I hated the way his lips slyly twisted into a smirk.
Hands in his pockets and form leaning against the door frame of the room he came out of while his eyes shining like the scales of a snake stared at me intensely, enjoying the situation that has come forward as a perfect opportunity to toy with me. It's funny how delusional I was to consider him a friend and let him stay over the night, meet Liza, and wreck my life from the shadows.
Ivan turned out to be one of the biggest regrets of my life.
"Is our poor little Rosie lost in this huge mansion? This place is marvellous isn't it?" He pushed himself off the door frame and started walking deeper into the house. A sigh of relief was just about to leave my lips when he stopped midway and turned his head to the side slightly dropping enough hints that it was far from over.
I followed his footsteps as he walked in front of me slowly, taking his sweet time to enjoy the uncomfortable heavine
I felt suffocated. Bound inside this body, I felt nothing but a stranger as I struggled to sustain my sanity. The pounding ache in my head didn't help either as I blinked slowly, trying to understand and comprehend the words that Ivan just said. What did he say again? I heard something, I saw his lips move, but the piercing static in my ears didn't let those words swim through. Everything was wrong. Everything was so wrong, and I wanted nothing more than this to end. I wanted this to be over with yet no matter how much I clawed from the inside of this body, this reality, I couldn't. Suppressing the urge to puke my guts out, I gulped deeply. His eyes noticing my every move not bothering me at all as it would have. "What did you say?" Tricked by my spiralling head, I could hardly catch what he said. A poor attempt from my brain, trying to hide the truth, protecting me from what really is by distorting and distracting the present.
He seemed unaffected. Until he broke out into the most ridiculously hysterical laughter I had ever heard. The humour in my answer was lost to me even though I knew the reason why it shouldn't have been my answer at all. "Boy, you truly should be a part of our family. You aren't even half sane as I thought you would be! My brother sure does have a great taste." With a grin still lingering on his face, he got up from the seat and walked towards one of the locked cupboards in the room and tried to jiggle the handles only to come up with nothing but disappointment. "How many years are you-" I didn't need to finish the question as he cut me off and replied without any delay. "Thirty minutes." Confusion clouded my mind as I frowned at the answer I received. Maybe he didn't get my answer after all and thought I was asking something else until it dawned on me. They were non-identical twins. Things made a lot of sense now and more believabl
Things were eerily quiet. The record playingP. Tchaikovsky's Waltz of the Flowers did nothing to calm my nerves as I was made to sit in the same office for the second time that day after dinner. It wasn't Ivan this time but the devil himself who had his eyes closed and back rested on the majestic chair on the other side of the desk. His fingertips on both hands touching each other in a poise of calibrate relaxation. I watched on edge as his chest barely rose up and down, making the slightest movement, assuring me that he wasn't a statue nor a figment of my imagination. He was very much here, in this room, with no one but me. I have never been able to understand his actions before or predict them successfully but this time I didn't need much to assess why this present situation has come by. From the moment he found me with Ivan in this room with the closed door, he hasn't said much except for the general direction of how things should happen wh
Glass shattered. Once. Twice, Thrice. Again and again. Until there was only wood. Broken and stabbing with its little splinters digging in my back. Darkness clouded my peripheral vision and blurred my focus as I struggled to keep my eyes open. Drifting in and out of consciousness, the only thing I saw was his face. Not contorted, not twisted with anger. Still like the icy glaciers, quiet and deceiving. Hiding the deathly turmoil that laid under. His eyes a pool into his soul showcased the fire that burned underneath the cold. I dearly waited to be lost in the dark abyss of uncontrolled and involuntary sleep that would make this moment just not exist for me. Absolute blackness of nothing would be better than what I have right now. Anything to make all of this insubstantial. Only if things ever were meant to be in my favour. My upper eyelids barely touched the lower ones when he grabbed my neck and hauled me to what I can only imagine was the
I have always wondered if it's better to be sad for a reason or to be sad without any reason. When I lived with Liza, I was happy. Peaceful. Content. She made me feel normal and laugh at things which were not funny at all. Yet somehow I would find myself being sad sometimes. I couldn't find a particular reason why but the heaviness that used to possess my body made it difficult to do even the basic necessities of life. Some days they were easier to handle and some days they suffocated enough to make me knock myself out with sleeping pills just because the reality was too undesirable. I just didn't want to live. Now that I have a reason, I know that things can be always worse this way as well. Not being able to literally move or have those basic necessities snatched away without any consent. The comparison between both seemed hard still. Because like the former... I just don't want to live. Ivan sat on the toilet seat with his leg crossed
