The Drafted Reality and Dreams

CHAPTER 34: CLARENCE

It has been a while since he left. No, I'm not cuffed to a bed any more. But he did lock me inside of a bedroom. The bedroom is all messed up from ceiling to floor. The floorboards are stable enough for a person or two to walk on. The bed had part of the ceiling on top of it. I guess most of the house collapsed thanks to the fire that had happened here. But why would a mansion this big catch on fire? Whoever did such a thing must not be in their right mind.
There wasn't much that I could really do at this moment. I'm locked inside of a room that was damaged due to a fire, on the second floor, and that's it. Maybe this is for the best. Maybe he left me here for good, for me to rot and die here. If there was something that I could do then I would do it whatever it may be. Wait, I'm locked inside a room, on the second floor, and I'm not tied up or anything. So maybe I can escape.
I know I have escaped before and failed due to my stupidity. But maybe there is a way for me to escape once more. I started looking through the room, pulling the door handle, looking out of the window–where you get a view of the grand tree–and looking inside of closets, nightstands and drawers. And of course there was nothing. Well there was stuff but they were not usable in any way.
I was about to give up until I saw something peeking out from underneath the bed. It was a box. I pulled it out from under the bed and opened it up. There was a music box inside of it along with old perfume, jewelry, clothes, and a portrait of a woman. I examined the portrait of a woman–the woman was beautiful to the point that anyone would think of her as an angel. She had dark brown hair, wearing a pendant around her neck. From what I can tell she was wearing a dress. Could she have been one of the people who lived in this mansion? I wondered.
I looked at the other stuff that was inside the box. Some of the jewelry was tangled up. I untangled the jewelry and noticed that one of the necklaces was the pendant that the woman was wearing in the portrait. I compared the pendant in hand and the one she wore; they were the same one. The pendant had an engraving of a letter E. What could it have represented? Could it even be a word?
I looked at the side of the pendant where there was a space between the front and the back of the pendant. I slid my fingernail in between the space causing the pendant to open. There were two pictures inside of the pendant. On the left was a man and the woman and on the right was the couple but there was a boy in the picture. Their son? The boy seemed off in a way. The couple had a genuine smile on their faces while the boy didn't–he wasn't smiling at all–he was staring into the camera blankly, holding poker face so steadily.
Chills suddenly ran down my spine. I closed the pendant and put it to the side. The other jewelry was pretty and one of the rings had a small diamond on it. It might've been her wedding ring, she was wearing it in one of the pictures of the pendant. I looked back inside of the box and there were small perfume bottles on top of clothes. I took out the perfume bottles that were not yet empty, one of them was still full and hardly used.
I took out the clothes and it turned out to be a dress. It was a blue plain dress that lost its value. It was covered in wrinkles along with a stain around the shoulder, the stain even spread more to the collar of the dress. The stain was pretty dark, but it could've really been anything.
I folded the dress and put it back in the box. I soon put everything back inside of the box, putting it back under the bed afterwards. The box didn't have anything that could've done me any good. It only told the past about the house and the household that once lived in the mansion.

I mostly sat around on the floor, pondering about what to do. I might really be at a dead end at this point. I sighed, ruffling my hair. I started to become stressed, not being able to think properly.

After what must be at least thirty minutes, I started to become tired. My eyes felt heavy, I know that I shouldn't fall asleep but some rest may do me good. Before I could rest my head on the floor, the door was flung open. The man came towards me pulling me by my hair, putting me on my feet. Before I could really process anything, he put a pocket knife to my throat.
There was soon yelling and a whole lot of footsteps spreading throughout the house. It was like there was a whole of massive centipedes roaming around at once. Soon police officers showed up at the doorway, pointing guns at us. The man backed up towards the window, bringing me along.
The officers were trying to convince him, which isn't very likely to be possible. They were even trying to get closer to us.
"Don't come any closer." The man said, "I will cut her throat open if you do." He pushed the knife against my neck causing it to bleed. "This is a warning." He says.
"Just. Put. The. Knife. Down." One of the officers said
"James Everton you don't need to do this." Officer Robert said, who finally showed up.
I sighed, feeling more calm than I probably should. Being exhausted in this kind of situation isn't very great. At this point I'm just gonna grow slow, not being able to process anything at a fast rate. Ain't that just great.

I soon started to notice that the man started to breath heavily, his hands shaking. What's wrong? I wondered. Could he be scared? Well, he doesn't seem to be the type to be scared. If he was he wouldn't have done any of this to begin with.
I started to feel sweat against my neck, the said sweat was coming from the man. Nervous? Once again I don't think he would be. But maybe he is? Or he could be having a meltdown. Those can be quite common here and there, really depends on the situation.
While I was pondering, my attention to the current situation swept away. A floorboard soon creaked—one of the officers must've ignored his warning and decided to step closer. Fucking damn it.
The man backed up once more, and of course dragged me along. But this time, something seemed different. The man looked back at the window and soon back at the officers.

Soon, the man held onto me tight and ran towards the window causing it to break. Now, we are falling down soon hitting the ground. My vision started to become blurry, I could feel liquid surrounding my head and shoulders. I turned my head to look at the man and he was bleeding out just as much as I was. But why do I feel like I'm the one who is dying? Even if I'm dying I better see this piece of shit down in hell.
I chuckled, closing my eyes. My eyes no longer wanted to stay open.
I need rest, I told myself, sleep and soon everything will pass by.