𝙝𝙚𝙧 𝙘𝙖𝙣𝙫𝙖𝙨 • 𝙚𝙣𝙝𝙮𝙥𝙚𝙣 + 𝙨𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙚𝙚𝙣

𝗲𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁

𝙨𝙝𝙚'𝙨 𝙢𝙮 𝙛𝙖𝙞𝙧𝙮 𝙤𝙛 𝙨𝙝𝙖𝙢𝙥𝙤𝙤. 𝙛𝙧𝙤𝙢 𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙢𝙤𝙢𝙚𝙣𝙩 𝙤𝙣, 𝙞 𝙬𝙞𝙡𝙡 𝙡𝙤𝙫𝙚 𝙝𝙚𝙧.

𝙏𝙓𝙏 - 𝙁𝙖𝙞𝙧𝙮 𝙤𝙛 𝙎𝙝𝙖𝙢𝙥𝙤𝙤

Clara doesn't know how many days it has been since she opened her eyes in this historical place. There was no longer the voice that have been echoing in her head. She succumbed to the place. There was no more way of knowing it have been that long when she had been here. To her surprise, she haven't received her memories despite her husband's words of knowing her memories as time passed by. She doesn't belong here. And she is afraid that once she stopped thinking these thoughts, she'll never really be able to leave.

"Mama!" The high-pitched tone of a child excitedly called her over, and she smiled sadly and carried him to her shoulder. "Let's go on a picnic," Ni-ki suggested. She looked at him again with her hollowed eyes, softly nodding as they walked away to the flower field where she regained consciousness. There were more flowers of different variety in this place than before. Like those rose patches, daffodils were planted in that exact same spot. Maybe, someone must have changed and remove those whole patch?

The door creaked open when she opened it while balancing the firewood that her arms could carry with the sack of rice she was dragging along. Why is it that a noble family of hers were considered as such when they couldn't afford a single servant let along, renovations for this old cabin? Surely, this must have been from being outside for too long, she must have been sounding like a cranky old woman who only cared of her misfortunes in her life.

And most importantly, this cabin seemed to be larger than her old home... Home? Yes, there must have been a reason why she couldn't think of this rustic place as her home. Everything wasn't familiar, from the way she kept forgetting the way in the place even to her bathroom, for goodness sake! "I'm hungry, mama!" Clara looked down to see the young child that was tugging down her skirt.

"Wait a little, dearie," she said as she put down the sack of rice from her reddening arms. "Well, if that husband of mine arrived and didn't convince me of dragging along this heavy necessity of our life miles away from our house, then maybe we could have started eating for lunch ages ago," Clara grumbled as she finally closed the creaky wooden door of the storage room.

Then a blur of a child bumped into her, rubbing his reddening forehead from the pain of the impact from her legs. "Mama, I'm hungry," Ni-ki complained. Clara could only massaged down her temple from the incoming headache. How come this child still have energy from walking down miles from the town square? Is he using an enhancement of some sort, the one rumoured to help slow down fatigue for whoever had it in their body? "Tell you what," she added, "Fetch down buckets of water from the well in the backyard. And your dear mother will make you your favorite lemonade from the sugar kept in the pantry."

To her surprise, all of the depressing and negative thoughts were gone, as if by magic. Like they were never there, to begin with which was odd considering that stress must have been piling up these days. "Curse this body for not having magic," she complained as she finished dropping a copious amount of oil in the pot. "This could be done if I was in a body with some sort of magic!"

"Well, maybe I could help with the chores, darling." Said by a smooth voice of her husband who have the gall of coming inside of the house with their shoes on, not slippers. "Don't you darling me out of this, Joshua. It had been a few days when you decided to go to the capital for some works in which you decided to not do, by the way. You missed your chores, mister."

"I am tired from all of the walk I've taken. Cook the dinner, darling." She stopped from taking off the white apron she wore, peering over to her husband whose face was painted with a fond smile in his face. "Don't you dare skip cooking dinner again. It's not going to be my fault if you complain again for the taste of the dinner, it's you who will cook anyway."

Oh, dear. It seemed that the temperature was higher than it was before. This must explain the sudden redness that she could feel in her face. "Get yourself together, Clara." And as she was walking to the stairs, she heard some whispering and clattering in the door under the cupboard, one that she had never checked. "No thank you. I still value my life for all I know that might have been a poor trap seen from the horror fictions I read from the library."

But then the noise stopped, and she took this as a sign to retreat upstairs until there was now screaming from the cupboard. She gasped as she tightly held the railings of the stairs. "Joshua!" she called out to the man, running down from the stairs, almost missing a step from the hurry. "Can you hear that? I must be going crazy! Tell me I'm not being crazy when I keep hearing things!"

"You're not crazy," Joshua soothed her down, softly caressing her hair as she stopped trembling in his hold. "Maybe you're just sleepy, my dear. Do you want me to tuck you in the bed, maybe I'll call Ni-ki to accompany you," he said to himself as she removed himself in his hold. "I'm fine. I'll just... ignore it, I suppose."

He only nodded to her, quickly going back to cooking as she made her way again to the stairs. Clara gave him one last look. He seems to be brighter these days, unlike the version of him that was depressed to the point that he avoided his own son. Curiosity again spiked in her head and despite the panic she had a while ago, she went nearer to the cupboard, opening it slightly and closing it shut. "A bit dark in here," she mumbled as she kept finding something like a switch in the cramp walls of the cabin.

"I'm such a genius." The light bulb of the cupboard lit up, barely giving off a light in the cramp walls. But in her vision, she saw a small brown rectangular lining of the white walls, and she found a latch in them. "I swear if this decision leads me to my death, I'm blaming him for igniting this curiosity of mine."