"Michael?"

Her voice came from behind the door. "Sit tight," Michael said. "I'll be right back."

I mumbled something. I was tied up and gagged, so my options were limited at this point. The blindfold also made it impossible for me to see. As I heard him walk away, the odor of cologne and sweat faded and I was left with the dank and musty smell of the room.

It was hard to tell how long I was there alone. In another context, it could have been meditative, sitting there with nothing but my thoughts to occupy me. I told myself I should have been dead by now. I should savor every extra second I could get. It was just difficult to do without the ability to move or speak. I could try humming a few of my favorite songs, but I wasn't in the mood.

Instead, I went back into my head, trying to come up with where I wanted to be when the bullet went through my head. I could imagine myself on a beach, or skydiving, or in my bed at home eating crème brûlée. I could be with my family. I could be with Kurt.

I could be with Kurt on our wedding day. The truth was I did want to get married someday, but always when I was older. When I was a kid, I thought maybe I'd marry at eighteen. At eighteen, I wanted to be twenty-five. Now I was twenty-five, thirty seemed a more suitable age. At thirty, I could imagine pushing it to forty.

Of course, that wasn't the life I was going to live.

Instead, I pictured Kurt and myself kissing in our tuxedos in front of my mother, brothers and grandparents. I imagined it being all over the newspapers across the country. I imagined meeting Kurt's family. I didn't know anything about his family, I never thought to ask. Come to think of it, I didn't even know if he had one.

I realized, this was all adventure enough for me. Living life this way wasn't fun. I wanted stability. The kind I could get from Kurt.

I imagined our wedding night, the two of us in bed, all over each other, all night. We'd make love and then shower ourselves clean. And, then we'd kiss each other goodnight, but that would only get us started up again.

I imagined us adopting a child or perhaps having a surrogate parent, so the child could have Kurt's eyes.

Kurt's eyes, that I'd never see again.

We'd grow old together. Our baby would grow up. She would have a bicycle with training wheels, but then the training wheels would come off. She'd fall down and scrape her knees, but she'd get back up. Because she'd be tough.

She'd have her first day of tutoring and would be very smart. At the same time, we'd make sure she spent plenty of time with children her own age. I didn't want her growing up in the palace. Maybe we'd move to the United States. I didn't like the idea of raising her as a spoiled princess. I wanted to spoil her, but I also didn't want her to be isolated from living a normal life.

Kurt would tease me about it, saying he didn't want her to grow up to be like me.

Kurt and I would fall deeper and deeper in love as we got older. One of those couples that was always holding hands and grabbing onto each other's butts, even into our nineties.

She'd go off to college at some point and Kurt and I would miss her, but we'd take the opportunity to travel. Maybe at that point Kurt and I would move back into the palace to live with Frederick, the future King of Aldonia.

Of course, for that to happen, my mother would need to die. And I didn't want to think of that. And, if Kurt and I grew old together, it would be possible he would die before me, and I couldn't bear the thought of that.

I didn't want to contemplate realistic fears like that in my fantasy. In my fantasy, we all lived happily ever after, forever. As we grew older, we'd only become more beautiful.

I was smiling again, thinking of the scenario that couldn't possibly happen. I made a truce with myself. If somehow, I came out of this alive, I would marry Kurt. I would apologize for being immature. I would tell him I was sorry for trying to make him jealous and promise to never do it again. Life was too short to play games. I cared about him. I wanted to marry eventually, and there was no better time than now and no better person than him.

"Do we have another chair?" Cheryl asked. "We can do them both?"

What did she mean?

"There's another one in the dining room," Michael said. "Can you get it?"

"You can get it after you're finished bringing him here. Hurry it up."

"He's heavy," Michael complained. "He's solid."

Michael leaned a body against my chair.

"Hurry," Cheryl said. "Before he wakes up."

Michael placed a chair behind me. I heard him lift the body and put it on the chair, then take a spool of rope and tie him up.

"Real tight on that one. I don't want him escaping."

As Michael was tying the other guy up, I heard him groan, though it was a bit muffled under the sound of the generators outside. I recognized the voice, but at first I thought I was just deluding myself. There's no way it could have been him.

"The police are on their way," the voice said, and I was certain it was Kurt.

"I don't believe you," Cheryl said.

"Then don't," Kurt said.

"Michael, can you gag him, too?"

"Hey," Kurt said. "Get away from me with…" The rest was just mumbles.

"Let's hurry this up," Cheryl said. "Like I said, I don't believe you, but that doesn't mean I'm not going to take the proper precautions. If the police are on their way, we'd better hurry up. Michael, are you ready? We'll do it live."

"Live? What if I make a mistake?"

"Just go with it," Cheryl said. "Keep going no matter what."

"Okay. Give me one second to get back in character," he grunted a few times. "I'm ready."

I heard a few keystrokes and then Cheryl’s voice. "We're streaming live on the internet in Three...two...one..."