Sulfur droplets fell from the smog covering the sky. Toxic rain poured over a desertic land. The creatures inhabiting the area weren't trying to hide from the acid rain. Their thick skins were used to the weather. Suddenly, the earth shook and an angry red liquid oozed on the ground.
Canary woke up from her dream. Unless it was a nightmare. The girl wasn't sure how to label it. The gloomy place was frequent in her slumbers. The environment was hostile but not ill-spirited. The predatory sceneries were simply the way of life in that place.
Hardly anything grew on the grounds. Even the grass was uncommon in the arid land. The ecosystem survived by hunting. A whole ecosystem made of carnivorous sentient beings that occasionally cannibalised their own.
The society she lived in had a peculiar definition of hunting. It wasn't a necessity like in the place of her dreams. And it wasn't a bonding activity like depicted in the stories her grandmother used to tell. It was a merciless culture.
A culture she was dangerously gravitating around since her employers were Hunters themselves. The status granted them the uncommon leeway to kill without fearing prosecution. That was what hunting was about in society.
She didn't have a deep knowledge of that way of life. Her estate's gatekeeper job didn't allow her to see much of the hunts. But the House's wisest man was known never to harm innocent people. That had to be the reason the Zoldyck family was the most renowned.
Hunters who operated without a moral code made two kinds of enemies. The survivors sought revenge for the injustice, and the unsecured acolytes took the first chance to neutralise them. At least, that's how she deduced things were from the little she witnessed.
Dressing in her tuxedo uniform, Canary noticed her fever hadn't gone down from the previous day. She thought she could sleep her fever away. She was hardly sick and resting used to cure whatever illness she suffered.
When she was little, her grandmother would settle her inside a basket filled with hot water and some leaves. She hadn't needed the hot water treatment for a decade. But maybe it would help cure the burn under her skin.
If she still felt unwell in the evening, she would have a hot bath before her night shift. Until then, she would stick to her daily tasks.
Canary woke up from a dream. She didn't remember anything besides her fall into deep waters. As she regained her senses, she felt lighter than ever. And also colder. The air was chilly, probably because of the rain pouring outside and her light dress.
The girl then realised she was in an unfamiliar environment. Looking around, it looked like a nursing room. The window was open, and the rainwater was let inside. She rose from the medicalised bed to close it.
Getting to her feet, she noticed she was only wearing a hospital gown. She rushed to the window. Her body moved more easily than when she wore the mandatory weighted garments. Standing weightless in the wind had felt thrilling and dare she say, freeing.
Those were emotions she didn't often feel. She then wondered how sleeping with the windows open during the rain would feel. The wind would play a wuthering melody while the chilly air waves brushed her form.
She felt disobedient for simply fantasising like she did. Thrills. Freedom. These words felt almost taboo. There was no room for sensations-seeking in her line of work. And she was bound to her employer's house until death.
She took a deep breath to regain her composure. She had to arrange the room before leaving. As she collected the sheets, she noticed red spots on the fabric. Up close, she confirmed it was fresh blood.
The feat was strange since she didn't feel any pain. Reasoning she might be under pain medication, Canary inspected her shirt. There were also fresh bloodstains in the back. She thought it was due to an injury that reopened during her sleep.
The attached bathroom should have all the necessities for bandaging. She would have a hard time stitching back parts she couldn't see. But she could hold the haemorrhage until an older butler helped.
On her way to the attached bathroom, she felt a hot and thick liquid leaking from her insides. The iron smell left no doubts that it was blood. Clutching her gown to refrain red drops from reaching the ground, she ran to the drawer and retrieved the emergency kit.
She was bleeding and she didn't know why or how it happened. The last thing she remembered was falling in the water. And now, a bloodstream was leaking from her. After some inspections, she realised the bleeding was internal.
She couldn't bandage her insides and lined some bandages on her panty to prevent bloodstains. Then, she cleaned the hospital gown and the bedsheets. All of the fabric would end in a wash-machine basket. She only needed to clean the blood off.
Finally, she dressed in her uniform and left the nursing room. Her watch read seven in the afternoon before she walked down the employee compound's halls. She looked for anyone who could take care of her injury.
Arriving in the main hall, she encountered the House's oldest butler. Tsubone was a third-age woman of a high and buff stature. Feeling lucky, Canary approached the tall woman and said she was internally bleeding.
