My Strange Addiction [Diabolik Lovers x Reader]

02: Playing Dangerous

The corridor seemed longer this time around. Without Reiji's guidance, it was just a vast expanse of unfamiliar darkness and elaborately wallpapered hallways. Your fingers lingered against the smooth wooden texture trimming the walls as your feet carried you along in a gentle shuffle. Occasionally, you'd find yourself glancing over your shoulder, paranoid that Ayato or Laito's looming figure was trailing behind you - stalking you. Before, you'd have considered it a ridiculous thought, but you knew it was not an irrational one. Your eyes focused forward again as you came to the beginning of a staircase. You moved your hand along the railing as you took each step down. A slight bit of unease set in as your thoughts began to wander. For a moment, you envisioned yourself falling down the steps and splitting open your head, leaving behind a pool of blood among your dead corpse. You imagined each brother finding you there in turn, standing over and gazing upon you with cruel, lifeless eyes. They'd murmur words of disgust as they relished in your macabre image, taunting you with sick enjoyment. "Is that all it took?" they'd jeer. You nearly lost your footing as you imagined Ayato stepping to grab your pallid, bruised hand and gorging on what little blood you had left within you. The rest would follow suit, of course; a bundle of familiar and faceless entities feeding sacrilegiously on your stiff and mangled corpse. You had to stop. Breathe. Your fingers gripped the railing just a little tighter and you tried to blink the thought from your mind. In reality, no such thing would happen. And yet, a tingle in your gut told you that it still could. You released a small sigh as you finally made your way back onto level ground.

You stood in the foyer a moment, puzzled as to where you were supposed to go next. The mansion was such an odd little maze; it was impossible to discern where you were or how to get anywhere unless you had a guide. You nibbled on your bottom lip a moment, nervousness budding in your chest. It was painfully obvious to anyone that you were a fish out of water in this house of nightmares. You blinked as your eyes focused on the double doors that led out of the manor. They were open just a crack - had they always been? Perhaps someone had forgotten to close them. You only needed a moment. No one would know. Your feet began to move as if they were not your own, carrying you swiftly across the floor of the entryway. The air hit your skin like a cold slap, chilling you down to your bones and biting at the tips of your fingers as if you were touching ice. It was late afternoon now, budding on evening as the sun lowered behind the tree line, casting golden beams of light against the front of the manor. It's amazing how quickly time had passed. With your eyes fixed forward, you ventured onwards, welcoming the frigid temperature that nipped at the exposed bits of your skin. As you progressed along the long walkway that stretched around the front of the manor, you had to take a moment to breathe and savor in your temporary freedom. You were vaguely aware of the fact that you wouldn't be able to escape, but for a moment you pretended that you could.

You took a seat on the edge of the fountain that acted as a midway point between the wrought iron gate and the doors to your prison, and stared out into the woods that surrounded you on all sides.

A part of you wanted to explore those woods, but you knew better. The trees here were endless - silent - almost like they were waiting for someone foolish enough to wander in and swallow whole. A small smile rose to your lips despite the dread that weighed your shoulders. It was strange. Despite the eeriness and the looming unknown, there was a sort of beauty in it too, and you pondered the parallels of this revelation back to the men you'd just met. They too possessed a dark kind of beauty, you decided. The kind that was best viewed from a distance. A thinly veiled attempt at a metaphor, but an apt one nonetheless.

A fresh breeze washed over you, dancing through your hair and caressing your cheeks with a tenderness you never thought possible in a place like this. It carried with it a light mist of water from the fountain that only further refreshed your face, and you shut your eyes and drank in the sensation with a newfound appreciation. For just a moment, you allowed yourself to relax. You were no stranger to solitude. This wasn't much different than at home, where you would lay in the garden behind your family's house for hours on end, staring at the clouds that rolled slowly by, dreaming of a better life for yourself. It was difficult to think about your family now, as if they were strangers to you. After all, you'd been alone for a very, very long time. How ironic that the first letter in years would be sending you even further away. You dipped a hand in the fountain, swishing it around, letting the ripples carry away your thoughts. You tried not to think about why you were here, and what that meant for you. "At least I'm not alone anymore." You tried to reason, though even to you it sounded pitiful. Surely this was worse. Surely...