Chapter 3 — The Funeral and the Mansion
Two days passed. I still hadn't gone to the Walther family's house yet. I was staying at a small side child help organization, a temporary place until the adoption became official and legal . Everything felt heavy. The world was gray , or even black ...
And today… was the funeral.
Of my parents my mom estelle and my dad max ...
i never throught that a fifteen years old girl can even imagine a life without her parents , and all the nigts after their death i can only see them lying on the snow lifeless an me screaming for help ...
sometime i think if maybe i wasn't in my room that day i could save them so maybe its my fault ?
At the funeral ...
Everyone there was dressed in black. But the strange thing? I barely recognized any of them. The place was filled with people I didn't know—smiling softly, whispering like they cared, but I could feel it. They didn't know us. They didn't know me. They didn't even know each others i think its like they were acting ...
Among them, I saw Maria and Henry standing together like a powerful royal couple. Next to them stood their two children: Dorion he must be one or two years older than me , tall with cold green eyes , wavy brown hair , and Erla, blonde with a soft smile that didn't feel quite real either.
I tried to focus on the funeral, on the pain, on the loss—but then… I noticed something strange.
Through my tears, as I kept wiping my face, I thought I saw Maria… smiling.
Smiling at my parents' funeral.
But the moment I looked directly at her, her face changed. She quickly wiped a fake tear and lowered her head like she was grieving.
Was I hallucinating? I must've been. I hadn't slept properly, hadn't eaten. My body was barely keeping up with itself, let alone my mind.
I told myself I was imagining things. I wanted to believe I was imagining things.
But then, something even stranger happened.
A woman approached me. I didn't know her either—short orange-red hair, sharp green eyes, maybe in her thirties. She kneeled next to me, gave me a quick hug, and whispered softly in my ear:
"I'm sorry for your loss, sweetie… but don't trust the Walther family. Don't stay with them. If you can… run, go away ."
Before I could even react or ask who she was, she stood up, smiled politely like nothing happened, and disappeared into the crowd.
What was I supposed to do with that?
But I didn't have a choice. I had nothing. No one. Nothing
A month passed in that blur of confusion and survival. I didn't even realize how fast the days were going until suddenly, it was the day before my sixteenth birthday.
That's when the adoption became official.
Jeanette, the woman from the child help society, stood proudly next to me outside the Walters' mansion. She was old, with kind eyes and wrinkles that told stories of too many children left behind. She was happy for me—too happy, I thought. I wished I could've shared that feeling, but something about it all didn't feel right. I just wanted my parents ...
I was holding a tiny suitcase. Just a few clothes , my mom necklace in a shape of gold heart that she gifted me in my last aniversary , a photo of me and my parents . That's all I had left of my entire life.
When the heavy mansion doors opened, Maria was the first to greet me. She came forward fast, like an actress in a movie, and wrapped her arms tightly around me like we were family already.
"Welcome home, darling," she whispered sweetly. "You're going to love it here. I'll treat you like my own daughter."
Standing behind her were Dorion and Erla. Dorion barely glanced at me. Erla gave me a polite smile. Nothing more.
The strangest part? I learned that the mansion we were standing in… used to belong to my parents. The virell family mansion. Somehow, before their deaths, the ownership had been signed over to the Walthers.
If you wonder about my house were i used to live with mom and dad ...
Apparently my family had a lot of debts too so after their death , the house wasn't mine anymore ...
Someone else bought the mansion .
Why? I didn't know. I didn't even think to ask. I was a child. I was broken. And I needed somewhere to sleep. Somewhere to exist.
So I said nothing. I walked through that door.
I walked into their world.
And I didn't know it yet, but that was the moment everything started to go wrong.