Until the very End
Chapter 01:
His Master Has Nightmares
"Mother? Father? Where are you?"
Thick clouds of smoke darkened my sight. From outside came a crash of thunder. Coughing, I slowly wandered down the corridor. The red carpet under my bare feet felt foreign and somehow rough. The smoke burned in my eyes. Involuntarily,I rubbed them and pushed my sleeve over my mouth to get rid of the taste. Although my body felt numb and I knew in the back of my mind that my trembling legs were about to tip, I forced myself further. Under the fingers of my left hand, I felt the cold wall I used as support, as well as my guide through the darkness. After a few steps, my body shook from a new coughing fit. But, eventually, I made it to the door of my parents' bedroom.
I called for them another time. But even now, there was no answer. Hesitantly, I put my fingers on the doorknob to turn it around, timidly pushing it. As the door swung open my body got suddenly cold. The dark room was filled with an even darker atmosphere. Before I even entered the room, I knew I would regret the following sight.
In the second it took for me to step forward, a thunderbolt lit up the room, showing me things that I wished had remained hidden. On the floor, a few meters from me, lay the dead and bloodied silhouettes of my parents. A whimper escaped my throat, then a sob. Immediately, I felt awful. The picture of my dead parents burnt itself deep into my soul. Before I could realize what had happened, I fled out of the room and away from this surreal situation.
All sorts of questions appeared in my head, but for none of them I knew the answer. In this moment I didn't know anything. The only thing I could do was to run. The adrenaline in my veins gave me enough strength to keep going. But after what felt like an eternity of running, the power left all of a sudden. I tried to find support at the next wall, but couldn't. My legs gave way. Before my body dropped on the hard ground, I lost consciousness.
Slowly my eye lids opened. I had to blink a few times to push the fog out of my mind and focus on my surroundings. Where was I? It looked like a small room, like a cellar without any windows. The walls were made out of cement and I lay on a concrete floor. As I tried to stand up, a relentless pain shot through my right foot. I cried out and sat back down. In the same moment I heard something metallic. One look at my bare feet made me understand where the sound came from; therewas a chain connecting my ankle to the ground.
The panic inside of me grew even more as I realized another strange circumstance: I was wearing a red dress!
"What the hell? This has to be a bad joke." I couldn't help but ask myself why I hadn't noticed this earlier. Maybe it was because of my numb senses as well as the dizziness in my head? My breath fastened, so did my heartbeat and in irregular intervals a gasp came through my lips.
I froze immediately as I heard a sudden noise. I looked around in the dimly lit room. On one side was a wooden door where the noise had come from. After a moment, I recognized the noise to be footsteps, which sounded like they were coming closer until they abruptly stopped in front of the door. My heart beat hard against my chest. In an attempt to keep myself still, I pressed both of my hands over my mouth.
As the handle pulled down, I could swear my heart skipped a beat. However, the door was locked, which meant I was confined.
"Ciel?"
I inhaled deeply when I heard a voice whose owner I knew just too well.
"Elizabeth?" I asked timidly and tried one more time to stand up. But I was stopped in my motion by the fetter and got drawn back to the floor.
"Listen, Ciel! I will get you out of there. Take a few steps back from the door!" Elizabeth sounded nothing like her usual self. Her voice had a serious and certain tone. There wasn't even a trace of her childish character.
It didn't disturb me, I only wondered why she sounded so bold. This was Elizabeth after all, wasn't it?
What happened next surprised me so much, my jaw dropped open. The door collapsed in on itself, revealing Elizabeth Midford standing right behind it with one rapier in both of her hands.
"Ciel! Are you okay?" she asked while coming straight at me. In front of me, she dropped on her knees and cut open the strap of the fetter. After my right foot was freed, she helped me to stand up and together we made our way out of there on swaying feet.
Outside the room was a long corridor. It was quite difficult to see since the only light sources were a few torches hanging on the wall with a certain distance to each other. Without hesitating, Lizzy lead me through the sheer endless hallway. As we went on, we passed two doors on the right side of us, but Lizzy didn't even stop to look what was behind them. Eventually, there was one more before we reached a large wooden door on the end of the corridor.
I had to swallow hard. Not knowing what would be behind that door gave me a queasy feeling. I felt vulnerable. So I searched helplessly for Lizzy's eyes. Lizzy returned my look and in a split second her eyes mustered me apprehensively.
"Don't worry, Ciel. I will protect you!" she said with a confident nod of her head. Her facial expression suddenly changed, became more serious than before. Lizzy looked ready to fight against anyone who stood in her way, which let me feel a little bit calmer. But I couldn't relax. What would be behind this door? My cousin stood protectively in front of me and cautiously opened the door.
After the door swung open everything happened far too fast. A deafening bang rang out. Elizabeth suddenly collapsed and fell on the ground. I couldn't breathe as I looked at the motionless body in front of me as blood welled out of the bullet wound on her chest.
"L-Li…zzy? Wha…?" My words weren't more than a mere whisper. My voice shook violently as well as my whole body.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the silhouette of a person that moved hastily through the room behind the door. It seemed like this scumbag was about to flee.
But I paid this person no mind as all of my attention was drawn to the dead girl on the floor. What should I do? I kneeled beside Elizabeth and tenderly took her in my arms. Her eyes were dull and lifeless. The sight alone was enough to let me become teary-eyed. Seconds later, hot tears ran down my cheeks.
This couldn't be true. This mustn't be true. What happened?
Elizabeth…
My mind was a racing, jumbled mess of questions
Rage started to rise inside my body, my throat felt constricted.
The following cry hurt even in my own ears.
To be continued