A Different World

This episode is our season two finale! It's a story about exploring wondrous new worlds,  going on amazing new adventures, and meeting fun new friends. 

Transcript

You decide to spend the afternoon in your library. It’s warm and cozy, and you have so many good memories there. And most important of all, there are no windows. A feature you’d mourned when you first bought the house, but one that will be perfect for tonight. You leave your virtual windows out too, phone charging next to your bed, and computer moved to the coffee table. Tonight it’s just you and your books. You have new ones you haven’t gotten to yet, but tonight you settle in with an old favorite. You’ve read it so many times that even as you read, your mind has time to wander. You think of all the times you’ve sat in this very chair, in this very room, wishing more than anything that you could leave this world and go into one more like your books. A world filled with grand adventures, with heroes and villains. A world filled with terror and action, and maybe even love. Tonight, you’re not longing for any of that, though. You’re longing for the days when you just went to work and the store, and home. When you laughed with your friends and went out, and when you were comfortable enough to long for a little discomfort. Which is what you’re bracing yourself for now, just a little discomfort, you hope anyway. The power goes out first, and you light a candle. The voices, the shouting, and screaming you’ve been trying to tune out get louder and louder. You hear someone knock at your door, and you know it’s not just one person. Unprecedented times are screaming out on your street, and you don’t know what to feel. So you ignore the noise, just for a little while longer. Waiting outside your house is danger, and action and hope, but maybe also horror. You aren’t ready to see what it is just yet, so you tune out the noise for just a little while longer, and you turn the page of The Podcast Inside Your House.

Once upon a cold winter morning, a teenage boy sat at his desk, and he dreamed of summer. He didn’t much care for the heat, or even the sun, really. But he was eager for time to march just enough forward that he’d never be sitting at his dreary desk in his dreary school building ever again. He vowed that by this time next year, by next winter, he’d have made something of himself. Or he would have at least gone out into the world and seen just a little bit of it. 

He skipped the bus that day, opting to walk home. He’d been feeling distant from the world lately, and he wanted to re-acquaint himself with it. He wanted to knock the snow off the tree branches that lined the side of the road. He wanted to feel the cold wind on his face and hear the crunching of old ice and dead leaves under his feet. And most of all, he wanted to delay going home, even if only for half an hour. 

He walked slowly, and as he did, he felt a strange sensation wash over him. He felt a sudden pull, a drive to take off into the woods. The sensation was so powerful that it stopped him in his tracks. And though he couldn’t see anything waiting for him, not even a path, he let the feeling guide him out of the sunlight and into the skeletal forest. 

He brushed the snow off the branches, this time out of necessity. The forest was so dense, but he knew exactly where he needed to go, and he would not be moved from his course. He caught his coat on thorns, and he splashed through a shallow creek, one moving too fast for the cold to catch it.

The boy didn’t know where he was going, only that he was heading towards something of great importance. His face and hands were scratched, his feet freezing, but he didn’t care. He hadn't felt so alive in so very long. 

The boy hit a small clearing and his momentum slowed, and stopped when he laid his eyes upon his prize. In the center of the clearing, made up of rocks and sticks and twisting dead vines, sat a throne. 

The boy was drawn to it, as it appeared the trees and stones that made up its very essence had been as well. Holly bushes and a few green pine branches showed that some of the sticks making up the throne were still alive, those in the center of the clearing. While others at the throne's edge had dried dead roots still clinging to the dirt, but only just. Further away, there were tiny holes in the ground, fresh enough that the snow had not yet covered them. 

It was as if the throne had its own gravity and had pulled up all of the nearby saplings and plants to build itself. Because in the complete absence of footprints, who else would have done it but the throne itself?

The boy was just as helpless as the poor saplings in fighting the gravity. He laid fresh footprints down, and when he reached the throne, the thorns and sticks and jagged rocks gave him no pause. He took his rightful seat. 

And in the span it took him to blink, the throne took him out of that wretched world. He opened his eyes into a new one, a better one. 

