The man stealthily jogs down the large corridor with its checker-tiled floor, hair bobbing with every step. He wears a red uniform, adorned with a strikingly large white V upon the chest, ending in a white belt, continuing along his arms, down his sleeves; his pants have two white lines piping down the side of his legs, finding his white boots. Turning a corner into the central hallway, he sees the King and his royal robotic guards exiting into another of the many corridors.
– Not where he’s heading.
The man positions himself against the wall to wait for the King to have fully left from the main hall before continuing on with his agenda. He enters the second corridor on his right, and heads the second door on his left. As with all doors in this castle, it is large and red, looking almost plush and foam-like to the touch, with a white V ending in two white lines, one on the top, and one on the bottom. The man goes to the right side of the door, and as he pushes on it, the side of the door silently slides open, directly forward, with ease. It is then, in this new corridor, that he notices one of the many patrolling robotic guards, embellished with the same red color and large, white V on their chests; the man exits back into the other hall, but cannot reach the door to close it. He takes cover behind a pedestal, readying his pistol blaster from the holster on the high back side of his right hip. The automaton reaches the open door; it pauses in its rounds, analyzing the door with scrutiny. Its singular red-light-eye scans, back and forth, back and forth, without emotion. Taking another second to calculate action, the machine closes the door, and continues on its rounds.
Hesitating, waiting for the time it would take for the robot to have gone, the man opens the door again, seeing the robot turning to the left, out of the hallway and into another. The man makes his way towards the corridor that the guard turned, passing by the corridor, and entering a large circular room with books lining the walls, and large elegant windows that face a courtyard from five stories above, an enchanted forest off in the distance. He then hears the tank-like treads of another patrolling automaton approaching, following the same set path as the last. Knowing he will be caught if he remains another second, he leaps through the window, shattering it. Once outside, the shards pause in mid-air, and quickly reform the pane.
Falling multiple stories, the man lands haphazardly, but surprisingly lightly, as if on a cushion of air: there are different rules at play here. On the stone surface of the garden terrace of the courtyard, he stands, brushing himself off out of habit. He looks around, examining his surroundings; to his right, he notices a beautiful young woman in a sheer peplos sitting at a stone table, reading, and enjoying the fresh air. She stares at him quizzically. He is not from this land.
