There is a bucket. It sways above your head like the mouth of a god. You are on Angelwood's best stage, and they are cheering for you, calling you their Queen, their Prom Queen. And you are dead soon. It's Prom Day. The metal bucket is swaying. Over you. Drenching your white pristine dress in guts and gore red. They aren't cheering anymore. They're gasping. But not screaming: oh, no, not in respectable Angelwood. God. You didn't think a pig's intestines could feel so cold. You are dead when the bucket falls - crushes your skull - caves you open - drenches you and drenches you, drowns you, fells you and kills, kills, kills you. And the last thing you see - Is their eyes. I wake. I gasp. I close my eyes - I'm fine, I'm fine. I'm still here. Breathing. That bucket was a dream. My death was a dream. I'm not dead. (Am I?) (...) (Aren't I?) Of course I'm not. I exhale. My feet fall to the edges of my bed. Slowly, I raise myself to stand. My fingers tremble by the edges of my leg: I curl my hand in. My nails catch on my skin. They're sharp, pastel pink. Done for Prom Day today. The dream didn't happen. How could it have? Prom Day hasn't happened yet. I'm fine. (Didn't it happen?) (It felt so...) (Real.) I tidy the bed sheets. Pull the corners over the bed's edges, fluff up the pillows, pat away the sweat and the residue of a scream: my parents want it pretty. It wasn't real. I only had a visceral dream, sunken into my brain as an anchor to a sea, as a stone angel's crumbling visage, as a bird's descent off Devil Cradle's cliffs. That wasn't real. No, of course not. My calendar says May 29th. I've got to prepare for Prom. After all, if there is anything I will be, it is Prom Queen. I've been chasing this moment since the beginning of time. Today is the finale. And I am nothing if not ready. I open the windows of my mansion. Angelwood glimmers back at me. The mist curdles the morning; leaving dew drops and spiderweb crystals upon the forests. This is the namesake of my town. The urban myth goes that angels had descended into the town to be's heartlands, hauling humans upon their backs, and when no one needed them anymore, immortalised themselves in stone. They are everywhere: stone angel after stone angel claims residence in the town's square, among the fountains, upon the two-storey high walls. They are visible even from here. I exhale. The town is stirring awake. I get dressed. A pink tulle, a kind of prettier dress. On the morning of May 29th, my mother is proud of me. She had been Angelwood's Queen in her eighteens. I am carrying her legacy on my shoulders, and today she finally believes I will be victorious. "I wouldn't expect any less from our daughter," Mother says. She smiles at me: it creases her mouth in an unnatural way. "Doesn't Ethereality look like Angelwood's Queen already?" My father nods his agreement. "Yes," he tells me, "An Estridge in her finest." (I've done this before. I've had this talk before, on May 29th, oh I remember it so clearly.) (Father, he'll look over my dress.) Father looks over my dress. He is not glinting with as much pride as Mother. But he approves. (Mother, she'll squeeze my fingers.) Mother squeezes my fingers, as delicate as a dove. Her smile is no less unnatural. But it fits her. (And I, I'll pay gratitude.) "Thank you," I say. "I'm really happy you think that." (They'll gaze at me with so much love and pride and feeling.) I smile. I leave. This is my world. I stroll through the corridors and they worship me. Starry-eyed whispers; flushed faces as I pass; gazes sloshing with so much awe. They love me. They would die for me if I called for it. (They didn't, though, when a bucket tethered above my head. They watched the thunk. They gasped when I hit the stage, when guts made a laurel around my neck, when the blood pulsated and drip, drip, dripped...) No. They would die. For me. If I called for it.