Chapter 44: Since When?
My mouth split open.
Drip.
And my pounding heart, my ripped heart, began spewing out the amalgamation with each beat of the shredded muscle.
Drip.
A mixture of black and red.
Drip.
With all the strength draining out my body.
Drip.
With my white eyes quivering in despair.
Spurt!
I began violently vomiting the vile mixture of Cursed, inky blood alongside bits of my innards;
First, the outburst hit the mask.
But then, it spilt down and onto my frilly white shirt, staining the fabric.
...Ah.
My eyes turned to the right.
...Esme.
Esme's face, that pretty, adorable face.
...Don't scrunch your face like that.
The look on her face stabbed my already dying heart.
For all that lay within those eyes was:
Horror.
...Stop it already.
Blurgh!
Immediately, my line of sight was cut off; I bent over in unbearable agony and clenched the blood-stained tiles. The mixture continuously poured out of my mouth, tearing my throat apart along the way uncomfortably.
Slamming my fists into the ground, I eventually tightened my grip on the tiles. My nails groaned and tore apart as I dug them beneath the tiles. They cracked and squelched with dirty sounds.
...Don't watch, Esme.
I could only pray she wasn't watching this creature.
This vile thing should never have appeared before her.
She will hate it.
Hate me.
Drip-
Curse-filled tears drained from my tearducts, slipping silently down my face and joining the vile Cursed blood mixture staining the mask.
...The creature curled on the ground, stuffing its head into its knees as it leaked the putrid liquid.
A posture born out of helplessness.
A posture born out of torment.
A posture born out of punishment.
The creature wondered, why had no one come to its side?
Why had no one attempted to render aid?
Why could it only feel gazes yet no sound?
No movement?
...Not even Esme's?
The creature contemplated for a moment, pondered, and arrived at its predetermined answer.
It mumbled within its brain:
'Ah, this must be punishment.'
...And it blocked out all else, all but punishment dissipated through the gaps in its brain that had been falsley plugged in these past few days.
Bound in Cursed chains, enveloped within the petals' embrace;
Silent with agony in the darkness;
Help.
It pled.
---
Ear-grating ringing echoed incessantly, digging into her skull.
Her mind lay blank, empty, clueless, and confused.
Horror dripped from her eyes;
Not towards Alora, but for Alora.
A horror born from her inherent worry.
Blood, so much blood; a stench, such a vile stench; agonal noises, painful noises croaked from her sister's throat.
Esme instinctively turned her gaze to her father, "F, father- H, help-!" She cried for his aid, for his intervention-
Yet.
Help?
Aid?
Care?
Esme had no idea.
She remained clueless.
She did not understand what had occurred just now, she did not understand why what had occurred had happened.
Nor did she know the undercurrents sweeping through the Domain of Light, for she, Esme, sat at the eye of the storm; safe, yet inevitably at the centre of it all.
Her father would never step up to help the collapsed Alora.
Fwoosh!
A blast of chestnut alongside frigid, blue eyes flashed by. Standing tall beside the curled-up Alora, she reached down and carefully scooped her up.
"I'll send her over to the physician."
Before anyone had the time to react, to Hilda's and Esme's shocked gazes—the girl's closest to the victim—the Mistress dissipated in the winds; gone, alongside Alora.
Esme swallowed a mouthful of dry air.
Listening carefully to her torn, tiny heart beating heavily in the depths of her Blessed chest:
"I have to go."
She left her father's side with zero hesitation.
The madness didn't bother stopping her, it merely stood there glancing about the 7 remaining children.
Finally, it also turned and made its exit.
The life returned to the gazebo, the wind could move, and the children could breathe.
Yet, they couldn't.
Their eyes silently observed the patch of messy blood and gore lying where Alora had once been standing.
Each held different thoughts on the situation.
That, however, was a story for another day.
-----
A clean room with a waft of medicine; The Aurora doused the small bed containing a sole girl with eloquent, warm light.
The window was open, allowing drifts of cool air inside.
At that moment, three people were in the room.