He blinked into an enchanting forest. This one was in the middle of winter too, but there could be no doubt in the boy's mind that he was somewhere new. The trees were bigger, ancient. The snow was light and fluffy, not the greying, crunching old snow he’d left behind.

The sun was out overhead, and while his old world had pine and holly still green in the winter, this one brought ferns and moss and rhododendrons as well, all still green in the milder climate. But the biggest giveaway that he’d been taken somewhere else was a deer that watched him from the edge of the trees. It looked not unlike the deer of his home, but this one stood up on two legs, and when it caught the boy's attention, it leaned over to bow, which flopped over a red ribbon that it wore tied to its antlers. 

“Your majesty,” The deer said. “I’ll spread word to the rest of the forest, sir. We’ve been waiting so long.” And before the boy could respond, the deer was back on all fours and galloping away. 

The boy, the future king, stood up, and his first steps were shaky, like a newborn calf. But once our hero found his footing, he felt more at home than he ever had in his entire life. 

The boy walked for only a short while before he came upon another boy, about his age. Only this boy was dressed strangely, wearing bright red pants, a leather shirt, and over top, a worn metal breastplate. The new boy carried with him a sword and a helmet, and when he saw our hero, he looked sorrowful, but soon forced a smile. 

“Well, isn’t that something?” The new boy said, “I’ve come too late for the throne, but just in time to see our new king.” Just like the deer had,  he bowed and said, “Your grace.”

And our hero decided he quite liked the sound of that. But he had to have a name as well. His old one just wouldn’t do in a place like this, though. 

Our hero told the armored boy, “Stand up.” And he asked him, “How do you know I’m the king?” 

“Because you’re walking away from the throne, sire, and you’re wearing the clothes of a different world. And because it’s the Yuletide season. All things the prophecy foretold.” He smiled once again, this time more genuinely. “I won’t be the last man you run into on the path, sire. Men come from all over this time of year to try their luck at the throne.”

Our hero thought that was charming, that boys their age were men in this world. “Do I have a name in this prophecy of yours?” The hero asked. “My old one doesn’t seem right for this world.” 

“The prophecy states you’re to be a merciful king, but we don’t know your name. You’ll have to pick one.”

And so our hero thought of a name that suited a place like this, a world where wishes came true and animals walked on two legs. A world where he was given a great destiny. 

“Call me Jack,” our hero told the boy.

And the boy answered back, “Jack the Merciful, then. It’s a pleasure to meet you, sire. I’m Henry.”

“Nice to meet you, Henry,” and Jack stuck out his hand, and he was pleased to see that this wasn’t such a strange world that Henry didn’t know to shake it back.

“Is Jack a hero’s name back in your world, my lord?” Henry asked.

“It is. He slayed giants.”

“An appropriate name sire. Because you’re already king in our hearts, of course, those of us who follow the prophecy. But to truly rule, you’ll have to kill the old one.” 

“Of course,” Jack said, “Well, since I’m not king yet, you don’t have to call me, sire, and your grace and all that.” 

“Okay. Jack.” Henry said, and the boys began to walk down the path together, and Henry asked Jack if he was the first boy he’d come across. Jack said that he was. 

“That means I’m to be your right-hand man, Jack.”

Jack asked, “According to the prophecy?” 

And Henry said, “Of course. I’ve lived my whole life waiting for this prophecy, and I’m happy to play the part I’ve been given. I’m honored to be chosen at all.”

“Tell me more about this prophecy,” Jack said. 

And so Henry told our hero all about his future. How he was destined to overthrow their evil king. How he came from a kinder world than theirs, so Henry and his followers would help him with the things that were hard for him to do. 

As Henry talked, all of the words felt familiar to Jack, like he was hearing something he’d heard long ago but had since forgotten. Henry told him how there would be great battles, and there would be close calls. But in the end, they were destined to win. At least if he was the true king, that is. 

“What do you mean the true king?” Jack asked.

“Well, the prophecy warns us that there may be those who try and fail first before the true king comes.”

“And has that happened before, other boys from my world trying and failing?” Jack asked. 

