Chapter 1: September 28, 1942

Bombs pouring by the minute. The noise piercing through ears. Soles of feet bleed from the chaos that was erupting in every corner imaginable. Sanctuary was nowhere to be seen. My heart was pounding through my chest as I fled from one place to another, seeking a familiar face to surrender to. But I was on my own, a nomad of some sort. This was my destiny…. To die alone as I have always been throughout my life. For some reason, as I hung to life a tad bit longer, I prolonged for someone to take pity on me. Sadly no one would. There I laid on the distorted gravel below-looking into the skies of hell-waiting to surrender to the arms of my enemy. Then, like rain from Mother Earth's clouds, came the point of no return. My eyelids closed slowly as to say goodbye, but a silent gesture so now one would know.

No one would know…

I launched straight forward from my bed, gasping with intensity while sweat dripped from the corners of my complexion. The sticks of arms, which supported my posture, shook from what my eye had just seen or what they appeared to have seen.

Taking a moment to grasp reality, I slid my stone, white legs unwillingly to the side of my bed, hands smoldering my face, listening to the whispers of my surroundings.

These nightmares keep occurring in my once child-like dreams. Not something a nineteen year old lady of my age should be dreaming about.

"When will this end?" I asked myself, though it sounded like I was talking to a companion in the room. By the sound of my voice there was no doubt that my cowardness could not have been taken lightly. There were even times in the late of night when my mother and the house maids were dead asleep in their blissful dreamlands and rudely awakened by the screams coming from across the hall way. I tried to brush this aside as a cause of accumulative of my waking hours spent in the family study, engorged in my late father's mythology books which he brought home after a trip he had taken. My favorite ones were those of the dark tales of the north which usually kept me up all night reading until the very last page.

Pile after pile of lies the weight of my masked away problems were starting to become a burden on me. The pressure it was enforcing upon my brain kept pushing me deeper in the ground as each day past, close to the point of meeting my grave.

I leaped forth and quickly tiptoed out from my bedroom towards the long destination to the bathroom. Time seemed to stop. The still darkness was overshadowed by the eluminating glow of the full moon, lighting my way through the shadows. This didn't dispense the eerie aura that was watching in the abyss. The cold marble floor past shivers through my spine as I quietly made my way to the sink in an attempt to not make my presence know.

No one would know…

My hand reached for the knob in haste where it was ice to the touch. "Another day without hot water," I sighed deeply. All of a sudden my hands had a mind of its own and began to splash water furiously at my face, believing I was still in slumber.

Wash…Wash…Wash…that is what I wanted my mind to do. Scrub away all my worries, though I wish it were that simple. I stood silent for a moment. Frozen in an uncomfortable position which made my entire back muscles ache to stop this treachery. My thoughts were concentrating on breathing properly as the constant suffocation of water drained the life out of me.

There I slowly brought up the strength to pick up my head and look at the mirror, ignoring the voices in my mind asking me to do the opposite. To my dismay I saw what appeared to be me-long locks of cherry colored hair, full lips, and the skin color of a ghostly white. Nothing too out of the ordinary from a place where the sun doesn't shine anymore. My hair was the only thing brightening my dark of day.

But what struck me more profoundly were those eyes. Looking into those eyes was like peaking into a soul with a sad story. Even though my life wasn't grand, this story wasn't mine shining through. Squinting my eyes, I observed very thoroughly at the person, investigating the conditions of my certain doubts. Those eyes weren't mine on the opposite side of the mirror. My suspicion was surely a truth uncovered. If had not seen I would have thought I was looking at myself, but this clearly was a trick I managed to capture in time.

Just as fast as I caught this foolery the reflection vastly transformed into an image of a man-slightly taller compared to my stature with chocolate hair to compliment his defined, whiskered face. A powerful expression was written across this handsome appearance though his eyes, as discovered before, told a different side to him. He dressed in a soldier's attire with what seemed to be in a style of a high rank officer. This outfit he presented extenuated his slim muscular appeal detailing even his broad shoulders through his suit.

There we stood in complete astonishment.

Drip…Drop…Drip…Drop

Not a word spoken. Just the words coming from the water faucet.

Drip…Drop…Drip…Drop

Time progressed and the water droplets began to speak in tongue.

No…One…Would…Know…No…One…Would…Know

I began to blanket my sudden fear by contemplating the solution that this was surreal. The hallucinations were part of this gentlemen's scheme. He wanted me to part from his gaze, a treacherous game to play on a young girl's heart if you ask me. Then, as this wasn't enough to send my blood coursing through my veins, he spoke just four measly words, "No…One…Would…Know."

My legs rapidly sprung into actions and carried my out of the bathroom into the covers of my safe bed.

Taking no second chances of having another encounter with this phantom I locked my door and jabbed my wooden desk chair under the door knob. Like that was going to stop him from floating through the walls.

I whimpered in the covers of my quilt, singing a jazz tune to distract my negative thoughts spinning in my head. But my mind was focused on one thing; the voice who spoke to me coolly was his.