Brielle awoke the next morning with the uneasy feeling that last night had been a dream. As sunlight slanted through the blinds, cutting stripes across her cluttered room, she sat up slowly, her mind struggling to catch up with reality.
For a moment, she almost believed she'd imagined it—the strange email, the ominous invitation, the promise of escape.
But when she grabbed her phone from the nightstand, the emails from Adrian Vale were still there. They were real.
The anticipation that had carried her through the night was now coiling into unease.
She had made a decision—one she couldn't take back—and now the car was coming tonight at 9 p.m.
Who even does that? she thought, rubbing her temples. Who sends an email and expects someone to just leave everything the next day?
The pit in her stomach grew. There was something off about all of this, and if she was going to step into the unknown, she needed to know more.
8:32 AM
Brielle planted herself at her desk with a cup of coffee, laptop open, determined to dig up whatever information she could find about Adrian Vale.
The first search took her to the same architectural blog she'd found last night. It was a dead end—barely a paragraph about him.
"A recluse, known for creating avant-garde homes with a psychological twist."
No personal interviews, no website, and no real details about his projects. Just vague mentions of his brilliance and eccentricity.
She clicked back to the search engine and refined her query. Adrian Vale architect biography—nothing useful. Adrian Vale mansion projects—a handful of cryptic mentions on niche art and architecture forums, but nothing substantial.
She tried scrolling deeper, pulling up articles from obscure sources. Some mentioned rumors of elaborate, secretive projects Vale had undertaken for the ultra-rich—mansions that functioned as puzzles, where rooms weren't just rooms, but psychological trials.
But these were just whispers—gossip with no verifiable details.
One article claimed that the people who entered his homes rarely spoke about them afterward, and the ones who did described them in contradictory ways.
Some called them "masterpieces of the soul," others "personal prisons." Another post in an online forum likened Vale's designs to "experiments on the human mind."
It was unnerving. The more she searched, the less real he seemed—like a ghost haunting the edges of the art world. No personal photos, no social media profiles, no interviews.
Even his architectural portfolio was fragmented—just a name dropped here and there, attached to projects that no one seemed to know the full details of.
Brielle's fingers hovered over the keyboard as a creeping sense of doubt settled in. Why would someone like this be interested in me?
She bit her lip and searched her own name next, hoping to find some connection between them. Maybe he'd come across her work somewhere, or maybe someone had recommended her. But the results were painfully sparse.
Her name came up in local art event listings and a couple of old articles about exhibitions from years ago, but there was nothing to suggest that anyone like Adrian Vale had ever encountered her.
It didn't make sense.
9:15 AM
Brielle shifted in her chair, frustration prickling beneath her skin. Every search led to a dead end or another vague mention, as if Adrian Vale existed just outside the realm of ordinary life.
YOU ARE READING
Cage Of Glass
Mystery / Thriller'•.¸♡ In which a girl gets intangled in things she shouldnt♡¸.•' Lately, no matter how hard she tries, Brielle cannot seem to have inspiration for her art, causing her to go into financial ruin. However, after receiving a mysterious invitation , her...