“Oh yes, sire. Just five years past, we had a boy come from your world, but he wasn’t the true king.”

“And what happened to him?” 

“The king's men stopped him, of course. As a usurper, he was hanged, drawn, and quartered.”

“Okay, but what does that actually mean?” Jack asked.

“You don’t do that in your world? And don't worry, Jack, you won’t have to worry about that, I’ve got a good feeling about you.”

Henry then went on to talk of hanging and dismemberment in the rather cheerful way he’d been talking about the rest of the prophecy. Jack felt a bit ill, but he never once thought about trying to get back to his world. This was where he belonged. 

As they walked and talked, they passed other boys, wearing homemade armor and carrying swords, or maces, or daggers. Boys who thought they were going to meet their destiny only to find someone else had snatched it from their hands. Some bowed, and they left to go back home. Some joined them, pledging their allegiance to Jack, their future king. 

By the time they reached the closest village, their army had reached a few dozen men. Jack tried to think of himself as a man then, too, because this world needed him to be. The village welcomed them with open arms, and if anyone there objected to the new king-to-be, they kept it to themselves. 

That night as our hero slept, he felt more at home in his new world than he ever had in his old one. When he awoke, in a bed offered up to him by a family he’d never met, Jack felt ready to conquer the world. 

Jack was given all the food and drink he could need, including drinks he wasn’t yet allowed back in his world. He was given new clothes as well, though he kept his watch as proof of the world he’d come from. And a boy in his army took his old clothes back to the throne, to set them atop it and let any other prospective princes know that it was too late, the king was already here. 

As Henry and the rest of the boys taught Jack how to swing a sword, how to shoot a bow, he regaled them with stories of his homeworld. Jack’s new army seemed to know a great deal about his world already, though. Just as he had grown up on fairy tales, they’d grown up on stories of faraway and fantastic places. Though not all of them seemed to be about his earth. Some seemed alien even to him, and he wondered just how many different worlds were connected by that wondrous throne in the woods. 

After a few weeks, when the village stores were becoming lean, and the people started to worry about word getting back to the king, the boys knew it was time to move on. 

As they journeyed through the forest, the boys taught Jack how to tell the difference between ordinary animals and enchanted ones. The deer with their ribbons on their heads, the turtles with their painted shells, the cats with their dyed fur. All were marked as such by the druids to keep hunters from killing their messengers. 

Jack wanted desperately to meet these druids, but Henry told him they kept themselves entirely secret, even from the king-to-be. But he was free to talk to the animals as much as he liked, many of whom were eager to pledge themselves to him. Jack soon learned from his men that the forests there were full of many secrets. They warned Jack away from still water or circles of wildflowers, lest he cross the fey, who fought their own battles and had no interest in human affairs. 

Jack’s army taught him how to hunt and how to live off the land. Jack had quite a lot of trouble with the hunting part, though. For he was a kind soul, and he didn’t want to hurt the creatures of the wood, even if he now knew that not all of them talked. But when it came time to shoot an arrow at a young deer, Henry helped to steady Jack’s hand. And when it came time to slice the deer's flesh and skin the hide, Henry showed him how. 

And when Jack’s army felt he was on his way to becoming kingly, that he was ready to try and rally more troops, they journeyed to the next village. Only when they got there, they found the king’s men had beaten them there. Someone had told the king the usurper had come to their world. He’d sent his troops to raze all the villages nearest to the Forest Throne. 

It was here that Jack saw the sights that had separated him by an invisible line from his comrades. For they had grown up in a world with uprisings and unrest. They’d only known a world with war. And he had not. Jack walked through the still burning ruins of the village, and he became a man then, just like he’d been pretending to be since he sat on that throne in the woods, just a few short weeks ago. 

Jack saw blood and guts and all of the things that are usually inside a body rotting on the ground. He saw bodies of mostly men, but some women and children, too. All in varying states of decay, and some in varying states of undress. 

Jack saw just a fraction of the things that the boys, no, the men in his army had seen in their lives. But it was enough to tear his heart open, and then to scar it over tougher. Tough enough that he started to feel as if he could wield a sword himself, to do to the enemy what had been done to these people. 