The answer is right in front of me. The answer is right in front of me. The answer is right in front of me. I kept staring at the reflection in the mirror. A corpse with sunken red eyes and pale skin. Bones peeking out a little too prominently. A soul, equally dead. What could he mean? What did he mean? That somehow Liza is in front of me or did I know the answer already? Or was he the one who knew it. Of course, he did, but then it would mean he didn't answer my question at all. Except explain a ridiculous paradox that somehow a cat can be both dead and alive at the same time which is not possible. A cat, a radioactive substance, a radiation detector, a hammer, and poison. If the cat was Liza then I was the radiation? The radiation detector... Dimitri and the hammer and poison just tools? It made sense only partially. I sighed and looked away from the mirror. The sight revolting me as I felt disgusted of the shell
I opened my eyes and blinked a couple of times to find myself in my room but with the lights off which never happened before. For some reason, they were always kept on making me think that they cannot be turned off at all. The night glowed outside and shined in through the glass windows and inside the room, making things barely but enough visible for me to walk towards the door. My hand felt cold against the warm doorknob as I frowned and realized that I didn't know they had a centralized heating system either. Why were things suddenly changing? I turned around with my hand still secured around the knob, eyes searching and confirming that I was indeed alone in the room otherwise I wouldn't have made so far across from the bed without being interrupted. The wooden floor whispered in squeaks underneath my feet as I made my way towards the staircase. It was hard to forget what I saw. I knew now that Dimitri's odd behaviour was triggered only because
A man of mid-twenties, always well-dressed, doesn't talk much, has a well versed rule book of supposed gentlemanly etiquettes, traditionalist, misogynistic. Sadistic. Vile. Repulsive. Pathetic. Liar. Psychopath. I stepped further into the room but didn't let go of the door as I stared in horror at what laid in front of me. A wooden desk and a matching chair placed with the intention of receiving the perfect view of the bathroom. I couldn't look at it any more and averted my eyes to the...thing that I never doubted to be anything but a mirror. The toilet, the bath, the shower, the whole area in view for his unnamed pleasures. He enjoyed my unsuspicious mind and trifled with it. I hadn't given it much thought, but Dimitri never tried anything extreme physical with me for which I was thankful but now that I am on the other side, I feel nothing but immensely violated. How many times had he seen me naked? How many times has he enjoyed the v
It was over now. Everything was. All the pain that I felt should have been too. I wondered why it didn’t.The weapon of my choice clattered to the ground as I let go of it. And it slipped so easily. The drowning blood making it easier to do so. It was all over.I didn’t know what to think, I didn’t even know how to breathe anymore. Everything was just empty and didn’t make sense at all. And why would they? Everything was over. It was just empty and I was numb. Falling into a deep abyss of nothingness. Just a dark mass with no end, no walls, only gravity. Or a pull with no direction. Or maybe I was floating while flailing my arms breathlessly.The limbo lasted for an unmeasurable amount of time before I got pulled back by a soft humming. One that hit too hard that I couldn’t even brace myself against it.“Wandering child of the earthDo you know just how much you're worth?You have walked this path since your birthYou were destined for moreThere are those who'll tell you you're wrong
I needed to end things with Ivan quickly because of another reason. Him not being alone in this complex game of souls. Dimitri could have come in at any moment and the walk to the car, getting the supplies and then coming back wouldn’t take so long. And it didn’t as I heard him close the front door and go directly upstairs to Liza to give her whatever the baby needed.I had to make sure that nothing seemed suspicious to him. Especially not Ivan’s sudden absence.Quietly, I closed the door to the living room behind me and walked back to the kitchen, and stood exactly at the spot where he last saw me, with the exact expression of utter fear and shock smeared all over myself. His slow steps reverberated in the upper hallway, but it never came down the stairs. Instead, they stayed still until the creak of the door to my room made me realize that he just walked into my room. This was definitely not in the plan. Well, I didn’t have a blueprint plan before they barged into the house, but thi
“Playing cat and mouse are we?” He was so close to me that I could almost feel his form touching my back. His whisper, just a quiet exhale in my ear, that no one would be able to hear even if the walls had ears. “I like this game. Makes it so much more fun. Us, together, our little secret game.” I could feel the smirk on his lips as he spoke and dragged a cold finger up my arm and flipped my open air behind my shoulder. “I missed you too.” I did miss his face. After all this time, it was getting a little blurry, overshadowed by his green eyes that I could never forget. It was important to remember, in this battle of sanity that I was. After being told that the men who had abducted me, might as well be imaginary because there was no trace of them at all. He brought his face close to my neck and placed his lips there. A burning indent of his smile on my skin. He approved of my response but unfortunately the context that both of us had, was far beyond contrasting. He stayed there agai