Together, they walked inside the nursing room. The woman wondered out loud if she had an internal injury they hadn't noticed until now. She recounted having smelled blood on the girl for a while. She had witnessed her falling unconscious after slipping on the wet ground.
Tsubone took care of the fever that she suspected to be the cause of her illness. She recounted that the smell of blood was stronger. The woman then called for a doctor as she supposed a days-long internal injury had infected and induced the fever.
Two hours ago, the doctor didn't find any worrisome signs. He only administered a fever treatment and left Canary to rest. But since the girl was now bleeding, there might be something they didn't notice. The senior butler advised her to remain in the nursing room as her condition may be a curse.
But before calling a doctor again, she had to see what was happening. The girl installed the discarded sheets on the medicalised bed before lying on it. Then, Tsubone undid the bandages to see where the blood came from.
The woman stilled when she inspected the injuries. She told the clueless girl that what she was going through was never supposed to happen. Not with their rigorous training and strict diet. The woman had to report the issue to their employers.
Canaray was anxious that her condition was severe enough to threaten her position as an employee. She waited in the room as instructed while Tsubone went away. The oldest butler returned with a doctor who took some samples of her blood.
The girl then received the command to remain inside the nursing room until she was allowed to leave. The younger one wondered if she had a contagious illness. She didn't feel sick. Quite the contrary. Her fever was over.
Plus, her night shift hadn't started yet. She could still clock in as if nothing happened. But orders weren't negotiable and she laid back in bed. Looking at the window, she was tempted to open it again to feel the airwaves. As the hours passed, her eyes closed on the fantasy she was gliding through the wind.
Canary didn't sleep much during the evening spent inside the nursing room. Her bandages were soaked in blood in the middle of the night. She removed the used ones and retrieved another set to conceal her bleeding.
The amount of blood she cleaned alarmed her. She lost so much that it seemed her wounds were wide open. She also had to clean the bedsheets again. After that, she checked her bandage every few hours to ensure it didn't leak.
She kept checking during the following morning. No one entered the room until late in the afternoon. Tsubone returned with a biology booklet and Canary's blood test results. The woman informed her she was free to leave the nursing room.
The girl could take a few bandage kits and return to her room. But until then, she would be suspended from her position as a gatekeeper. Her daily training was still mandatory and her results would determine if she could recover her position.
Canary read the booklet's ten pages first. The topics were feminine hormones and menstruation. She never learned about it. Then again, she didn't attend a regular school, having entered her employer's estate when she was seven.
The biology lessons she received focused on emergency nursing and common illnesses. She didn't know she was supposed to go through puberty a few years ago. She wondered if she would experience puberty's symptoms.
She was curious to know if she would have a growth spurt. Growing taller could be helpful for her. On a lower note, her smell could become stronger. That would be detrimental to her. So would gaining body fat and experiencing menstrual symptoms.
Suddenly discovering so much about herself was underwhelming. Her hormones would have a cycle that could affect her mood and physical abilities. She remembered Tsubone stating it wasn't supposed to happen.
She then read her blood test results. The figures showed that her hormone levels were three times above the average. The medical team concluded that the estate's regimen wasn't calibrated for such levels and only delayed her periods.
The other girls in training would probably never have their periods. Her peers would never worry about their hormones making their performances fluctuate. Flipping the booklet, seven of its ten pages listed various symptoms and advice to ease periods.
The first one was often the least painful. For the next months, she could expect cramps, digestive issues, fatigue, mood swings and lesser symptoms. She would also have to avoid stress and injuries.
She understood how the condition could undermine her work. The girl felt cursed to an extent. It was as if she were trapped on an infinite roller-coaster. She better memorise the booklet tips to alleviate menstrual symptoms.
Canary held her level head as a badge of honour. She wouldn't let her new condition change it. She hadn't experienced mood swings yet and reasoned that nearly a decade of training couldn't be undone in a few months, provided she kept her rhythm.
In six months, she was forced to reconsider her position. Puberty affected her more than she imagined but in a different way than she thought. Hormones didn't affect her body memory or focus. But they did affect her shape and energy.
She gained in endurance but lost in explosivity. She could run longer but now had to work harder to maintain her speed and fierceness. Her pain tolerance increased but so did her weight, especially on her lower side.
