She mutters something. ''Cold...''. Her voice is weak, almost broken. The bed beneath her creaks as she shifts, but her bones feel brittle, her muscles attempt to move, but the command they receive is weak. She opens her eyes, at last. ''Dark'' She describes it to herself.
The voice she hears in her thoughts - whose voice is it? Is it hers? The only light she sees comes from below and above the door, a few metres from her and the bed. The smell tells a pretty clear story, this place isn't clean. It's dusty, heavy.
Under the heavy blanket, she drags her legs free and sets her feet on the floor, It's cold. Her feet feel the texture coming in contact with her skin, she can feel every grain of dirt, every millimetre of the stone beneath her feet. The sound her steps make dwarfs the white noise that creeps the back of her head. When she reaches the door, uncertainty strikes, what's on the other side? Will something hurt her?
Crawling sounds sneak on her from the outside, familiar ones. Something made out of wood being placed on the ground, steps. She isn't sure why, but she knows that, she knows she's heard that sound a lot.
Keyhole light spills in under the door across the room. The handle slowly turns as she reaches for it, her hands having barely enough strength to open it. A flash of light blinds her eyes when the door starts to open, she covers her eyes with her free hand and her eyes adjust, there is someone on the other side.
It's a woman. Well-dressed. Long black gown, white trim. Her skin is gray, her expression empty. The girl sees the stains on her hands, despite the clean dress. The woman's gaze drifts past her shoulder—like she's remembering someone who isn't there. She doesn't speak, doesn't even acknowledge the girl. On the floor, bowls—fresh and rotten—line the wall. Then, without a word, the woman turns and walks away.
No answers. "Why silence?" she whispers to herself. Her feet carry her after the woman, through a long corridor of crude stone and small windows. She observes the stale air, the quiet weight of the place.
Trying to match the woman's gait, she stumbles. Her limbs don't respond quite right—like a child learning to walk. Doors line the hallway. Some are open, others closed. Cobwebs claim the ceiling.
Holding herself together, she reaches the end of the corridor, it leads to a spiraling staircase. She takes steps down, holding herself to the walls, but manages to get down. The path the Lady takes down the stairs is marked on the wooden steps. ''Does she only walk this specific way?'' She thinks to herself. At the end, lies a corpse, the girl is taken back for a moment, then she moves close to it, kneeling down to check on him. Once she turns him over, a shiver is sent down her spine. He... is a corpse, one that has been decayed for quite a while, there isn't any flesh, no smell, no bugs. He bears the same style of clothing as the Lady, black and white. Beside him, a pile of wooden bowls, same as the ones outside the room.
Eyes wide, she's back on her feet and keeps moving, she hears the footsteps. The Lady went to the left. To the left she goes, another corridor, an open door. She creeps up towards it, sneaking her head inside, it's a kitchen.
She sees the Lady sitting on a chair, looking straight into the other side of the wall, her head turns towards the door, the girl gets back outside, looks both ways and then goes in.
Over her breath, she speaks -''Hi... You must have not heard me before... Who are you? What is this place?''
Unmoving, the Lady doesn't answer, she simply stands, chair scraping the stone as she rises. Her movement is slow, but precise. She walks to the counter, opens a cupboard, and pulls something out—a bowl and a spoon. Same as the ones the girl found outside the room. Fills them with something from a cauldron in the corner of the room, then sets it on the table in the middle of the kitchen room, pulling a chair beneath it.
Not a word. Not a glance, only purpose in her actions, the intentions are obvious, she wants the girl to eat.
Drawn to the bowl, the girl slowly approaches the chair and the table, her walking starting to take form. She sits and gazes at the bowl. A mess, a yellowish paste-like appearance with some solids in the middle. She bites a morsel with the spoon, it's a lukewarm porridge, no smell, no taste. Just something to fill the space. Yet, she can't stop, as if something had awoken inside her. Hunger.
She keeps on munching on it like there's no tomorrow, a full bowl turns into two, three, four, she's lost count. Eaten so much her belly hurts. It hurts, pain. The most familiar sensation so far. Although it has no taste, it was something she didn't know she craved for, food.
