[A/N]: New chapter. Enjoy~!
Aya looked at herself in the mirror. She felt sick. Dark, bruise like bags creased the skin under her dull eyes, and with her skin paler than snow. She looked anemic. She dressed slowly, pulling on her regular blue dress and stockings. She moved slowly, passing the brush through her dull strands of hair. The entire vivacious splendor that usually flowed through her being had slowly disappeared over the last couple of days. Aya set the brush down gently on her vanity and stared at her reflection in the mirror. It's been three days since she's seen him. Tears welled up in the corners of her eyes as she bit her pink lower lip. Dio... Dio. How was she supposed to go back there now? Fat tears bubbled up, threatening to spill over. Her face crinkled up, extenuating the dark circles around her sorrowful eyes. Small sobs caught in the back of her throat. She just wanted a friend. How could she fail at something as simple as putting a key into a lock. Her bunny looked at her from his spot in his rabbit hutch, his nose twitching as he stood up on his newly healed hind leg. "What should I do Snowball?" She whispered. A sudden rasp on the nursery door startled the small girl. "Aya are you coming out?" Maria question was muffled by the wood. Aya wiped her face with the sleeve of her dress. She replied with a quiet "yes."
Father sat at the head of the kitchen table sipping on black coffee. He was there the day before as well. A highly unusual occurrence considering he usually spent this time in the library locked away in his own mind as he pulled over material for his experiments. She slid into her chair, and pulled a smile to her face. "Good Morning, Father." She said quietly. Maria brought two plates to the table, cured ham and hen's eggs. Aya's stomach twisted slightly. She wasn't very hungry. Maybe she was getting sick. Father took another sip, before putting down his coffee mug and fixed his glasses. "Aya." Aya stopped pushed the food around her plate and looked up. She forced a sweet smile. "Yes, Father?"
"Aya, are you alright?" Aya put down her fork. "Yes, Father."
"Have you been sleeping?" Aya hesitated. She knew exactly what she looked like and couldn't bring herself to lie. "No, Father."
"Why not?" Aya shook her head, her black bangs covering her eyes. As much as she loved Father she couldn't tell him about Dio. She wouldn't let him be taken from her. She looked back up and squared her shoulders once more. "I heard a noise." Father tilted his head slightly, eyes boring into her face. "A noise..?"
"Yes. Snowballs kept shifting in his hutch." Father lead back in his chair again. "Then maybe we should move him to a room of his own."
"No!" Aya shouted. Father raised an eyebrow. "I mean, no. I'm sure he'll settle down now that his foot is healed." Father let out a sigh. "Very well, but if you're still not sleeping at night by the end of this week something will have to be done."
"...Yes, Father." Breakfast passed in a quiet stupor. Interrupted only once by a piercing scream of a tea kettle pronouncing itself as done. Father left for the library not long after the dishes had been collected, and Maria slunk back to clean the lab, unwelcomed to join in Father's research, leaving Aya alone once more. Before exiting the kitchen completely though the doctor had turned back, his glasses catching the glare of the morning light and said something that made Aya's blood run cold. "Aya, stay on the main levels of the house. It's dangerous to go wandering around alone." The second he left she scrambled from her chair.
She climbed the stairs once more, this time a nervous knot tightening in her abdomen. She'd never lied to him before and he'd never banned her from areas of the house excluding his lab and study. She loved Father no matter what, how could that lie role so well of her inexperienced tongue. She took the last two steps quickly, darting down the hallway and away from the unseen prying eyes she always felt around her. She silently locked the door to her nursery and picked Snowball up from his hay filled home. Throwing a cautious glance over her shoulder she stole herself away inside her wardrobe. Scooting back as far as the limited space would allow, Aya brought her stocking clad knees to her chest and set Snowball down on top of them. She stroked his fur softly for a few moments letting the silence soothe her frayed nerves. The first words she muttered came out no louder than a whisper. "I can't obey father this time, Snowball." She was surprised when tears didn't form in the corners of her eyes at the realization. It hurt to know that as much as she knew she loved Father that she couldn't be honest without a prickle of fear creeping up her spine for Dios sake. She kicked the locked wardrobe door angrily at the thought. Since when has Father ever been anything except a nice, gentle father? He's never hurt anyone! 'Then why is Dio locked up in the basement?' It's not because of Father! 'Then who?' Maybe he came here by himself. 'And shackled himself?' Maybe he was trying to steal something? 'Then why shackle him?' So they police can come and collect him? 'It's been at least three days and he's still, right?' Maybe he's already gone it has been three days. 'Then why don't we go see?' He doesn't want to see us. 'Who said?' Shouldn't it be obvious? Besides how am I supposed to go see him with Father and Maria watching? 'Who shackled him?'
"BE QUIET!" Aya kicked the doors again harder than last time. The little voice in the back of her head just needed to shut up. This time though something clicked and she fell backwards, tumbling through the back of the wardrobe. A tiny shriek escaped her throat as her world went black.
The ravenette's little head was pounding. "...What just happened?" She tried to soothe the goose egg forming on her forehead. The little pocket she was in was long and narrow and pitch black in both directions like a tiny unlit room. The only light came from the ceiling. As her eyes adjusted, Aya realized the light was coming from a small doorway with a dangling latter attached to the wall a few feet up. Snowball leaned over the edge looking at her. "I could've broken my neck..." Looking around the little girl realized she was in a hallway filled with dirt and cobwebs like the secret passages in the books filling her nursery to the brim. An ember of curiosity and excitement was being fanned within her for first time in weeks. "Snowball, I think..." She hesitated, thinking her words over carefully. "I don't know." She looked around "I don't know where this goes, but I'm going to find out." She smiled cheerily for the first time in days. "I'm going to go exploring." Aya felt along the walls for a light switch for a few minutes before coming up empty. Slightly annoyed, she climbed the ladder and crawled through the light portal before snatching up the flashlight she hid under her pillow that she used to read after lights out and grabbed a red ribbon from her desk. She tied back her raven locks before twirling around and faced her bunny. "Want to come with me, Snowball?" The rabbit sneezed and shook his head. Aya rolled her eyes and picked him up. "Oh Snowball, sometimes you have not sense of adventure. You don't want to be the Watson to my Sherlock as we discover this hidden hallway?" The rabbit scratched his ear and shook his head again. "Okay silly rabbit, you stay snug in your house then." Aya placed him back in his hutch. "Well then, I'm off!" She said making her way back down the passage, the flashlight in her teeth. She turned it on when she hit the landing, taking in the wood and stone.