One slept on the bed, her adorable, petite frame was adorned in a basic white outfit. Her golden hair was sprawled out as she slept peacefully beneath her mask.
The other two were the girl's sister and mother.
...It was quiet.
But, to any observer, they would immediately proclaim otherwise.
Manic, flickering flames bursting with lightning oozed from Esme's eyes, threatening to tear everything apart. Meanwhile, their mother kept her eyes on her sleeping daughter; she patiently awaited any questions.
She was sure Esme had many.
The past hour had been like this, a stasis of 'peaceful quiet'. A tense staredown that had only been smothered due to the one painfully lying down in her sleep.
Esme did not wish to disrupt her sister's rest.
So, quietly, carefully, but with firm determination, she broke the silence, "Mother, is my dear sister, is Alora-" Esme tried to find the right word, a more comforting word, a word laced with less despair, but, she failed.
"-is Alora sick? Badly, sick?"
This question, the Mistress could comfortably answer, "No, your sister is not sick."
Esme balled her fists, she restrained herself.
"Do you lie?"
And, again, the Mistress, "No, I do not lie."
"Then, then-" Esme's voice split and cracked as she hurriedly wiped her face in an attempt to keep herself together, "Then what's wrong with my sister?"
Those words came out rushed, hastily put-together and lacking in confidence.
A hint of her nature as a baby spilt through.
"...That is a question I cannot answer, I promised your sister, sweet Alora, that I would give her the grand opportunity to bestow upon you the explanation. Alas, she seems to have failed such a simple yet beautiful task."
'...Beautiful?'
Confused by the Mistress' words, "So, is sister safe? Is she healthy?"
Then.
Upon the word 'Healthy', the Mistress switched.
She flipped her face off the sleeping Alora and onto Esme.
With a smooth, cold voice:
"...Healthy? If you would like to know whether she is safe in these grounds, then the answer to that is a comfortable 'Yes'."
The Mistress tilted her head, seemingly confused, "But healthy? Who told you she was ever healthy? Can you not already tell that she is not healthy? That she hides her face? She hides her hands? She keeps her distance? Are you blind or do you pretend to be blind?"
"My sweet, sweet, dear Esme-"
Those icy blue eyes drowned Esme beneath their absolute authority.
"-why do you pretend to be stupid?"
...And Esme...
Holding her head down, trembling with stifled tremors:
...She could not refute her mother's words.
Had she been pretending?
Keeping a blind eye to the truth?
Denying the obvious reality before her eyes?
How about upon their first meeting?
Alora's trembling body, her hesitant voice, her tense demeanour.
How about upon their first breakfast?
Her delusional talking and the odd moment whereby she picked up and cake and passed it to the ground, forcing Lily to clean it.
...And how about the fear the servants feel towards Alora?
The disgust the guards feel towards Alora?
Had Esme been ignoring these signs?
Had Esme been pretending that she'd been trying to gently uncover Alora's secrets through word of mouth?
Or.
Had she already realised the terrifying reality, but denied it all along?
Attempting to build a relationship with her sick sister by playing along with the sickness?
Esme, she, the person closest to Alora; her twin sister;
Had she been allowing this to go on this entire time?
"...Stupid. I'm stupid, mother."
Grin.
She did not see it.
Had she held her head high.
Had she kept her confidence.
Had she held onto her beliefs.
She would have seen it.
Her mother's smile.
...Esme was young.
Had she been a part of the issue, perhaps.
However.
You cannot blame a child for the transgressions of the adults.
Yet.
The Mistress smiled.
She poured the blame upon the sister, she crushed her beneath the weight of her failures;
For only a gem refined through the crucible of a thousand flames may shine the brightest.
Thus;
The Mistress spoke;
Beyond the boundary of Esme's perception;
Beyond her hearing capabilities;
"May you grow wonderfully, sweetheart. A rift between the sisters? I shall not allow it, not on my watch, _______"
"Pour your soul into Alora, grow closer, sweeter, purer; till only the purest of Blessings shall remain."
The Mistress uttered with familial love in her eyes, ignoring the madness watching along from below Alora's bed.
The madness;
It always watches.