Jack’s army spent the night there; it had already been hit after all. They brought the surviving villagers deer and squirrel, and fish, and tended their wounds. Just as Henry had shown Jack how to use his hands to kill and skin, he too showed him how to stitch and heal. And the villagers, bruised and battered and broken, pledged their loyalty to their new king, one who would get his own hands bloody to tend to them. 

And it was in this village that our hero met his true love. She was a girl with hair as black as night, and eyes as blue as the sky. Jack fell in love with her when he helped to stitch up a fresh wound that ran from the edge of her red lips and all the way down her neck. The fact that she’d lived at all was a miracle. Jack had never been good at talking with girls, and he told her that the scar she’d have would only make her more beautiful. To which she replied, “Of course it will, are scars not worn with honor in your world?”

The girl, Alice, didn’t flatter him, didn’t call him “my king,” though she’d bowed just the same as everyone else in the village. She was the only girl who didn’t throw herself at him, and that made him want her all the more, because courting any of the girls who fawned over him didn’t feel right. Alice teased Jack and talked with him like they were schoolmates. 

Though she’d had a harder life than his own, Alice reminded him that, really, they were both scarcely more than children. She had boundless energy, and she talked incessantly, perhaps too much, and laughed even though she wasn't supposed to while her wounds healed. She showed Jack that even with all the death in this world, its people weren’t trodden down. No, they were hopeful, her most of all. 

And he wasn’t the only one whom Alice inspired. His troops were disheartened by the lack of recruits they could find in the village. The king's soldiers had slaughtered most of the men, and the prospect of raising Jack a proper army was grim. But Alice and Henry got to talking about some ancient war, one where a plague had killed so many of the men that the women had taken up arms. 

Alice began sparring with the men, and the other girls quickly joined in. They hadn’t trained with swords before, most of them anyway. But they had fresh grief over their loved ones, and they made up for a lack of experience with rage and determination. 

The girls who didn’t have the heart for killing, who knew they didn’t want to join, trained anyway, because someone had to protect those staying behind. 

The army stayed only a few short weeks, not wanting to deplete the rest of the winter stores, though they had far fewer mouths to feed than they’d planned for. They left just a handful of girls and elders to watch over the village children, most of whom had been spared. The king didn’t want to cull all of his future subjects after all. 

And so they went, from village to village, some sacked, some not. They gathered men, women, and even some of the animals from the forest, enchanted foxes and deer who pledged their hooves and tiny claws to their new king. Their army grew exponentially larger, and before long, they had no choice but to face the king's men in battle, for they couldn’t hide their numbers any longer. 

Jack’s first taste of battle came on a day when the snow was mostly thawed, and the first greens of spring were just beginning to emerge. 

The king’s Men had been following them for days, and Jack chose to meet them in battle in the forest, hoping the roots and trees and mud would favor them. They had only sparse and cheap armor, and they hoped they could use their swiftness to their advantage in the uneven terrain.

As the king's men approached, the forest obliterated any semblance of elegance or strategy the royal army would have had. Which set them on level ground with Jack’s men, who had had no semblance of elegance to begin with. 

The battle began unceremoniously, with the first few men who reached each other hacking away. As it was Jack's first taste of battle, they kept him near the back, so he could properly acclimate himself with the sounds, and sights, and smells of the fight.

The immersion was well needed. Jack had seen the aftermath of battle, but being in the throes of a fight was unlike anything else. Jack heard the screams, so loud they almost merged into one, and after only a short while, he became so accustomed to the scent of blood that he scarcely smelt it anymore. The sounds of their deer, and the king's horses screaming, cut through the men’s cries, and curdled his blood even more, for he’d never heard such screams before. 

Alice and Henry stayed by his side, but as the battle drew nearer, Henry had to join the fray. 

Jack had always thought Henry seemed just a bit uncomfortable in his skin. Always a bit twitchy, a bit excitable. But in battle, he moved with a grace that Jack had never seen before. Henry was in his element. 

