CHARLOTTE

CHAPTER VIII

The floor was actually quite lively, kind of like a circus. Bright colors and peculiar red flowers could be seen all over the way. A lot of balloons were hung on the well cared for walls, besides them there was also a gorgeous wooden gold mirror. I explored more around, to find the next obstacle to beat, but I encountered right in the middle a tiny grave. It felt as if everything surrounding it was emphasizing it, there was even a light illuminating above it. I reached my hand to remove all the dust on it and found right on the top the name of my father.

I gasped, the date of death was marked for today. With this now on my head, I lunged towards the windows and hitted it an immeasurable amount of times. At that moment I wasn't sure why and only reacted by instinct. After making myself different bruises on my mind. I fell on the floor. I was stupid. I had just hurt myself even more for nothing.

I got alert by the faint sound of a bell. It sounded like a chapel bell. I was in trance by it and my feet moved to reach the source. I walked over past the grave and returned to the party setup. The bell was ringing louder which meant I was getting closer. I had almost arrived at the point where I had gotten out of the stairs. Of course they were gone now, but in exchange, the previous mirror was standing right there, or better said floating.

The glass had the impression of being a pond in movement as if a tear was dropped each time. The bell was going at the same time it moved. My fingers were slowly approaching it, my soul was little by little losing its shine. I had barely felt the consistency of the mirror when someone abruptly pulled me away. I fell on my butt and backed up my head to see the person responsible. It was a woman with silky red hair. Her face was covered with a black and white harlequin mask. Even so her factions could still be appreciated. I think at that moment I could have fallen in love.

Her face got closer to mine, and whispered at me. -Don't. You don't belong here. -Those words were spoken in a British accent with such an elegant tone. Roughly she pushed my head back, unavailing me to watch her. I turned back and she was nowhere to be seen.

I stood up and turned my head only to watch the mirror broken in pieces, touching the glass would only turn it into dust. The bell had also stopped along with the fact the walls appeared with silhouettes of people painted in black and with a smile on their faces. All of them were fake. I knew that, by just watching their wrinkles and the rest of their body. I could immediately recognize a fake smile on someone.

The disgustment of the place made me ignore the sound of stomps, and they were getting near me. Then, there it was, it came right in front of me. He was a tall, thin man, but the peculiarity of him was the fact his face was one-sided with an elongated smile and the other half was portrayed with a sad mouth. The only thing in common between both sides were his distorted big eyes.

When I was in his view, he fastly ran to attack me. I somehow managed to dodge it, and he fell to the ground breaking his left arm. I thought that would stop him for a while. But it was the opposite, he began to contort himself. The pain meant nothing to him. He charged at me again. I stumbled and fell backwards since I didn't have enough time to react.

Thinking my end had come. The beast stopped mid trace, I observed with more attention and saw it was frozen. Like if an old movie had bugged out. I backed away and the man had gained again some mobility. The same sequence proceeded again. Attack, dodge and escape. It was almost like a videogame. This continued for a while until little by little the pieces were coming together, but this time I managed to do it without any help. Ducking down, will temporarily erase your presence from him, freezing him in the process.

Now with this in mind. The game had changed. I expanded my senses, focused and from somewhere I managed to put some courage out. I lured the monster at the middle of the party tables to at least get a better distance between us. I slid below and with my inexistent strength, I pushed them at him. Right now, I was not completely sure of how I was able to damage something that could possibly torment you in your dreams. But leaving all that behind, my strategy was working.

I continued with the process a couple of times until a thin red line strangely appeared. It was it, the path to the couple of stairs that always led me to my doom. I pushed a table one last time and sprang following the line. There was no time for turning back. I had to let it all go. I jumped across the stairs but I hadn't thought about the fact the monster could have still come after me. But he didn't, he just forgot about my existence. He turned around and knelt down and took both of his hands right at his face and like tearing apart a band-aid from your finger, he began to aggressively rip off all of his skin. I wasn't able to see the whole act, but I inferred what was happening. I'm not a masochist, so I closed my eyes and tried as hard as I could to erase the memory from my mind.

I swear I tried to, but the images were still there stuck to my brain, the blood coming out of the ripped face leaving the live flesh exposed to the eyesight. The pain he must have suffered. All of it made me have goosebumps. They were even making me hear noises out of nowhere little whispers right above my shoulder, but I didn't catch the message they were telling me.

Suddenly my whole body began trembling, I had a difficult time breathing, and at least if there is actually the existence of different universes. I was gone in this one. I couldn't remember what happened next. The only thing I perceived was as if a bandage had covered my eyes.