The doors were slapped shut behind her and inside was quiet. Shadows played along the walls from the few torches that were lit along the corridor. Nothing sat in the hall other than a large grandfather clock. It felt dead inside this large building. Roisin didn't see anything and shadows played along the walls creating the illusion of life. The hair on the back of her neck stood up and goose bumps broke out on her skin. There was this incessant feeling that someone was behind her but when she looked the hall was empty. Then a cold hand wrapped around her upper arm as if to guide her to another room but when she turned a trapped high pitch scream escaped her throat. No one was there but the feeling of someone touching her was still there. She kept gasping in shrieking constricted breaths like she couldn't get enough air in her lungs. That panic attack feeling was taking over her emotions and she felt the weight of her lungs pulling tighter and tighter.
A door magically opened in front of her and Roisin was shoved into a library. It smelled of beautiful thick books. Every free space on the walls was lined with bookshelf upon bookshelf of books. A large desk sat to the left side of the room close to the window and two sitting chairs sat in front of the ornate fireplace that filled the middle of the wall in front of her.
A masculine voice like whispered silk said behind her, "The master will be here soon. Wait here."
Roisin swung around quickly but the same emptiness greeted her in the doorway. The goosebumps returned as the door slowly closed and the creaking of the hinges finally stopped when it shut.
Another very masculine, magnetically musical voice chimed behind her, "Scheuen Sie sich nicht von ihm zu sein. Es ist mir, Sie fürchten sollten."
Roisin spun around afraid to be talked to by thin air but she was not. A man stood next to the fire, half of his face hid by a white mask. He was tall, around 6'3, if she had to take a guess and he was dressed in all black except for a crisp clean white undershirt. She wanted to cower at his size but stepped closer. If he wanted to hurt me then why did he save me from those people trying to kill me? I don't think he will.
"I do not speak German"
"Ah," he said in English, "An English woman. I said, don't be afraid of him. It is me you should be afraid of."
"I highly doubt that."
He cocked an eyebrow, "Why ever would you say that?"
"Because a man doesn't save an innocent woman just so she can be afraid of him."
His green eyes twinkled beneath the eyes holes, "That may be true, but monsters hide under the most treacherous skin. Take Lucifer for example, he was the most beautiful angel of them all and his beauty hid a snake."
"Coming from a man wearing a mask, I find that quite rich. I think a monster is a monster by how the person looking perceives it. Ugly things may appear to be monsters while beautiful things appear to be, well beautiful, but that doesn't change what it hides. It is all about perspective."
"You are a strange philosopher. What may this philosopher's name be?"
"Roisin."
He sounded it out," Ro-sheen. That is rather coincidental."
"What is?"
"That your name should mean 'little rose'."
"And that is suppose to be coincidental why?"
"I suppose it is only coincidental to me."
Her eyebrows rose as if to pose another question but he cut her off as he turned towards the fireplace to ponder before she could ask anymore about it.
"I suppose you will be staying here for a little while. It seems that you didn't make any friends, with you dressed so strangely and being a philosopher of monsters."
"Hey!" he turned his unmasked side towards her and it seemed she could imagine what he would look like if he didn't wear it. His jaw line was squared off perfectly and his lips seemed to pout into a hard line just to take focus off of how perfectly shaped they appeared. Softness sat in his golden green eyes although his expression remained hard and emotionless. The golden wheat hair that curled over his forehead was slashed with darker blondes, which gave contrast to the lighter parts, "You never gave me your name?"
"Emmerick."
It was as if she blinked and he was gone like magic. Well now what was she to do? The heaviness of being watched still broke through her thoughts as the hair raised on the back of her neck. That sickening feeling of tingles ran down to the backs of her legs and caused her to shiver. Roisin looked around the library her eyes darting across the walls. Finally she left the room to search for a safe room to take up sleep.