❝Aren't you scared at all doing this?❞
❝No, I love taking pictures of them dead.❞
[WARNING: may contain graphic contents, and dark and mild sexual themes.]
|ON-HOLD|
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The hours of darkness still retains, greyish clouds covering the twinkling skies—signifying the oncoming rainstorm. Nora found me when I finally came back to the porch of the mansion, embracing myself from cold and staggering to my feet. She immediately tended me by enveloping her arm around my shoulders and hoisted my weak body to the waiting carriage.
Arriving to our home, I swiftly went back to my room and stripped off my dress; leaving myself naked. Submerging my body into the bath tub filled with sweet scented milky liquid. A euphoric feeling swelled within me, washing my stress away and also the dried blood on my hand. Nora came shortly to my side; sitting on a stool and twisted my hair into a bun. Subsequently, she bombarded me with questions pertaining to my sudden disappearance and coming back devastated while scrubbing my outstretched arm.
"I just only followed him." I asserted with annoyance in my tone.
"Followed who?" She pried more.
"That post-mortem photographer who came here a few days ago," Nora raised her eyebrows as she moved on; scrubbing my bare shoulders. "Then I was kidnaped for a brief time."
Her moving hand halted and looked at me with widen eyes. "I should tell this to your parents!"
Before she stands up, I quickly gripped her wrist and said, "Please don't! I don't want to cause a ruckus to my family."
Nora sighed in defeat and shook her head. "Is the photographer who kidnapped you?" She asked solemnly. I shrugged my shoulders in response.
"Care to explain then the blood on your hand a while ago?" I scanned my wet hands and noticed the fresh narrow scars on my wrists; the scars from his whip lashing.
"When I was released, I found plenty of red no—bloody roses on the ground. I picked it up not knowing it." I explained, shuddering at the moment when I stained my hand with a stranger's blood—plausibly from a dead person.
"How many roses did you saw?" My eyebrows knitted in confusion to her inquiry whilst, silence sustains as I recalled the bloody roses.
"Exact to be seven I guess." I said with uncertainty.
A worried look crossed on her face and resumed scrubbing my shoulders afterwards. "Remember these words Claire, be very careful of him," She warned with a stern voice. "My folks say when you are given seven roses it means he is infatuated with you."
A white flash appeared shortly outside the glass window, following a loud ramble was heard after Nora left those surprising words. The cascading raindrops are music to my ears; keeping me awake on my bed and cannot stray my mind off from my handmaid's statement. Frantically disturbing me at the subject of being infatuated by someone I hardly know; or is it not?
The following day, I was on my way downstairs when I saw my mother, putting down the telephone back and approached me. "Claire, could you please fetch the memento photo from that post-mortem photographer in his studio?"
I finally landed to the ground floor with furrowed eyebrows to her plea and asked, "Why me?"
"I'm sorry dear, I ordered all servants in our household to take care of something important and you're the only available I have to get that photo." She said.
A sigh escaped my lips and nodded in comply with a wry expression. "Yes mother."
After that, she instructed me the way to his studio before I walked past her. The ride in the carriage to my destination didn't take too long until I arrived to a small shop like at corner of the street; shrubs of plants displayed under the pane-windows and a door at the center. The hanging doorbell of the door chimed when I entered inside and greeted by the numerous framed post-mortem photos on the walls. I was completely stupefied, gazing at the images of blank expression of different individuals and some with their loved ones.
The wooden floor creaks as I walked further to search for him. I happen to swerved around a room and then aghast to a horrific scene in front of me. There's a very pale-looking young lady around my age; standing impassively like a mannequin and staring at me with bland, bulging eyes.
