult explanation to follow, but Elora was able to understand. It was no more complicated than a war strategy Sandra would talk about. “I get it,” the Alien replied, nodding. “So what you’re saying is that, because you were placed at the beginning of the 1940s in Italy and because you’ve lived more than ten years, you actually belong in the 1950s right now. You’re supposed to be living in 1955 Italy, right?”
Bianca nodded. “Yes, that’s exactly right. However, because the Princess of History is not here, I cannot move on from the war. I am stuck forever in this time. It’s like I’m repeating the same day over and over again.”
“Ah, yes, I understand.” Elora paced back and forth in the small apartment, trying to think up a way to help. She glanced back at Bianca every so often. “Do you know of anyone else who has to move on?”
Bianca was hesitant to reply. “Just one person,” she murmured. “I’ve been stuck in my apartment for such a long time because I don’t want to face the outside world. There’s only one person I know of who has to go onto the next decade, though I’m sure there are many more.”
Elora swallowed hard. “And that would be...?”
“...Teri. She has long overstayed her welcome in 1920s America.”
Elora held her breath for a moment and quietly exhaled. “You mean...that flapper girl...? She thought she was going to live in that time period forever. She was so sure that America would never move on.”
Bianca nodded. “A lot of people from that time period thought that way, but Teri’s case is extreme. She’s caught in an illusion. Ten years of happiness would make anyone drop her guard, but Teri’s overexposure has put her mind into a state of denial. She knows very well that there is a time beyond the 1920s, but she refuses to believe it.”
Elora turned and walked into the tiny kitchen that adjoined to the living room of Bianca’s apartment. It was nothing special. A single plate sat in the sink next to a fork and knife. They were all dirty. A mug rested on the muddy counter next to the sink. The place looked like it had not been cleaned in years. The Alien girl refused to touch anything there; everything looked diseased.
“So you’re saying Teri doesn’t want to face reality?” she finally asked.
Bianca nodded. “Yes, I suppose that’s true.” She flipped back her long, light green hair and followed the princess into the kitchen. “I don’t have a lot, but would you like me to cook something for you? I bet you’re hungry.”
“How do you live like this?”
“Like what?”
“Like a prisoner?”
Bianca bit her lip. “I live quite well compared to other people living in Italy right now. We’re not exactly the strongest of countries in the world right now. We just side with Germany so we LOOK strong. It’s nothing more than a mask.”
Elora sighed and stepped away from the counter. “And if you didn’t have Germany?”
“...We would have fallen to the Allied Powers a long time ago.”
The Alien looked up and stared at the girl. “Allied Powers?” she repeated.
Bianca nodded. “Italy is one of the Axis Powers along with Germany. Our enemies are the Allied Powers. You know, America, England, France, Russia, countries like that. They’re all against us.”
“You’re ridiculously outnumbered.”
“And that’s why we’re sticking with Germany.”
“You’re a fool. There’s no way even Germany can stand up to all those countries, even if it’s powerful.”
“I’m no fool. I want out.” Bianca picked up the rusty knife in the sink and held it eye-level. “Do you know what I’d like to do to the very heart of this war? Do you know how badly I want to do it?” With that, she stabbed the knife into the counter so hard the top layer crumbled around the impact point. She glared at the Alien murderously. “THAT’S what I want to do to this war. I want to kill it, and I want to join the Allied Powers.” She let go of the knife standing in the center of the counter and sighed. “That’ll never happen though. No one wants weak Italy.”
Elora shrugged cautiously. “I want peace, too.”
One of Bianca’s eyebrows rose. “You? The Princess of Invasions?”
“Yes, I want nothing more than for my people to live happily and peacefully. War should only be a last resort! It shouldn’t be the answer to everything!”
Bianca walked back towards the living room but made a turn at the last moment. Elora discovered that she was in her bedroom, a small space with nothing more than a bed and an open suitcase on the floor next to it. From what the Alien could see, the bed seemed to be extremely uncomfortable.
“We tried everything,” Bianca finally said as she sat down on said bed. “Don’t you think that a weak nation like ours did everything it could to prevent war? We tried, Elora! We really did!”
Elora shook her head. “I don’t believe you.”
“LISTEN TO ME!!” Bianca suddenly screamed, jumping up. “WE TRIED EVERYTHING TO STOP THIS WAR!! But sometimes, war is inevitable. In our case, it would have been better if we went straight to war instead of letting the problem manifest into something this huge. If just the nations involved at the beginning of the conflict went straight to war and extinguished the spark, this roaring fire spreading all over the world would have never happened!” She placed her shaky, pale hands on the Alien princess’s shoulders and looked at her pleadingly. “War is necessary, Elora. It is necessary to defeat the evils of Earth.” Her grip tightened powerfully. “You’re the Princess of Invasions...Why didn’t you start the war earlier?”
Suddenly, there was a loud pounding sound coming from the door. The girls whipped their heads around to the entrance of the apartment and waited. There it was again.
“BIANCA ANTONIO!!” a man’s voice came. “WE GOT A COMPLAINT ABOUT SCREAMING AND ANTI-WAR EXPRESSIONS!! OPEN UP!!”
