The boy crawled, or maybe he floated, across the red-stained marble floor. Every movement was a sharp, terrible pain in his chest. His small hands left smears on the shiny tiles, streaks of blood. It was his own, he thought, but with all the red around his mouth and nose, it was hard to be certain. The air was thick with the smell of iron and rot; every breath burned his lungs as if the mansion wanted him to stop breathing. He tried to call for help.
He tried to scream. But his voice wouldn't work, just a rough gurgle that faded before it could reach the high ceilings. Far away, a clock ticked. Or maybe it was just the beat of his own weak heart. Time didn't matter here. It was a joke in the middle of the quiet ruin that had taken everyone he knew.
Bodies were scattered around him like broken dolls. The butler was slumped on the stairs, his face stuck in a terrible, shocked look. A maid, her dress heavy with her own blood, stared up with dead eyes. The boy felt sick. A bitter taste rose in his throat, mixing with the taste of blood, but he pushed himself on, dragging his useless legs along the floor, and every single movement was pain.
He remembered the last sound before it all turned into this nightmare: the bright laughter of the guests. But that laughter was gone now, replaced by a deep silence that felt like it was pressing on his head. And as he fought to stay awake, he could feel a darkness behind his eyes, pulling him down, whispering for him to just give up and disappear.
A bit of light caught his eye. It came from the main hall. The chandelier there had been broken, and its crystals hung down like frozen tears. And he saw her - blonde hair falling over her shoulders, eyes the color of a stormy sky, and skin that was too pale. She was kneeling down, with a soft smile on her lips. She didn't look real, like she was painted into the room by a crazy artist who didn't care about what was real.
He blinked, or he tried to. The darkness closed in at the edges of what he could see, like thick smoke filling the world. But the woman was still there. Her smile got bigger as she leaned toward him. Her eyes locked with his, and the way she looked at him made his head feel dizzy. He tried to say something - to warn himself, maybe to beg - but he couldn't find the words.
"You… shouldn't…" His throat made a rattling sound. The words were gone before he could say them.
She reached out. Her pale fingers touched his cheek. They were cold. Not like ice is cold, but cold like a hole, with no warmth, with no kindness. He felt her breath, sweet and thick, pass over his lips. In that moment, the mansion seemed to melt away. All the blood, the broken glass, the bodies - they all became a blur, as if the world itself was turning to liquid and leaking out of him.
He wanted to remember. He wanted to hold on to the world he knew. But it was slipping away, piece by piece, like holding sand in his hand.
A scream started somewhere far away. Was it his scream? Or was it just a memory of a scream? He couldn't tell the difference. The blonde woman's voice came to him, but not as a sound, not as words he could hear. It was a feeling in his head, quiet but strong. He tried hard to hear it.
"You…" something. "…safe?" "…soon…"
He wanted to know what she meant, to grab on to any piece of sense, but it faded into noise. All that was left was the feeling of her being there, warm and dangerous at the same time.
His arms and legs stopped working now. He fell all the way onto the floor. His body twitched as he tried to pull himself closer, to see her more clearly. But the room was spinning. Shadows bent over him, reaching for him, and the red floor under him became a river of fire, not blood, that poured into his head.
He felt his heartbeat get slower, then flutter, then stop for a moment. Pain came in waves that weren't even, and every breath was a rough sound, like he was breathing in broken glass. His eyes blinked open and closed. The light from the chandelier broke into pieces of gold and red. And in every piece of light, he saw her, closer now, so close it was impossible, as if she was bending the air itself to get near him.
"Do not… forget…" He heard that much. They weren't spoken words, but words pushed right into his mind. They left an echo that made his head spin. The sound of it should have been a comfort, but it made his chest feel tight. It made what was left of his mind pull back in fear.
He reached for her. His small fingers brushed the cloth of her red dress. The silk felt cool and very real. And then she was gone. Just like that. The golden light broke apart and disappeared, leaving him alone in the deep silence again, with just the smell of iron and death.
The boy tried to scream again, but his voice was just a small squeak that the huge, empty room swallowed up. He closed his eyes. In the dark, memories from the day before flashed in his mind - the sun on the garden fountain, his mother's smile, the smell of baking bread. But they were gone in a second, falling into the emptiness as fast as they appeared.
Something pushed on his chest. No, it wasn't pushing. It was pulling. A weight, heavy and cold, like the mansion had decided it didn't need him anymore. He tried to push it off, tried to fight back, but his arms felt like they were made of lead. His legs were like roots stuck to the floor. The red stuff under him wasn't wet anymore but felt alive, moving, like a thousand little beats against his skin, pulling him down.
He wanted to close his eyes and go to sleep, to be free of it all, but fear kept him awake. Fear, and memory, and the sight of her, that beautiful woman whose smile was burned into his mind. He couldn't see her face clearly now, not really - just the feeling of it, the mix of warmth and cold, the promise and the danger all mixed together.
He tried to talk, to call her back, but he couldn't make words anymore. Only a broken, rough sound came out, and it vanished into the air, eaten by the heavy silence. The ceiling above him twisted and bent like it was water. He thought he could see the faces of the dead people, pushed into the marble like ink stains on a piece of paper. Their mouths were moving, whispering. Or maybe it was just the wind - or his mind playing tricks on him in the end.
He reached for them, trying to ask why, to ask for help, but his hands were gone. There were only shadows. Only silence. And then he felt it: a warmth that spread all over him, starting from the middle of his chest and moving out, filling his arms and legs with the feeling of being watched. He opened his eyes and saw the chandelier again, broken into shiny stars above him. And she was there again. Blonde hair everywhere, eyes wide, and that smile, sweet but sharp, like a welcome and a warning. He wanted to remember what she had said. It was right there, like a song or a promise - but it disappeared into the darkness as his mind slipped away.
The enigmatic, blonde woman remained there, watching the boy with a smile. A genuine smile. A sad, melancholic smile. A smile filled with hope - hope that this boy will one day fulfill her wishes.