Bubbles opened her large blue eyes.
The light from outside had lit up her white room. She looked like she was in heaven; pure and white and clean and simple.
She groaned.
Her head hurt badly and her neck, her neck felt so sore!
It took her a while to move for her body felt so heavy, but eventually she could lift her hand and put it to her neck. A shiver ran through her when she felt the puncture marks, two neat ones a short distance away from each other.
Had last night been real then?
Was there really evil in this place?
Why hadn't she been killed?
She looked at her arm and saw bruises decorating it. She had been hurt rather badly. She lifted herself out of bed and looked down at herself. There was some blood on her neck and vest, but not much. On her left knee was a burn mark, though she couldn't work out how she'd gotten it. Her neck was bruised and swollen also.
"Should I run away?" she wondered, "run back home? But what if that monster comes after me? It would kill papa. And what of Blossom? She came here many months ago. If I could find her, maybe we can find a way to escape together."
There was a polite knock on the door. Bubbles called for them to come in.
A woman marched in briskly. She too was deathly pale, long blonde hair pulled back into a severe bun.
"Still lounging about?" she snarled, "and on your first day too? It's disgusting. Luckily for you the Mistress has decided to be lenient on you." She appraised Bubbles silently before sneering, "I can't say I'm surprised. She always loves the pretty ones. But you won't stay pretty for long."
She handed Bubbles a pile of folded clothes. "These are to be your new uniform. Wash your face then get dressed, I want you in the kitchen, located in the on the far end of this hall, very quickly. You are to put your hair up; we don't want it hanging out. Understand?"
"Yes Madam."
"Good." The woman went to leave but paused to add, "and my name is Ms. Scara to you. Remember the name. I am your superior and in charge of all the staff here."
Bubbles washed her face with some water left by Ms. Scara in a basin. It was icy cold and flushed her skin to a pale pink before drying it out. Her dress was a pale blue, with a high collar and reaching her knees. Her cheap shoes and tights were black and warm.
She wandered out of the room and down the hall which was dark despite it only being morning. As she walked she tied her hair into two pig-tails and looked at her surroundings. The walls were covered in scary faces. They looked like gargoyles or demons. They looked down at her, pulling faces and waggling their tongues. It was disturbing.
"This house is strange and frightening. I want to go home. Perhaps, when I find Blossom, I will convince her to leave this place. Even with food I don't think I can stand to live here indefinitely." She wondered how Blossom had managed to stay so long. She had only stayed one night and her nerves felt fried.
At the end of the hall was a white door. It was at odds with the rest of the hallway which was mostly black with dark greens, grey and scarlet interlaced with the images of monsters and grotesques.
Bubbles put her ear to the door. She expected to hear the hustle and bustle of many servants getting ready, but there was nothing.
She opened the door and walked inside. The room was mostly dark brown, made out of oak wood. There was a long table in the middle of the room. No places were set out apart from one.
"Maybe it is very late and everyone else is working," she thought, before sitting down and looking at her plate. It was some simple gruel, made mostly from animal fat and onion, and a crust of bread. She ate it all gratefully and once again tried to push guilty thoughts of her father away.
Afterwards she walked around the kitchen. There were eighteen seats on the table, so she reasoned there must be at least eighteen staff members, though such a large castle would surely need more?
There was a large cooker, but it was very clean, almost as though it had not been used.
"It's almost as if I'm all alone here," she thought before noticing a note left on the side.
'Blonde Girl,
Go collect a mop and bucket in the corner. Then go up into the West wing (that's on the right, as I can only guess that you are a fool and won't know otherwise) on the second floor and begin to mop out the old bedrooms (look out for the blue door). You are also to polish everything and to sweep the carpet. Get all of the rooms done. I will inspect your work in three hours. Failure will be met with punishment.
~Ms. Scara.'
Bubbles had to assume that the note was left for her. She looked at the corner and did indeed spot a bucket and mop. The bucket was filled with grey cold water, so she filled it afresh from the tap before going back out into the hallway.
She walked down the vast staircase she had been led up the day before. The whole house was silent. It was bizarre. Where was everyone? Lady Elizabeth, Lady Seduca, the servants? Where were they?
The bucket was too heavy so she carried it down the stairs and then went back up for the mop. She then stumbled through the second floor, making sure she turned right, trying not to spill water on the carpet.
"'Look out for the blue door,'" she repeated in her mind, "but what did she mean? Am I not to go in the blue one, or is that one I should definitely walk into?"
The second floor looked as if it weren't used often. The hallway was slightly brighter, for down here there were windows, but then were covered by heavy curtains. All around cobwebs covered the walls, chandeliers and ceiling and the floor was thick with dust, so much in fact that when she walked she left a trial of footsteps.
"It will take a long time to clean all of this."
Bubbles came to the first door. She opened it and went inside, immediately coughing from all the dust that billowed out of it.