Bianca gasped. “Oh no...” she panted. “No, I didn’t just give us away!” She panicked as the pounding got louder. Soon, other voices and fists joined the fight. The Italian girl turned to the Alien and sobbed. “What do we do, Elora?! I don’t want to die!!”
Elora grabbed the girl and activated her backpack. Instantly, a laser beam shot forward on the wall and opened up a passageway. “Hang on tight!” Elora commanded as Bianca wrapped her arms around her waist. The legs emerged from the backpack and propelled the two out into the streets. Not caring who saw, Elora charged her way down into the streets until she found the intersection at the heart of the planet.
“We have to hide somewhere,” Bianca gasped, unsure of what had just happened. “Is there anyplace you can take us?”
Elora nodded. “I know just the place.” The legs dashed down into the alleyways of 1920s America. Once the two were safely shielded in the darkness, Bianca let go of Elora, and the legs disappeared back into the backpack. The Alien took a hold of the Human’s arm and led her down another alleyway. There, she saw a familiar sign. Elora’s face brightened. “Trixie’s candy shop!” She pushed the door open and gasped. Trixie was nowhere to be found.
“Welcome!” a young girl with dark red hair greeted. “How may I help you today?”
Elora’s eyes narrowed. “Is...Trixie here?”
The girl behind the counter shook her head. “No, she’s not. The planet’s officials came by today and told her she was being moved to 1930s America. I’m her granddaughter Kiki. Maybe I can help you?”
Elora’s breath came out in short pants. She turned to Bianca with a horrified face. “What’s happened? What does she mean by ‘planet officials’?”
“Hey, don’t look at me!” Bianca snapped back. “I have no idea!”
“Oh, you don’t know?” Kiki suddenly asked as she walked in front of the counter. She cleaned her hands off on her pink apron and sighed. “With the Princess of History gone for such a long time, her council members decided to take the matter of arranging people into their own hands. My grandmother was just placed into 1930s America. You just missed her.” She shrugged. “Maybe if you head over there, you can still find her. She’s only been there a little bit less than an hour.”
Elora gasped. “Bianca, you may just be able to move on to 1955 Italy!”
Bianca’s face was sad. She shook her head. “No, I can’t. The time I currently live in isn’t even 1949 Italy.”
“...What?”
“...I’m still living in 1940 Italy.”
Kiki suddenly interrupted them. “Excuse me for this, but may I ask when you were born?”
“That’s the thing. It was 1940.”
The redhead nodded. “Yup, I get it. That would explain why a lot of people were just taken out of 1920s America and put into the 30s. That would explain why hardly anyone has been relocated beyond this era of Earth’s history. You see, my grandmother is supposed to be in 1940s America, but she’s being kept in the 30s. That can only mean one thing.”
The girls looked up at the new candy shop owner. “What is that?”
Kiki tossed each one a sour candy. “One of the council members is from World War II, and that person...is a Nazi soldier...trying to rewrite history.”

Poseidon stared out a window at the top floor of the Castle of Death. Predictably enough, the castle and its surrounding areas were not the happiest of places. A raging fire burned under the palace, and lost souls cried out for salvation. In the sky, lightning crashed down to the ground, attempting to control the prisoners locked in death. Overall, the planet was dark and lonely.
The rattlesnake looked up at a corner of the room and narrowed his beady eyes. “That’s weird,” he murmured. “More spiders. Why are there so many spiders around here? I thought the Princess of Death had a liking for cockroaches...”
Suddenly, the door to the room opened, and there stood Adam. “You’ve been in here for such a long time, Poseidon,” the zombie boy began. “Wouldn’t you like to walk around a bit? Lady Skeleton has offered to show you her collection of captured princesses. Heh, you should see this one we got. She’s still trying to fight.”
Poseidon shook his head. “Unless Lady Skeleton herself is willing to come along for the ride, I have no interest in being around just you. How can I be so sure you won’t turn me into a wallet or something?”
Adam sighed. “Look, I’m just the messenger here.”
“That’s a lie. Everyone knows you’re Lady Skeleton’s right-hand man. You do her dirty work.”
“No, Lady Skeleton likes getting her hands soiled.”
Poseidon rolled his eyes. “I’m not talking about digging graves, idiot.” He paused. “Or...in this case...digging them up.” He glanced back at the zombie boy. “Know what I mean?”
Adam growled out a curse. “I don’t know why Lady Skeleton likes to keep you around so much. Can’t you just head over to the moron princesses and help them out already? You’re annoying and I bet they’re dying without you.”
The snake turned back to the window and watched as the lightning crashed again. “No, I can’t do that. I’m anxious to see how they deal without me. Hey, maybe they’ll fail to survive. Then Lady Skeleton can go on with her plans in peace.”
Adam crossed his arms. “I don’t trust you, Poseidon,” he stated bluntly, “if that’s your real name.” He turned and shut the door, leaving the snake in darkness.
“I don’t trust you either,” Poseidon hissed, “the same way I haven’t trusted anyone for thousands of years.” He looked up at the sky, somewhat hoping to see a moon or a star. Unfortunately, the clouds were too thick. He sighed and curled up into a little ball on the bed. “You’re right not to trust me though. I have plans that don’t concern you in the picture.” He grinned menacingly. “There’s only room for one Ruler of the Universe...”

TO BE CONTINUED