As the fray scattered and condensed, pushing back and spreading into the woods, Jack and Alice steeled their nerves and raised their swords. Together, they wet their blades for the first time. 

Jack had armor, the finest they’d been able to scrounge up, but Alice had only a leather vest. She knew strength wouldn’t be on her side, so swiftness had to be. And just like Henry, she fought with the elegance of someone who’d grown up thinking they might have to swing a sword one day. She moved fast, going after the king's men who’d shed their armor, or the cavalry soldiers who’d been dismounted.

Jack tried to do the same. He picked his target, and he rushed in and stabbed one of the king’s soldiers in the back. And when the man fell, Jack saw he wasn’t a man at all but a boy, scarcely even a teenager. 

Jack watched his red blood pour out onto the soft green moss below, and he knew he should be feeling something, but all he could feel in that moment was a need to survive. And he found it easy to surrender to those instincts, focusing only on making sure he lived and the enemy didn’t. And by the time the battle had ended, he had bloodied his sword more times than he could count. 

The king’s men finally retreated; Jack’s army had won. 

After the battle, Jack felt changed. He thought he’d grown up when he’d seen that first razed village, but he felt even more different now. And he wondered then if growing up ever really stopped. Or if the world kept changing you every time you saw something worse, and that some of us were just lucky enough to only be changed a few times. 

With their first battle won, Jack’s army was unstoppable. People came from all over the kingdom to join them. 

The army mostly stayed in the woods, letting the birds whisper their whereabouts to those who wanted to take up their swords. There were those with impure intentions, of course, those who joined up purely to try and slay Jack for the king. But Henry and Alice protected him, and those caught were punished by Henry personally. He’d pluck out their eyes and send their birds to deliver them to the king himself. 

They fought more battles on the defense, lulling the king's men into inhospitable terrain, where the forest creatures or helpful villagers would be on their side. They knew that if they met such a formidable army out in the open, it would be their end. Every battle had to have a trick, and in turn, at each battle they managed to get the bulk of their men away when they made to retreat, even if they didn’t win. 

Jack never got much better at fighting, but he was grateful that he’d spent so much of his time in his old life watching videos about historic battles. He’d always known that would pay off somehow. 

Jack and his army spent the rest of that summer in relative victory, and only when the air started to cool did their luck begin to turn. 

The king caught on and had his generals stop taking the offensive. They tried to lure Jack’s army out into the open, and they wouldn't engage with them in the woods. And then Jack and his men had to come up with a new plan. They had to take the battle to the enemy. 

Jack felt then, for the first time, at a total loss about how to proceed. And Henry was more than ready to help. In fact, it seemed as if Henry had been thinking about this scenario for quite some time. 

“The king is never sending his whole army out to meet us.” Henry told him, “We don’t need to beat his whole army, but we need to draw enough of them out that we can take his castle. If the king’s dead, his men will give up.” 

“And how do we do that?” Jack asked. “Draw out his whole army?” 

“It’s easy,” Henry said, “You just have to make him mad enough.” 

And then Henry proceeded to tell Jack about a plan he’d clearly been building for some time. A plan that sounded extremely cruel, but also extremely effective. And Jack reminded himself that he was in a different world now, a place with different rules, and that hundreds, maybe thousands of people were counting on him. And when he still gave no answer, Henry told him, “I’ll do the worst parts, my king.” 

They told only their most loyal soldiers about the true extent of their plan, so word wouldn’t get back to the king. They told some of the animals as well, for the birds and the deer had to go out to all corners of the land if their plan was going to succeed. 

And as they made their way to their destination, as they prepared to do what needed to be done, Jack held a secret hope that Alice would talk him out of it. 

The very night before they prepared their attack, Jack and Alice lay together for the first time, but more importantly, they talked about all those intimate things they’d never had the time to discuss before. It could very well be their last night on earth after all. 

Jack told Alice about growing up in his world, about how he’d always wished for a grand adventure like this. And Alice told Jack about what her life had been like under the tyranny of the cruel king. And as Alice told him about her harrowing childhood, one so alien to the world he knew, he understood that she would not be one to talk him out of their plan.