Broken pieces of plaster crunched under her shoes as she carefully stepped down the old hall, the beam of the flashlight illuminating only a few feet in from of her. She tuned her ears to listen for every little sound they could catch. She could hear water rushing in the pipes running above her head and hear the soft whisper of a draft floating through the decrepit halls. She walk for a few more minutes exploring the hall and trying to piece together where she was in the mansion from her mental map. Her best guess would be heading away from the entryway along the first level. Aya tried to keep straight to make the journey back easier, but a narrow passage caught in the florescent bulb piqued her interest. Looking down the pass a little ray of weak light passed through from a crack in the wall lighting a flame of curiosity engulfing her small body into obeying. The corridor barely bigger than the breadth of a hare as she Aliced her way along as she stared at her own proverbial rabbit's hole. Reaching the light without making a sound felt like it took a glacial ice age, but she finally reached it. The light was pouring in from a small half opened sliding panel on the wall with an oval cut out of whatever was behind it. Aya pressed her eye to the wall and looked.
The room was the library apparently as the copious amounts of books proved. Her eyes ran over the large reading tables lining the back wall before spotting her father sitting on a chair in front of one almost overshadowed by hardbacks and paper, scribbling away furiously on another sheet. Aya's mind exploded with glee as she tried to wrap its fragments around the idea of being not only in a secret passage way, but a network of secret passageways that stretched out all over her home complete with hidden peep holes. She felt like the wood looked more distressed than before. Aya stepped forward tentatively before a sharp cracking sound stopped her heart with fear before the sudden free fall made her scream. "AHHHHHHH!"
Dio squinted in the dark room trying to make out anything from the indistinguishable darkness. The little slices of stale baguette and half empty canister of water where directly to his left. The chains strained the farther me moved past the scraps, which means they were bolted to the wall behind him and from the light he'd been privy to a few indistinguishable days ago, he knew that meant the door to the stairs was on the wall in front of him just a hair to the left. Not that he could escape, even with help apparently it was a futile effort. Aya was sweet and evidently smart, but it seemed like this was the first time she'd been exposed to this kind of treatment. That gave him pause for a second. She obviously wasn't a captive like him and though he entertained the idea of her being an assistant like the green eyed attendant that usually brought him food and supply he ran into two problems. One, she wasn't old enough and not nearly as heartless as it took to take someone's body apart. A ghost of phantom pain caressed his dead eye socket. He shivered. Two, she screamed when she saw his eye, or... eye socket. If she was an assistant then she probably never participated before. The only other possibility for a child like her to be running around a place like this sent silent chills through his bone. Even without much resemblance could Aya be related to that mad doctor? Dio pushed the thought to the back of his mind, unwilling to even try and answer that question.
His ears twitch slightly when a light crashing sound came from what seemed to be above him, some loose debris fell from the ceiling. Did something fall?
Aya groaned from her second fall in one day. She made a mental note to work on her grace and balance in the future, and not to walk on dry rotting wood. She peeled herself away from the crashed box of papers that broke her fall. The light wavered, dimming for a second. The place she landed in this time seemed to be more of a storage space still in use by someone; from the amount of journals and paper she'd say it was safe to assume this was her father's research. The storage space was tiny about 6" by 4" by 3" and stuffed to the brim with moth balls and tiny wood chips littering the floor. She was pretty much trapped with only two methods of escape, crawl through the low ceiling and takes her chances breaking her neck because of rotted floor boards or tries and opens the wall up to the main levels, where ever she was. Aya shrugged, they say third time's the charm. She crouched forward and pushed against the wall in front of her. It moved slightly, but didn't give way. The flashlight traced a beam over the wall and found where the latch fastened into the wall. Looking around Aya picked up a thin piece of chipped wood from the floor. She wedged it in trying to unfasten the latch. The wall gave a creaking groan its metal frame adhering it together shuddered, but opened a crack none the less. Aya pushed the heavy door the rest of the way before stepping out.
She was in her father's study. A room hidden behind his lab. Beakers and test results scattered across the desk she was standing on as well as binder upon binder with the edges of what seemed to be experiment pictures peeking out where shoved in one corner next to a pencil cup. Aya's stomach twisted at the gross images. She whimpered. 'Still think Dio's a thief?' She clutched her free hand to her head. "Be quiet. I'm done talking to you for the day." The tip of her shoes kicked against something lightly on the desk. Pointing her flashlight down her saw the light shine off or a metal ring, full of keys. Her heart speed up, maybe... She shook her head before her hope swelled too much. Aya picked up the set of keys and jumped down from the desk with a quiet thump. Her tiny fingers tightened around the metal. Was she really getting a second shot at this? Aya grinned widely. 'This time. This time we'll do it Dio!'
[A/N]: Well that was a long one. It just kept growing! Yes Aya is kinda crazy, but she's pretty much isolated in that house and has a mad father. (Yes, I know I make bad puns.) R&R if you want another chapter. Alright, it's about four in the morning and I got to finish this up soon before I fall asleeppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppp zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz