Fear will hunt you down, right to the very depth of your soul.' -- Aireen Pontillo
Kikara hears the screams just overhead. Muffled as they were, she could tell it was Teora.
"What the iado? What are you screaming like that for?" Kikara yells up towards the direction of the shrieks, growing louder as her footsteps draw near.
The image of Gabriel's distorted face was scorched into her brain, her body still trembling. Now it seems there's something else. She wasn't prepared for it, not now.
Sitting on the first floor stairs, she watches as Teora comes around the corner, almost stumbling over her skirt as she reaches Kikara. The hostility between the two non-existent in the moment. "Roo-oom forty-three! Th-th-ere's something in roo-oom forty-three!" Teora sobs, her hysterical inflection making her almost incomprehensible. She points and continues her overwrought cries as guests send concerned looks her way. One, a dark blonde-haired human man approaches her.
"Are you alright miss?"
Kikara waves off his concerns, assuring him all is well before following Teora to the room where a human writer had been housed.
"Araseza..."
Kikara steps into the room and is met with a gruesome scene. Dried brown blood plastered along the walls, the carpet had been soaked, the stains deepening the red color of the thick fabric. The bed however, has been spared, only a faint splatter peppered along the lower sides of the peach quilt. The scent of the blood thick and cloying. Whatever had happened in this room, it was brutal.
"Who was in here?" Kikara's eyes are still surveying the gory scene, sniffing the air.
"A human writer," Teora whimpers. "I remember because she kept yelling about needing quiet. I just came to deliver more towels and when she didn't open the door I-" Teora's voice falters as she spots pink curlers on the nightstand.
"Is it possible you can tell them to keep it down? I'm trying to write here."
"Susa, chiama Taggart, but I'm afraid there's not much to do. I can put you in another room-"
"How can you not do anything? They are being loud! I need my peace and quiet."
Heather gives a huff as she peeked out from behind the ajar door, her red hair is spun in curlers. "I mean, I thought this place was supposed to be for artists? How are they supposed to concentrate with all this going on?" She directs her chin in the direction of the noisy rooms.
"Well, that's what was it was originally," Teora replies. "And I've told them to keep it down. There's not too much noise, really."
She didn't hear anything worth complaining about and felt ridiculous even telling the guests to keep silent. Some amorous murmuring between a couple in the next room and a pair of young women giggling and gossiping in the other. The tourists had taken over and any artist coming here looking for a quiet inspirational scene at this point is being foolish. Guess this one had to learn the hard way.
"Your kind have those huge ears and you can't hear what I'm talking about?"
"Well, you can stick something in those tiny ones you have."
"Bitch." Heather swings the door open farther, pinning the flaps of her bathrobe shut between her fingertips, so she can slam it in Teora's face.
She didn't know what the word had meant, but was sure it was something insulting. As angry as she'd been, she didn't want this. Hadn't wished it upon the dreadful woman. Not for a second. She'd complained to Radaha, but that was all.
YOU ARE READING
Reverie
Mystery / Thriller"The Losers Club had driven It from the personal gaming reserve It had made. Now, it was time for It to make a new one. Just as It had to create a new physical form after Its other was destroyed by those hated ones. And It wants no more to feel. No...