The room was a dark blue and was circular. The curtains were black and shut. She walked across the floor, which was littered with clothes and toys, before opening the curtains with relish. The pure light of innocent day burst through and eradicated the shadows in what must have been the first time in years. She looked around. "This room must have belonged to a child," she saw three beds in the centre of the room and amended her thought to, "three children. Little boys," she added, seeing toy soldiers and chariots on the floor.
Going by the amount of mess made they must have been quite rambunctious. She smiled in spite of herself. She began to pick up all the toys, polishing them dutifully on her white apron before putting them away. There was a toy box which was flung up-side down. She righted it and placed them in there. When it was too full she noticed a number of shelves were loose, so she fixed them onto the wall and put the things up there neatly.
She realised with some amusement that there was three of everything, as if the boys did not know how to share, and that most of the toys were colour co-ordinated red, blue, and green. Even the beds had these three colours.
She wondered why the Blue Boy managed to have the bedroom walls painted his favourite colour. Perhaps he had been the favourite of his parents.
The floor was wooden and painted white with a black spiral twisting round into the centre. She moped following its pattern and wondering about the children and the house. Who had they been? She didn't remember anything about three little boys once living here. She wanted to ask her papa, but he was far from her now. And her sister was still nowhere to be seen.
"I'll be brave next time," she swore, "I won't be intimidated by Ms. Scara and I will ask her about Blossom instead. Maybe even Buttercup, who knows, she may have come here."
The room was nearly completed. She opened up a window to help get the dust out, despite the cold. The land was pure white, the sky a thick grey. Snow was falling again. She thought of Lady Elizabeth with her long red hair and talon-like nails. "I wonder if she has her bedroom window open to let in the snowflakes. I wonder if she is still looking into that mirror." Bubbles did think there was a sort of dark, elegant beauty to Elizabeth Morbucks, but she decided that the long red hair of her sister more beautiful and natural.
Bubbles missed her sisters terribly.
She moved away from the window, she had learnt long ago that it was pointless mourning over her family, and began to tidy the beds. As she fluffed one of the pillows, a rather large sheet of paper fell out from underneath it.
The sheet of paper had a picture on it, a ripped oil painting of three little boys. They were wearing their signature colours and glaring up at Bubbles. They had the same intensity she saw in the other family pictures around the castle. They must have been relatives of Lady Elizabeth and Seduca; they must have been Morbucks themselves.
They didn't look like sweet-natured boys, but there was something about them that drew her to them. A sort of innocence that still existed in them. She focused in. They were cute, that much was true. Little round creatures, their hair a little too long, well-dressed and visibly spoiled. She stroked the blond one's face. They must have been around eight or nine years old when the picture was painted. It also looked like they were triplets, like her and her sisters.
"Strange, they look like us a little," she thought.
"What are you doing in here!" bellowed a voice so loudly that Bubbles shrieked and dropped the picture.
Ms. Scara was standing in the doorway, her hair was free and almost white, and her facial expression was almost wild and evil.
"I-I clean, just like you said!" cried Bubbles.
Ms. Scara grinned and licked her lips before crooning, "I told you not to come here. You disobeyed, now...now you shall be punished!"
"No, please, I'm sorry! Ow!"
had grabbed Bubbles by one of her pig tails and was now dragging her down all the stairs into a basement. Bubbles did not see but as Ms. Scara slammed the door of the boys' room, all the dust was removed, revealing the door as being blue.
"I knew you would fail!" she trilled, "and now, and now you will be punished! Just like the others!"
The further down they went, the darker it became until when they reached the door of the basement, which was black with a red up-side down crucifix on it, it may as well have been midnight.
Ms. Scara took one of the keys from her heavy chain wrapped around her waist and opened the door, throwing Bubbles inside. Bubbles fell down a few concrete stairs which were directly behind the door. As she slowly lifted herself, whimpering, she heard the groans of people in pain and agony.
Bubbles began to realise where all the other servants were.
All along the basement walls were cages, most of them very small, almost like ones you would keep and animal in. But instead of a small animal, most had a human cramped up inside. On some of the walls people were hanging from chains, their legs left to dangle causing untold pain in their arms. Everyone was naked and bloodied and bruised. The basement was a dungeon. A torture dungeon.
Bubbles began to cry in terror and horror. This was a thousand times worse than she could ever imagine. Ms. Scara dragged her arm and threw Bubbles to the ground before she began to rip at the throat of her dress, clawing at the collar and tearing it.
"I knew they had a taste of you!" she cried in exaltation seeing the puncture marks on Bubbles' neck, "what a dirty little whore you are!" she laughed.
Bubbles wept, she didn't understand.
"I haven't done anything wrong," she cried, "please, don't hurt me!"
But Ms. Scara did not care. Being a sadist, Bubbles' tears only heightened her own amusement. Pulling the girl to her feet, Ms. Scara flung her into a cell where a few other bodies were huddled in the corner.
"Just wait until tonight!" she hissed, "in a few hours they shall be hungry and in need of good sport, and you my girl shall be the blood feast for tonight!"