Chapter 3

The air outside of her window was so cold and dark, yet she had no fear of going out into it. Sakura was getting dressed so she can go out to explore all the alleys of Venice, to see if they were really like she imagined in the book before she was taken into it. As she stepped out the window, she paused and looked down, the ground looked like a sea of black at night, but she jumped down from the second floor anyways. "Whoa!" Sakura stumbled back into a bush, "Crap." She got up and brushed herself off and continued on her stroll in the night.

She looked around every corner and down every canal. She was right; it did look just like how she imagined it. Sakura was amazed at how wonderful Venice was; she forgot what her life was like before, with all her friends and family most likely worrying about her. She looked in the shop windows; she saw delicious cakes and beautiful jewelry. She stopped when something caught her eye; it was a mask that looked like the one that the Thief Lord wore. And right next to it was another mask, it was also black, but it didn't have the long raven like nose the Thief Lord had. 'I must have that mask. I'll get it tomorrow.' She thought to her self. She lost focus for a moment, when she looked at the other masks, in the shop window, there as a reflection of a figure like an angel against the moon. She turned around to see if it was an angel, but there was nothing there, just the pale moon, the buildings, and the water. She walked off still looking at the spot she saw the angel, with a small look on her face of fear.

Sakura was melting away into the shadows of the damp alleys. She could have been right in front of you and you couldn't see her when it was at night. It was getting late, and she was tired she started to head back to the orphanage when she heard a noise like shuffling.

"Who's there?" she called out. But nobody answered accept the wind, "Show yourself!"

The wind started to pick up, it was almost strong enough to blow Sakura off her feet. She raised her arms to cover her face for the cold needle pricking air, her eyes where just open enough to see what was around her. She looked around, trying not to fall over into the canal right next to her. "Your mine..." a voice called out from the wind.
She turned and ran with all the speed she had when she saw the angel again. Filled with fear she had lost track of where she was going and got lost, she turned her head to see if there was anyone following her, but what she didn't notice was that she was running straight into a canal. She looked back in front of her, but before she could react, her body jumped instantly across the dark canal. Every thing seemed to freeze because of her fear. Sakura loved to swim, but she would never swim in water that she couldn't see what was under her.

She landed on the other side of the canal, but her foot slipped on the edge. "Ahh!!!!" Sakura screamed as she fell back into the canal.
Sakura went under the water, freaking out and running out of breath too quickly, she opened eyes, everything was dark and the water was hurting her eyes. When she brought her head up, see saw that there was no ledge to grab on to. The current was pulling her along to a small stair case to get up. The current stopped and Sakura swam over to the stairs, dragging herself up onto the brick walk way. She was so tired from struggling in the water that when she stood up, she stumbled over and just about fell in again! She looked around to see where she was, 'Great, I'm lost!' she thought, still looking around to see if the not-so-nice angel was around, but it wasn't. All there was only a few boats and buildings around the water. She made her way through the alleys for about fifteen minutes until she found the San Marco. There she could make her way back to her warm soft bed, hoping that Alysia would still be asleep when she came back in through the window...

The next day Sakura woke up to Alysia sitting at the end of her bed just staring at her. The sunlight beating on her face felt so warm compared to how cold last night was. "Are you all right?" Alysia asked

"Yeah. Just a bit tired. Why?" Sakura asked

"When I woke up, I heard you talking in your sleep."

"Really?"

"Yeah you were saying something about some angel and the canal."

"Uh..." she paused wondering what she was going to say, "Just a dream probably."

"Well breakfast is in half an hour. You might want to get dressed. Can I go play with Sera?"

"Who's Sera?"

"My friend. We met when you and Mark had that funny argument." Alysia giggled remembering what Sakura did to him.

"Sure. And Mark disserved what I gave him."

"Okay. See you at breakfast."

Alysia left the room so quickly, that Sakura didn't get a chance to say good bye. 'Just like a little sister.' thinking to herself, Sakura lifted herself out of bed. Achoo!!!! Sakura sneezed so hard that she fell over back onto her bed. "Oh man." she moaned as she got up again and made her way over to the old dresser that the some of the sisters got at a second hand shop. The man who was the shop owner was so rude! All he had set the price at 200,000 lire; it should have been worth 75,000 lire! She opened the drawer like every other day, listening to the creaking noise it always gave; the paint looked as if it had faded years ago. But it was still good for using. She got dressed, still moaning about how cold she felt, she knew she was sick, but nobody could find out about that because then she could have been caught about her little adventure the night before. Her punishment would have been even worse than kitchen duty! She put on her thick dark purple sweater and jeans and went down stairs for breakfast. She sneezed several times while down the hallway, a couple other kids passed her, but didn't notice that she had a cold.

She got down to the food room and got her breakfast. Mark came over as usual trying to make a good conversation with her. "Are you okay? You look sick." he asked

"I'm fine."

"Are you sure? 'Cause you look pale."

"I'm sure I'm fine" Sakura replied again trying to hold back a sneeze

"Well you missed a small announcement from Sister Lauren."

"What was it?"

"Dottore Massimo is coming to adopt a child next week. I heard that he isn't happy with his other son because he doesn't have enough discipline."

"Well if that is true, I wouldn't want to make him mad. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go eat my breakfast." she finished and left him again.