The next day, they prepared to move at dawn, as the birds began singing, and the ones who could talk began scheming.

Their target was a large village, one just a day's ride from the king’s palace. This village was crucial because it was where the queen had been born. 

Though most of her family had ascended to noble ranks when she was chosen as the queen, this was still her home. There would still be people and places she cared about, and that was what Henry aimed to destroy. An attack on this village was not a slight that the king could ignore.

Henry had told Jack that for the price of one village, he believed they could have total victory. Henry said that they must raze the village in a way that would give even the king himself pause, the king who freely encouraged his own men to rape and pillage as they pleased. Jack had asked Henry how they would do this, and he told him they’d find inspiration if and when they got to that point. 

Being an army with so many women, Jack’s people had no taste for plunder, or if they had, he never saw it. So Henry had to get creative. 

They chose the church as their base. It was big enough to hold the entire village, and turning a place of worship into a place of slaughter would only add to the king’s rage. And while Jack’s army gathered each and every villager and brought them to God’s house, Henry tried to come up with a plan that would get his attention.

Everyone in Jack’s army shared the same bloodlust after growing up under the king's reign, and they were more than ready to enact their revenge, so Henry knew they’d go along with almost anything. Henry could be a monster when he needed to be, but even he had his limits, too. So he had the village children locked up in the church basement while he prepared his masterpiece. 

When they gathered everyone up, Jack’s army slaughtered all of the villagers as quickly as they could. For their manner of death was not the shock they needed to give the king. 

As Jack watched his army stab and slash at the panicked villagers, he felt his stomach trying to turn, to make him sick, but he kept it down. The screams were the worst part, as they trampled over each other to try and get away. Jack felt even more ill when he realized that although the children in the basement couldn’t see what was happening, they could no doubt hear it. 

When Henry finished killing the villagers, he and his men started emptying the winter stores, pulling out vegetables and spices. He soon let Jack in on the details of his plan.

Henry said they were going to prepare a feast for the king, one made out of the dead villagers. And that being so close by, they could send the children to drive the carriages that would deliver it.

And all of this, Henry told Jack with a smile. 

Jack realized then that he didn’t want to be king anymore. 

He slunk away to the woods, telling his men he only needed a moment to gather himself. But once he was out of their sight, he ran. He ran faster even than he’d run in battle, to get away from the horrors he’d allowed, that he’d commanded.

Jack was supposed to take to the woods as part of the plan, but not like this. He was meant to bring Alice and just a handful of the other girls with him. And he was not supposed to leave before the razing was done. Henry had warned him that his men needed to see he could stomach what he commanded. But he didn’t care about that anymore. He didn’t care about the plan. He didn’t care about the war. 

Jack ran until the sun set and the moon came out, and only then did he collapse from exhaustion. 

When he awoke the next morning, his birds had found him. Finches and robins and crows asked him in their tiny sweet voices if he was alright, if someone had taken him. And he had to tell them that no, he’d just run away as a coward. He told them that he couldn’t stomach what he’d allowed his army to do. The birds tried in vain to get him to go back, but they were small and fragile, and he soon tuned out their pleas.

Jack slept again, dreaming of his old home in his old world. He dreamt of a time when death, and pain, and war had only ever been distant things to him. He dreamt of sitting in class, of arguing with his parents, of laughing with his friends. A time when his biggest worry had been getting his homework done.

And when he woke up back in his new fantastic world, there was a bear nuzzling his side. He reached for his sword, but there was no need, for the bear soon spoke. 

“My king,” it said in its grumbling voice, “you have to get up. It’s almost time.”

And Jack sat up then, the great beast commanding his attention more than his little birds had. The bear had fresh blood on its muzzle, and Jack soon saw the source.

A stone's throw away from him, two other bears and a dozen wolves were feeding on what had at one time been several deer. But now they were just bloody piles of skin and bone, all being quickly torn apart.

