Alyssa's Cup Of Tea ✔️

🐇 Chapter 7

 'Mom was so beautiful and child at heart, she never lose that endearing innocence which makes her continuously appreciate the smallest things and found joy in simplicity. Sometimes people found it hard to believe she was a grown woman, majority of the time they claimed her head was not right. Assumptions quickly made because she loved to take strolls in the garden barefooted or twirl around the grass. She was happy whenever the small flowers I picked were turned into crowns and she would put it on our heads. Mom loved to get lost beyond the reality she lived in, to our father this was concerning but to me and my siblings? Her smile was so genuine. Our mom was not crazy...'

Alyssa knew this was a dream, the hazy familiar gazebo and serene Secret Garden at the back of the Laceheart Manor. Her mind was fooling her to numb the aches of her body from the intense beating she received from father's goons. When was the last time she dreamed like this? No she probably did not. For most part Alyssa forced herself to become a tough nut to crack, an angry spiky surface and she never hesitate to show anyone disdain if she deemed them despicable.

In this dream the barriers slowly went down, Alyssa's shoulders sagged. She felt so tired and fainting due to fatigue. "Mom...?" She forced herself to stay upright, if she lose consciousness in this dream she might returned to the fucked-up reality that she was in a goddamn dungeon. "M-mom?" She called again.

Outside the gazebo was a familiar swaying figure, barefooted and on a white long-sleeved dress with brown corset. That waist-length pale hair was like a snowy-silver haze from the distance and Alyssa heard the humming from her, bringing a warm nostalgia and ache in her heart.

Alyssa teared up as she made herself walk further, ignoring the numbing and doing what she could to not leave this dream. "Mom, I'm here!" Her voice was almost shattered with yearning.

The humming became louder albeit soft while the swaying figure didn't stop her dance as if in daze. Barefooted she was and Alyssa noticed the trail of bloody steps from her mother after stepping on scattered nails that were turned upright.

"Mom!!!" Why was she not being heard? She felt uneasy seeing every steps mother took on those rusty nails, hearing a crunch piercing through the skin and flesh. But her mother didn't stop.

Finally the figure stopped but with her back on a dumbfounded, teary-eyed Alyssa. The silence didn't help make the situation less disconcerting and contrary, it elevated the eerie atmosphere of the dream.

Alyssa gaped her mouth, forced to watch her mother shifted, turning into a mashed pile of clock pieces covered in blood on the ground. There were some flesh attached to those clock pieces as it laid on the misty grass.

'They said...mother was crazy...that she was never right in the head...that she was sick...' Sobbing loudly and letting out a yell of frustration, Alyssa pulled on her hair.

"Heehee, are you losing your head? It's such a waste, you have such a magnificent and pleasing head." Approaching footsteps accompanied the unfamiliar voice laced with cheer and amusement.

Alyssa lifted her gaze up, she whirled around the foggy secret garden to find the source and there he was, standing meters from behind. "Am I turning mad bonkers too?" Or perhaps this was her mind fooling her more.

The person before her was taller than usual, garbed in an expensive gold suit with black bowtie and one thing she noticed consistent in his outfit's design were clocks. She also heard a faint ticking sound coming directly from him. "You have a pretty smart head, you and your twin brother" His face couldn't be seen because of the huge white cloak draped over him, its hood was completely shadowing him. "As for your monologue, there is nothing wrong in being mad bonkers, no?"

"They say it's the reason mother died"

"Do you believe 'they'?"

"There is nothing proper to believe in this disgusting household I am raised in"

"Therefore conclusion made you do not think your mother is a lunatic"

Alyssa opened her mouth to retort but she stopped, the throwing of exchange with this nameless figure only created more fuzziness in her mind. He also talked so weirdly.

The surrounding was beginning to shift too from the white-gray mist there were splotches of black and red stains above. Crimson poured from the top of the gazebo like tears. Alyssa found the whole change concerning. Her dream was turning upside down.

"The right time is soon." A whisper on Alyssa's left ear before a hand clasped over her eyes.

--

Alessio glanced at the sleeping form of his twin next to him, she appeared so serene and a mirror image of their mother that it would be hard to believe that Alyssa was the more fiery one between them. His lips curled grimly and a spike of irritation in him as he noticed closely the scratches and bruises she got.

"I'm sorry I can't do much for the three of us." It weighed unseen on his shoulders as the guy with two precious sisters, he already assumed that role of being their sentinel. A protector. Alessio felt guilty and accountable for their inability to break free from this corrupted household.

Their family was almost assumed to be the center of Marchen, its sun and star due to the neverending fortune and being undisputed in the field they operated. No one could compete against authors produced by Laceheart's publishing company, all stories they distributed were shimmering in the eyes of the others.

And the only known flaws of the household were them. Most people had no issues rubbing it on their faces whenever they could.

The basement dungeon was quiet, no sounds or whatever even from the other people held captive here—those individuals with clipped wings, a few who tried opposing Ramon but ended up with a worse fate than a homeless person. They had no voice and the sparks of motivation were gone from their eyes.

"Hey..." Beyond the bars, waving at Alessio was the tall white rabbit he saw at the social venue.

A crawl of subtle panic on Alessio's spine, recalling how he saw it earlier holding Midori's head. "Good god what is happening to me?"

But the foot taller white rabbit in red checkered waistcoat with a size of a mascot wasn't leaving, it stood there and waving. "Hey...!!! Hey...!!! Hey...!!!"

--

Back to Alessa's bedchamber, she was already sleeping in her bed and unaware of the intense gaze from an unseen watcher. Inside her special room where she wrote, an old worn out hardbound book was placed on her table—the cover illustration were detailed bizarre drawings of two mascot-sized towering rabbits holding equally large pocket watches—one was black and the other was white.