Mafia Parade

17| One Promise

I stared up at the starry night sky as I walked up to the dark alley. Suddenly, I looked down at my shoes to see my unlaced laces, I stopped. Everything seems so still, so cold. The laces stretch on and on far beyond what the eye could see. Rivers of pallid material start flooding the place.

An explosion of blindingly immaculate whiteness came to me like a long lost lover's embrace. In the confusion and mayhem, I glimpsed the shadow of a pretty little girl, whose exhilarated squeals reverberated throughout the space, filling me with an odd sense of apprehension.

She came to a sudden halt, her black light curls bouncing up and down, as if bothered by my invasive gaze. She finally turned around, and fixed me with pale blue orbs that are far too familiar. Her smile slowly faded away as fast as it came. As a tear slid down her cheek, her frilly dress unmistakably turned a dark shade of crimson.

The likeliness of a coal black fluid oozed from her back, smoothly shifting into demoniac forms. Bodies of all sizes surrounded the place in an excruciatingly slow motion, spitting exclamations in a harsh, barbaric tongue. I grew agitated as I come to realise that the shadows are leisurely cornering me, their featureless yet familiar faces regarding me with bone-chilling apathy.

I glanced at the girl for what seems like the last time, to find her clawing at her pale throat, a mixture of desperation and fear taking over her maintenance. She opened her mouth to let a scream that won't come out.

But then realization hit me; that girl was me.

"...leave it there, next to the bed."

I jolted up in a sitting position breathing heavily, but regretted as soon as I felt a dull pain in my head and in my wounded side. I squinted my eyes as the unmistakable hue of sun emitted by what seemed like a window hit my face.

"Emilia?" I tried to process whose voice was it, but before I could, I averted my eyes to let them bore into two grey orbs; that held so much anxiousness and concern.

"The doctor said you shouldn't move much, you reopened your wound." Eric said as he handed me a cup of water with a pill; which I took reluctantly, "Your body needs to rest, and to be well fed."

I rubbed my face and inhaled deeply. It was a bad dream, a bad dream.

I nodded slowly at what he told me, not looking at him in the eyes, and slightly confused about his behaviour. But then memories of what happened with John and crunched the edge of my nose.

"W-where is John?" I asked looking up at from the glass in my hand, hoping he will tell me he is dead already and that he fed him to dogs.

Eric sighed leaning into the chair even more and licked his dry lips before speaking.

"I told my men to keep him alive," I let out a ragged breath at his answer, "there are still a lot of things I must know from him." I looked at his face to see his eyebrows pulled into a deep frown, but then he wore a small smile at his face and said.

"You did quite a number of him; I'm proud of you." When the last sentence left his mouth, I felt tears threatening to fall from my eyes which made him widen his eyes in horror.

"I knew I shouldn't have let you handle him!" He cursed under his breath and knelt in front of the bed, his hands hovering over mine but never reaching them, "I knew it; I shouldn't have listened to—"

"I'm not crying because of that," I barely managed to whisper in order to assure him, which made his face hold an expression of easiness and confusion, "You said, y-you are proud of me."

Eric's eyebrows shot up in realization, and then finally he held my hands in his and said with a smirk.

"Of course, I'm proud of you. You even kicked Maurizio's ass." That made me chuckle a little bit, "Hell you handled a gun better than him."