Just a little behind the bear stood a living deer, one with a red ribbon around its neck, the mark of the Druids. “Do you see what we’ve sacrificed for you, my king “? The deer asked. “We’ve gone out past the edges of the kingdom, we’ve brought back the bears and wolves like you’ve asked, and we’ve given them our own flesh to let them come in such great numbers.” 

The deer stepped closer, and the bear bowed its head, but Jack wasn’t sure if it was to him or to the deer. 

“I know the ordinary deer of the woods don’t speak your tongue, but when my brothers and I order them to their deaths, we can hear them beg for mercy. I won’t have done that in vain.”

Jack watched another deer, seemingly bewitched, go up and join the bloody pile, as more wolves came from the woods to descend on it. And at the spots where they’d eaten the poor things down to the bones, massive hyenas stepped in to start crunching those as well. Jack tried to see how far back into the forest the animals went, but there seemed to be no end. The enchanted animals had done it; they’d raised their own army.

A little finch soon alighted on Jack’s shoulder and said, “We’ve told your maidens where to find you, my king. It’s not too late, they’ll be here soon.” The Finch then said something that got his attention even more than the great bloody bear, even more than the pile of deer carcasses had. It said, “Think of what the evil king will do to you and your friends if you don’t stop him, sire.”

And Jack imagined what horrors the king would unleash in response to what he’d let Henry do. And he knew then that he truly had no choice.

Alice and the other girls soon found him, and when he greeted them, he confessed to them that he’d run away. And Alice told him that that was why they supported him, because he had a kind heart. He felt like a king again then, and he led them through the woods. 

As they marched, just a few dozen soldiers, the great beasts of the wood all gathered behind them. More hyenas came, more lions. Polar bears joined the grizzlies, and the wolves only ever kept multiplying, hundreds of them swarming around the other beasts.

They arrived at sunset, but they waited for nightfall because most of their army could see in the dark. And only when the last rays of the setting sun were gone did they attack. 

The king had sent most of his troops away to face Henry. But there were enough left behind to man the massive wall that protected the palace. A wall that, in theory, could protect them against any army for the day or two it would have taken the king's troops to come back. 

But the wall was built to protect against a human army. The smaller bears and the leopards were over it in seconds, and the ones who could talk persuaded whoever was behind the gates to open them.

Jack had envisioned a great battle then, a heroic fight, a final standoff. But truth be told, what happened at that castle could hardly be called a battle at all. The animals got to most of the people in the palace first. The deer had been sustaining the predators, but only enough to keep them moving. They were ravenous.

Jack and Alice scarcely had to raise their swords at all. The doors inside the palace meant nothing to the great grizzlies and polar bears, and soon they were everywhere.

The guards and the king's family alike were nothing but meat to the beast of the woods. And by the time the hyenas had finished with them, not even bones were left.

The beasts had left the king for Jack, though. Henry had told him to make a spectacle of things. He’d said that how he killed the king would live on in legends. But when Jack got to the throne room and found just a withered old man, he couldn’t bring himself to enact any of Henry’s gruesome ideas. Jack felt he’d already seen enough carnage for a lifetime. 

The king still sat in his throne, even though whoever had been beside him in the Queen's chair was now nothing more than a puddle of gore at his feet. He looked at Jack proudly, defiantly, and Jack didn’t bother with words. Jack took his sword and stabbed the king in the heart. 

When the king fell, Alice pulled him in for a kiss. And when they pulled away and Jack took his seat, she sat on the bloody queen's chair beside him. 

And the two lived happily after that. Not ever after, though, but for a time.

Henry returned from his siege, now bearing the name Bloody Henry. He took his place as Jack’s hand, ready to step in and deal with those who didn’t deserve the care and kindness of Jack the Merciful. 

And for a few short weeks, the kingdom began to heal. The beasts of the wood scattered, but not as far, no longer fearing a culling from the king's men. Jack dug deep into the old king's hoard of gold to begin rebuilding the cities and villages that had been torn apart. 

Jack began to feel like he could truly embrace his destiny and become a great ruler. 

