human
Oscar:  Oscar flew out of the room, screaming, and made straight for his mother’s chamber.
gpt
Oscar:  It had to be a nightmare. It had to be. When he burst in… his mother was there, reading, and regarded him with surprise.
human
Rosalia:  “What is it, Oscar?” Her smile was gentle.
gpt
Rosalia:  She looked just the same as ever.
human
Oscar:  Relieved, Oscar flew into her arms. Between his sobs, he told her about the dream.
gpt
Oscar:  I knew it. It couldn’t be real. That night, he slept in his mother’s bed. That should have been the end of it. But the next night, he was faced with the sight of his mother’s death, exactly as it had been in his nightmare.
human
Oscar:  Akashia raised, Oscar approached the witch cautiously. Lavinia merely teleported away and reappeared near the door to the audience chamber, however. Dodging the remaining swords, Oscar turned and gave her a strained look.
gpt
Oscar:  “I’m not going to hate my mother. She protected me.” At that, Kevin and Lavinia both made shocked expressions.
human
Tinasha:  As she healed her spirits, Tinasha looked between them in confusion.
gpt
Kevin:  “You recall it now?” Kevin asked.
human
Oscar:  “Thanks to those dreams just now, yeah. Are you the one who sealed my memories?” Oscar turned to Lavinia, who didn’t offer any denial. She gazed evenly at the young king of Farsas. What ghastly memories. At such a young age, Oscar had watched his mother die twice. Fearing that he would be psychologically scarred if he had to carry that around with him forever, the witch had sealed his recollection of the experience when she’d cursed him. As Oscar wrestled with the bitter memories that had been lost for fifteen years, he stared his grandmother—the witch—dead in the eye. His dead mother, a rash of missing child cases, and an heirloom that could reverse the flow of time. Once he fit together all the pieces, an answer emerged.
gpt
Oscar:  “My mother… went back in time to save me?”
human
Tinasha:  Tinasha gasped. Oscar’s memory of his mother getting ripped apart by a demon had been shut away. When he thought on it, he realized that the mother in that memory was another Rosalia who’d come rushing in from a day in the future. No one ever knew at the time that there’d been two queens in the castle. Fifteen years ago, Oscar’s mother had burst into his room after traveling from the future, knowing that he was going to be attacked. And in her attempt to save her son, she and the demon perished at the other’s hand. She’d bled out and collapsed, only for her blood and corpse to disappear instantly—because she belonged to another time. Oscar had burst into tears when she’d vanished and had run to his mother’s room to find her as she’d ever been, ready to welcome him. Her reaction was understandable, since that was the woman from the present. Relieved, Oscar believed the gruesome death to be a nightmare, but that was wrong.