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|Aʟᴇssᴀɴᴅʀᴀ Mᴏʀʀᴀɴᴏ|✔️

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The room in front of me is empty, with glass walls trapping me inside. It feels never-ending, and I can see no door or window. I look around, trying to find a way to escape, but only my face stares back at me. My hair is in soft curls, falling down my back, and the dress I am wearing is baby blue with small diamonds embroidered on it. My feet are bare and touching the white marble of the floor. A chill tears through me, and I bring my palms up to rub my arms and create some heat. There is no way for the cold to creep in, but the hair on my body stands in attention.

"It's the way things are, amore. We can't do anything about it", a loud voice rings in the room, the glass walls thumping.

(Love)

"Of course, we can! These are our children! I can't see them die because of this life," a woman cries. Her voice is harsh as if she has been yelling for a long time, or maybe she has been sobbing.

"And I won't allow our children to be sacrificed because you don't like our way of life! We were born into this, and once you enter, you can never leave, amore, not alive at least and I won't allow our children to fight a battle they won't win! Someone will change the order, but not my family, not my blood. I won't stand to watch them die," the voice echoes in the room with finality.

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"You deserve to die for this. And I wish I could fucking kill you myself, I wish I could get you out of me and damn everything you gave me. I hate you, you are nothing to me! I wish you would drop dead! Because to me, you are!"

I can't place the voice, but it sounds familiar. Tears well up in my eyes and I try to scream, but my lips seem to be sewn shut. I can feel myself panic. My head has started to hurt too much now. Like someone is striking a hammer in the corner of my brain. The voices have also gotten louder and louder and the room has become smaller with each passing minute. The people talking are multiplied and their voices have become one. Breathing it too hard, my eyes start to close from the lack of oxygen and my throat chokes up with unrelished sobs.

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The light stings against my eyelids, and my head is pounding from the pain. I wince, prying my eyes open once more with some difficulty. The sun coming in from the curtains draped over the windows is blazing and the heat feels unbearable under the heavy quilts. The room seems to be crowded too. My mom is sleeping on the chair beside my bed wearing her nightclothes, Bianca's sleeping next to me on the bed and Filippo is spread out on the loveseat at the corner of my room, snoring loudly. My brother is still wearing his clothes from the ball and hasn't even taken his shoes off. I try to move my body to a more comfortable position, but the pain in my head intensifies at once and I let out a groan.

"Aly? Oh God, you're awake! How are you, is there any pain?" my sister asks, fully awake now, with a stressed look on her face. I've never before seen her this distressed. Well, maybe once, but that time was warranted.

"Bia? What are you doing here?" My throat feels raw and I sound like I've smoked a pack of cigarettes in a matter of minutes. Before I even have time to respond, Filippo's snoring -which could be used as a signal of war- stops and he sits up on the loveseat.

"Sorellina? How are you feeling? Mama, Sandra is awake," he asks, gently nudging Mom. (Little sister)

Our brother has always slept lightly, and therefore when Reli was born, he would sometimes be just behind Rosalyn and Dante to check on him at night. There were even times that Dante would find him sleeping on the floor of the baby's room because no one else had heard Reli cry, or because he stumbled in after a night out to make sure everything was alright -a paranoid habit he wouldn't abandon- and found the floor a suitable place to relax. It drove our older brother crazy and his possessiveness had skyrocketed after that incident. He was a minute behind locking Rosalyn and Reli inside their room and not letting us see them until he'd gotten his full of them. Thank God both of my brothers managed to stop the extremes and are now acting within the boundaries of what's considered normal -for our Family.