But when the leaves fell and winter came again, something curious happened. Jack, Alice, and Henry were decorating for Yule, but the mood turned suddenly somber. Alice told Jack, “I’ll miss you so much if you get called away, my love.”

And to that Henry said, “I’ll make sure you’re replacement is as good-hearted as you, my king, or we won’t let him sit on the throne.” 

And to this, Jack stopped in his tracks and said, “What the fuck are you talking about?”

Alice and Henry exchanged a look of horror, a look that said they’d forgotten something terribly important.

“Did none of us tell you how the Forest Throne works, my lord?” Henry asked. “Surely I must have. But my, we’ve been so busy…”

Jack demanded answers, and Alice obliged. She explained that the throne hadn’t only brought him into their world, but it had sent someone from their world into his. 

“He’s you’re twin king, someone given the same task as you were, darling. And if he succeeds, well, you’ll swap back.” She teared up then, something she hadn’t done even on the cusp of battle. “We’ve been so busy fighting for our lives, I’m so sorry no one spoke with you about this.”

“Does the swap happen on the same day of the year? Is that why you’re worried now?” 

“Yes, Jack, on the solstice. But not until he succeeds.” She forced a smile. “And maybe he won’t.”

“But what if I just don’t go back to the Forest Throne?” He asked. 

“It doesn’t matter. If you’ve both become kings, your old world will call you back, wherever you are.”

“But my world doesn’t work like this one.” Jack said, “There aren’t heroes and knights and evil kings. People don’t have great destinies there.”

“Are you sure?” Alice asked. “I can’t imagine a world where no one has a great destiny.” 

Henry added, “You came from that world, Jack, and you’re a hero.”

Jack dismissed them, and he gathered his thoughts. And when he calmed down enough, he felt he had nothing to worry about. His old world wasn't like this one.

The solstice came and went without incident, and Jack felt even better. He worried just a little the next year, but less. And even less after that. He rebuilt his kingdom, and he and Alice began to have children. 

Soon, Jack stopped worrying altogether. And after several years of bliss, he started to believe he had truly found his happily ever after.

It was a cold winter’s night when he felt the call again. Jack and Alice were staying up late watching the distant forest from their castle window. 

The new baby had woken them up, and they’d stayed awake to watch the fairy lights off in the distance. The fey were at war in the woods, and it was like a storm, loud booms and strange, colorful lights. 

As they held each other, Alice remarked that “there’s always a war going on somewhere, isn't there?” And then Jack reached up to stroke her hair, and instead found his hand touching nothing but empty air.

His chilly but cozy bedroom was gone, replaced by cloyingly bright daylight. He’d blinked back into his old world. 

With Alice taken so suddenly, Jack felt like his heart had been ripped out.

He took a deep breath, and he got his bearings. Jack was back in the world of drywall and carpet, but the room he was in looked almost familiar to him. And when he saw the faded symbol on the stained floor in front of him, it started to click. On the royal blue carpet was an emblem of an eagle surrounded by stars. 

Jack stood up then and realized he was on a chair incredibly high up, his head almost touching the ceiling. He climbed down, shaky like a newborn calf. The steps of his throne were covered in red carpet, the surface underneath hard and uneven, like river rocks. 

His heart raced like it hadn’t since he’d last been in battle. He stood on the emblem of the eagle and, taking a deep breath, Jack turned to get a proper look at the throne he’d been sitting on. Some of the building blocks that made up the throne were old and weathered. Some were fresh and red, bloody bits still hanging on, but all of them were identical. The throne he now held was made entirely of human skulls. 

Behind it, on either side, were red curtains, pulled open in front of a large window. Jack gazed out at a sight he knew only from movies. Standing in front of the window were long white pillars, and behind them was the garden of his new palace, the front lawn of the White House itself. 

Thank you for tuning in to this episode of the podcast inside your house! To hear every tale of terror as they are released, subscribe to our show on your podcast app or on Youtube or follow us on Instagram and Bluesky.Until Next Time, please enjoy your holidays, because we’ll be enjoying them as well. We’re going on our yearly hiatus, but we’ll be back with Season Three on the first Friday of February.