Royal Masquerade

Chapter 1

The alarm clock killed the silence of the cold morning, but the alarm clock's sin went unpunished as the sleeping young lady ignored the wake up call as she snuggle deeper into her blankets to seek for warmth. The alarm continued to buzz like nobody's business as she continued to ignore the noises around her. She simply refused to wake up, the temptation to sleep in and bask in the warmth is too hard to resist despite of knowing that she's supposed to be going for her job interview that particular morning. Oh boy, she's going to get herself into some hot soup again.

The alarm clock did it's job devotedly and refused to lighten up on the noise. Astrea sit up on her bed, slightly disoriented as she open her eyes and as she looked at the time dictated on the clock. 9:00am, it says. Astrea's eyes goes all round as she gasps in disbelieve.

"Oh! My God!" was all she could say as she run around her little apartment, trying to get ready for her job interview.

After taking a short shower, she hurriedly dried her shoulder length dark hair by using a hairdryer and comb it down by using her brush. Taking a look in the mirror, she groaned. Her reflection screamed nothing but a bad hair day, but she can't do anything about it as she's already late to begin with. She puts on her clothes in a rush and ignored her vanity table all makeups and rush out to her small kitchen to gulp down on some orange juice and a leftover cold pizza.

Choking over her pizza as she hailed a taxi that miraculously passed by as she reach the ground of her apartment. She opened the door in a rush and sighed as she sat in the taxi.

"Where to, lady?" the not so friendly taxi driver asked as he adjusted the rear mirror.

"Umm, the Darklord Mansion, please." she said, as the taxi driver turn to look at her in a slight amusement.

"Golly, why are you going there for, lady? Heard the place will beat the wits out of you." the man said as he looked at her, questioning her decision.

"I have a job interview over there, and I'm running late." she murmured.

"What's that, lad? A job interview? In that place? My, my, adventurous, aren't we?" again, the man was amused with her answer. Seeing her fiddle with her bag, wearing an anxious look, the driver wait no further as he twist the key in ignition and drive away towards the destination.

Astrea made some small talk with the taxi driver, explaining that there's a sickly old man in that mansion she's going to, and he requires a personal caretaker, or a nurse, and having just lost her job last few month, she simply cannot afford to be choosy as she's running low on the penny. By hook or by crook, she's going to have to secure this job or else, by the end of the month, she could possibly end up on the street, homeless. After all, she did owe her landlady 3 month worth of rent.

So far, she still could afford to keep a tight budget on her meals, but she definitely could not afford to be thrown on the street. It's going to be winter soon. Some nice variety of hot chicken soup on the table and a warm place to stay would be just the thing that she needed this coming winter. Astrea is getting sick of her budget meals consisting of some thin potato soups with a sorry piece of crust she have the cheek to call a piece of bread.

Last night's pizza leftovers were actually one of the best 'gourmet' she had in one month time, a courtesy of a nice little girl who had been kind enough to invite her to her birthday party the night before. And her mother have been insisting Astrea to take some pizza home for breakfast.

"Here we are, poppet!" the taxi driver said as he put his vehicle to a screeching halt in front of the huge mansion gate, disrupting the musing of her sorry life.

"Thank you sir, you just saved my life!" she said as she handed him a crumpled bill of money in a rush and stepped out of the taxi in a very unladylike manner.