Her new figure made the teachers comment that she had to lengthen up. She maintained her performance but her appearance made people doubt her abilities. She found herself out-doing each exercise to prove she was still capable.
She was still the one called to demonstrate the hardest moves. Yet, the teachers kept asking her why she wasn't getting back in shape. No matter how she performed, they assumed she would be better if she were leaner.
At least, she maintained her level head despite the teaching body nearly harassing her. That allowed her to recover her position as a gatekeeper by the fourth month following her first period.
Recovering her shift lifted a weight off Canary's morale. It rained on her first night back at the estate's gates. The weather was the same as on the first night of her period. Nothing happened that night and she clocked off a little before the sunrise.
When she entered her bedroom, she noticed that her ceiling leaked. Again, there seemed to be a water issue in her room. That was becoming as recurrent as her weird dreams of the carnivorous land. It wasn't a lot of water, but still.
When her ceiling wasn't leaking, her windows had an issue or her sink would be broken. Her bedroom was the only place in the compound that acted like a run-down house. And it was always a water issue.
She left her personal space and walked to a door she often knocked on. Sebastian was a new butler hired to replace Gotoh, a deceased one. He was also the one who helped her with her water issues.
He started working in the house soon after the eldest son's return from the Dark Continent's exploration. He might as well have originated from there. Little was known about the place save for its amazing resources. And Sebastian was beyond amazing.
The brunette man must have known it was her, because he opened his door with his home repair kit. This time, the issue was a missing tile on the roof. After repairing the roof, he returned to her room to fix the stains.
He had removed his jacket and rolled his sleeves up for more comfort. It wasn't the first time he repaired something in her room. But this time, there was another water leak in the room. Something in how the shirt underlined Sebastian's muscle made Canary's inner muscle leak.
It was a hot sensation she never felt before. Walking behind him to close her door was painful. She instinctively closed her windows and curtains. Then, she undressed and saw that gooey water soaked her panties.
Sitting on her bed, her lips were engorged and dilated. Yet, the ring muscle felt contracted. It was as if her entrance was about to explode, pulsating and pressured between simultaneously opening and closing. Without thinking, she pressed on the muscle.
Her heart wasn't ready for the touch and almost seized. She fell on the bed and closed her knees. The pressure had similar effects and made her lose her mind. The girl covered her mouth with her hand before swaying her fingers through the watering pipe.
She didn't last a minute before effectively seizing and constricting around her fingers. Blissful waves echoed through her whole body for another minute. Then, her eyelids closed on themselves and she fell into a slumber.
Canary slept for four hours until her clock woke her up for her afternoon lessons. Since she had night shifts again, she had her lessons in the afternoon instead of the morning. She had cumulated both the morning and afternoon sessions during her timeout to avoid boredom.
But at the moment, she was groggy even if she felt lighter. Remembering what happened a few hours ago, she lit a scented candle and cleaned her bedsheets before rushing into the attached bathroom for a shower.
Once ready, she left her bedroom with the secrecy of what she did. She must not have been sly enough, because Tsubone held her for a conversation before her shift. The most experienced butler told her she could smell what she did in her bedroom.
Even if she cleaned and put perfume, her insides smelled of want. She could never hide it from the woman or anyone with fine-tuned senses. The elderly one then expanded on how the house prevented puberty because of what she did.
Then, she admonished Canary for what she considered to be a fault. According to her, the girl had to recover her level head before the house decided to rid themselves of her. And only death could terminate her contract.
With the threat in mind, the girl walked to her post. At first, she thought the woman was overreacting. But then, she reasoned that the bliss she experienced was intoxicating. She couldn't afford to lose her mind like that.
An emergency could happen at any time in her line of work. She always had to be ready to give her all into life-or-death situations, planned or not. She just recovered her position and might lose it again.
Tsubone must have reported what she did. The girl must be under scrutiny and already in troubled waters. She mused on the irony of her choice of words. It seemed that everything she went through was because of water.
It unusually rained on her first period. She dreamed of being underwater when her first blood droplets leaked. Since then, there have been water issues in her bedroom. And now, a water episode induced the fever that consumed her earlier.
Canary wasn't superstitious but the coincidences were cumulating. It could also be that she was reading too much into innocent happenings. She brushed her thoughts aside for the night. Keeping her calm always helped and should work in her favour again.