A door opened somewhere. It was one of those classic cliche door opening noises in horror movies. The same groaning squeak, the same sluggish movement and most of all, the anonymity of its source. And then there was absolute silence. I kept looking into Liza’s eyes who looked at me the same but it wasn’t the Liza I knew at all. The dark, soulless eyes looked at me unflinchingly. Not a single expression at display but just a poker face that revealed nothing and yet so much. I knew this was not my Liza and whatever was going to happen next, I was going to be all alone through it. Arms wrapped around me from the behind and squeezed me into a tight embrace. A face buried in my neck and inhaled me deep and strong. Their body warm but I felt nothing but chilling cold. “I missed you.” He whispered in my ear and I knew that all the things that I tried to escape from are back. All the paid that I went through was nothing but a waste. The loss that I had, all but in vain. “I missed you
“Hello.”I heard it before I heard her hello. The soft, incoherent, cooing of the baby held securely in Liza’s arms. An exact replica of the several childhood pictures I had seen of Liza. That same blonde hair, that same innocent smile. Her eyes, an exact replica of the misty green that I feared and despised both. “Can I come in?” Liza laughed a bit as she readjusted the baby in her arms, who looked up at her mother adoringly and then looked back at me again.I was too shocked to say anything. So many things that I wanted to ask her, but all I could do was step aside and stare at her unblinkingly. The time had really come. I knew it would be someday, but nevertheless, I wasn’t prepared for it. I never would have.“Can you please look after her for a moment? I need to take a massive pee. Like my bladder is literally going to burst.” Without waiting for my answer, she quickly placed the living, breathing, creature in my arms, who didn’t resist either but giggled instead and said someth
It was raining so hard. Nothing felt right. This indescribable uneasiness, that settled in the pit of my stomach, made it impossible for me to sit still. There were so many things that I needed to do, work, but I just couldn’t because it made me feel so overwhelmed. Too paralysed by the stress of it all, as they sat on my forehead like a heavy hammer that I could not remove until and unless the things on my to-do list were scratched off. I took the glasses off my eyes and carelessly tossed it on the desk to look away from the brightly lit white screen off my laptop as it did nothing but increase my infuriating migraine. The urge to put my own head on my lap and just stay there for a long, long time was immense, but it would make me feel more lonely in this empty house which was once occupied by Liza as well. Now it felt more dead than ever, with me being the only occupant. The drops of rain knocked against the window pane in the complete darkness of the night. The lights inside the
They simply had no idea. They didn’t even know that we existed before I came here. They had no idea about me or Liza at all. “So Rose, you were trapped and kidnapped in a house by two men, for how long?” he was taking notes in his small notepad which seemed nothing but funny to me. The things that I went through won’t even suffice 10 such notepads. What would he do then?“I don’t know.” There was no way for me to realise the amount of time I spent there. At times, it felt that the time was completely frozen and didn’t move at all, and sometimes it felt like time was moving at light years speed. Not that the clocks helped either because I was sure that they were messing with them as well. Mentally messing me up more than could realise at that point of time. Moreover, I didn’t know what day it was, what month it was. That crucial piece of information was hidden from me very well.“Okay…” He cleared his throat and jotted down something more in that tiny notepad of his, whose contents w
Her eyes so kind, so soft, so naive. Innocent. Untouched by the cruelty of the world outside. A flicker in the darkness, I hope never extinguishes. The world needed people like her to stay alive. Such conscience, that hasn’t even flickered once in her years of life. I didn’t need to be told. Her brown eyes were an open book, baring her soul as she walked towards me with hopeful and helpful eyes. If she could, she would have tried to absorb the pain out of me, but I felt thankful that she couldn’t.“Yes, Rose? What can I do for you?” She knew what I meant when I asked for her help, but I couldn’t do this to her and I won’t share my pain with her because I know it would eat away a piece out of her. God knows that there’s enough hungry wolves outside, and I wasn’t going to be one of them who did that. “I think it’s time that I talk to the cops or anyone with authority. There’s… things that need to be sorted.” Liza. I needed to get her out of there as soon as possible. It was scary to th
“Rose. I am really sorry, but we had to get rid of your left leg.” What did she mean by that? I stared at her face blankly, unable to understand how to respond to the sick joke that she just played on me. There was no way that what she said was in any way plausible. I waited for her to break into a fit of laughter. I would have loved to smile as well, but such pleasure was obviously not written in my fate. I averted my gaze from her pity filled face to the thick blanket that covered me from the waist down. There was not a single fibre in my body that wanted me to confirm what I just heard. The lack of such confirmation felt like a strange blessing, moments that I wanted to cherish because I knew now that what I will get to see next would hardly make me feel anything but relief. “It’s okay. You don’t have to see it right now.” The nurse's voice broke me from my reverie. It put me to action as well, as I pulled the blanket off me in one swift motion to reveal the horror that awaited