Heavy duties

From an old spark to a wildfire

TW; SMEXXX

I'll be honest with you, the hallucinations scared me a lot and I started to be delusional too. I found it hard to trust anything I saw anymore. I didn't trust the food they served me either, I was sure it was poisoned. Maybe the water too? Maybe the air I was breathing was toxic? I refused to talk to the servants at all, they probably were against me. And why wouldn't they be? What the hell was this place, anyway.

Murphy was observing me with a worried expression as I was trembling in my bed. 

- '' You have to eat something'', he tried to confront me.

- '' I don't want to, it makes my head dizzy'', I answered.

- '' You'll get used to it, eventually. Look, doesn't this look delicious?'', he asked as he tried to shove to me the plate of food that was prepared for me. It did look delicious, yes. My mouth was watering but I shook it off. 

- '' I don't'', I mumbled and started to rub my face against my hands. Murphy took my hands to stop me and cut me a piece of the steak on the plate. 

- '' Come on, one for me'', he said as he was showing the fork on my face. I tried to fight it off before giving up. After having one piece, I couldn't stop. I ate the whole thing and hated to admit that I felt way better now. Murphy seemed pleased as he ordered someone to clean up the plate. 

- '' See? It wasn't that hard'', he said before giving my head a light caress. 

- '' Nobody wants to hurt you here, you know that? You are safe'', he spoke to me.

- '' But how can I know what is real?'', I asked. 

- '' I'll tell you'', he said before leaving. 

After that day I felt a lot better. But that also meant that I was getting bored there, all by myself. So I took my little legs and decided to explore the house a bit. I felt like a child on an adventure they weren't supposed to be on. Almost as if I could get caught or something. I entered Murphy's side, just to notice there weren't any naked women nor alcohol. Everything seemed normal, maybe a bit too normal. I almost jumped in fear when I heard a noise behind me.

- '' Excuse me, what are you doing here?'', a servant asked me. 

- '' Just looking around. Where's Murphy?'', I asked.

- '' He is out, golfing with his friends. You should be in bed'', she insisted but I ignored her. Perfect time to snoop around without him knowing. I climbed the stairs up just to see another series of rooms. This house was truly huge. I peeked inside all of them but found nothing out of ordinary. The last room seemed to be his bedroom so I snuck in and closed the door behind me. Everything seemed clean and neat, his bed was nicely done, definitely not by him. He, too, had a huge closet, full of clothes. I ran my hands through the bed and then grabbed one of the pillows and pressed my face against it. It smelled like shampoo and cologne. I guess men used to smell like that before the apocalypse? It made my head spin. 

I threw myself on the bed, still holding the pillow. I let myself drift into my own imagination and fantasies and totally forgot that I was there. This all felt a bit too exciting. 

Until I heard the door open and shot up so fast that I almost passed out. Murphy was standing there, staring at me.

 - '' What are you doing here?'', he asked, confused. To be honest, I had no explanation. There was literally nothing smart that I could say that would make this all make sense. So I just decided not to even try. 

- '' Am I not allowed to be here?'', I asked.

- '' Well, you are not forbidden to enter, just a bit weird''.