The hunger fades, she gets up from the chair and speaks to the Lady ''Thank you...'', But as expected, the woman does not answer. ''Why do you not speak?'' As she asks, something compels her to continue her sentence with 'cat got your tongue?', she doesn't, but it leaves her with a bitter taste. She moves close to the woman, moves her hand in front of her face, her dead eyes follow, but don't react.
She moves outside the kitchen, taking a look at the corridor. To the right, the staircase, the corpse still lying on the ground, to the left, another set of doors. She opens the first door she finds, turning the knob, which opens to a room full of... books? She gets close to the bookshelves and picks one up, weird symbols and sketches on the cover, but the contents? She can't decipher them — as meaningless as trying to read cracks in the wall. Upon trying to place the book back, she stumbles and drops the book down, there is a creature in the back of the bookshelf, glancing right back at her.
Eight legs, fangs, many, many eyes. The thing is the size of her hand, legs sprawled in the tight space between the books. She freezes in fear, something in the back of her head tells her to run, something ancient yells her 'leave'. But she doesn't, curiosity also talks to her 'what really is that?', 'extend your hand'. The creature stares at her eyes, as if it could gaze right at her soul. Differently from the Lady, she feels something coming from it, it's scared of her as much as she is scared of it. She calms herself down, with her left hand holding her chest, she slowly reaches with her right towards the creature,
It flinches, raising two of its legs in the air. It does not wish to be disturbed. However, something tells her it shouldn't be there, that it would be punished if it was caught. So she reaches closer anyway, gently, slowly. Her hand lifts the creature from below, and it... understands? In her mind, the creature understands she doesn't mean any harm. ''I'm not going to hurt you, little guy... I'm going to take you somewhere else, you're not supposed to be here'' - The creature twists its head. ''Yeah, i guess that makes two of us, right?'' - She says to the critter.
The creature watches her with caution, as if she didn't belong there either. She moves away from the bookshelf, and as she turns back into the corridor, the light shines even more on the creature, it looks even bigger, its fangs appear bigger as well. But she doesn't falter, and instead, picks up her pace, looking for a way out, she starts walking around the corridor, eventually finds a door, a big one. She pushes the door open with her free hand, light spills onto cracked stone, overgrown plants, some dead ones, dirt where it isn't supposed to be, and a small circular table with two chairs further on the path outside. She takes a few steps outside, kneels down, and the critter slowly climbs from her hand to the ground, it gives her a last glance, and hops away.
As she gets back up, a shiny object catches her eyes - sitting quietly on the circular table. She steps closer, something stares back. The reflection tells her of her face, her hair, her eyes.
''Yellow strands like gold fillets, eyes blue like the skies above, i miss you, A.''
The words surface in her mind, not hers, but familiar. A whisper remembered. Something someone had written — for her.
But who? Why?
Is that her name? A? That simple? or is it her memory failing her?
She sits on the chair, looking through the mirror, she at the same time recognizes and doesn't recognize the girl she sees on the glassy surface. It's too pale, the skin is glued too tightly to her bones, the eyes look too tired, too heavy. They remind her of the Lady's eyes.
Her concentration is snapped, an aggressive set of sounds creeps up closer and closer, something metallic, snapping open and shut. She startles and quickly gets up. Coming from the middle of the overgrown green wave across, a man moves side to side, his right arm is missing. On his left, lies a big pruning shear, snapping open and then closing on itself, as if his missing arm were still there, he fails to use the shear properly, he can't cut any of the tall grass, the tree branches. ''Same clothes...'' - She says to herself, same black and white attire. He doesn't seem to notice her, keeping on failing his task, repeatedly, moving slowly from side to side.
She starts moving back inside, but something shifts, not him, not her, not the Lady, not the critter, who is now long gone. Something else, someone else. She can feel it now, she knows someone is watching her, a weird sensation, being stalked. It's something more like her, something that breathes heavily, someone whose heart beats a little too loudly. She turns back to confront it, and by the corner of her eyes, she can see him way too clearly. He's trying to hide, but his eyes are way too big, way too... alive.