song:
Easy on me by Adele

AS I NEAR TO MY bed, loud sounds of something hitting catch my ears. I discard the towel which I used for my bath and rush out of my room to follow the trail of sounds. This house even if antique, has thin walls and due to the placement in the jungle makes it easier for sounds voices, or noises to deliver smoothly.

I pick up a knife while passing from the kitchen and walk up to the stairs where the sound is heard. With a quick scan around me, I softly padded toward the long hallway having dim lights, the sound is loud and clear. Someone hitting something soft.

Didn't Caterina hear anything? Her room is just a few feet away but due to the locked door, I am not sure if she sleeps like a log.

With my palm, I open the door as it creaks open making a noise proving to be old. The room is dark so with a swift round putting the knife forward I take a step and look for the light. But as soon as I take a step ahead, the floor opens and I fall. "Fucking shit." I don't have time to say anything when I fall from the last staircase. I remove the dust from my hands by clapping against each other.

"What a place!" I mumble. Just when my eyes look up, I find candles around me. The sound stops and a silent song of crickets takes place. I find a white dress figure in the hall. I squint my eyes in confusion and just when I am about to ask who is it, the figure scurries away.

I lift myself and charge after the figure. But with a zig-zag, it made me left out with nothing but the sound of anklets. My brows furrow, a woman?

I run back to where I came from and go to knock on the door of Caterina. My fingers form a fist as I hit the door but she doesn't respond.

"Caterina!" I slap against the door. "Caterina, someone is there. Caterina." I continue doing it but she doesn't respond nor does she opens the door.

"Is she sleeping like a pig?" I mumble to myself. "I will talk to her tomorrow then." With a glance behind the door and hers, I go back to mine and instead of sleeping soundly, I put a knife and torch beside my bed so that if again the sound appears I can easily track it down.

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The loud crack of something bursting pull me out of my sleep. I quickly hold the torch and knife aiming in the air. I sigh relaxing my body when I find no one is here but my spine stiffens when I get to know it is happening downstairs.

I slowly drag down the door latch and peep out from both sides. I thought coming here will at least give me a sense of contentment but I guess from the point we entered this house nothing but a consistency of alert rings in my brain. With one last step I stand near the door of the kitchen and when I am about to find out who is the person, Caterina shouts, "Oh Umbria, pensavo che sarebbe stato facile fare questa merda ma come posso sbagliarmi così tanto da pensare che avrò in mano una tazza di tè del cazzo."

[translation: Oh Umbria, I thought it will be easy to make this shit but how can I be so wrong to think it will be in my hand to make a cup of fucking tea.]

I chuckle lowering down my weapons as I come because of the huge mess she made. She turns to glare at me. "Do you think it's a comedy circus that you're laughing at me?"

I fold my arms arching a brow to look at her. "If you don't know how to make then you could've waited for me rather be a bitch who says I know everything."

She pulls out the butcher knife from the blocks and limps toward me but I don't step back. Instead, I ask, "I didn't know while making tea we use knives. Were you cutting tea leaves from the plants while making tea?" I swallow the laughter that pokes out of my mouth.

She squints her eyes and huffs. "I was making for both of us." Us?

I furrow my brows in confusion. "Why are you making tea for me?" I scoff while laughing awkwardly. "I don't know whether you put drugs or poison in my drink to give me the best sleep ever."

I flinch when she hits the knife on the countertop forcefully. "While I am trying to act like having a good mood, you are trying to be a bitch in heat. Can't I act normally how many people do?"

I sigh remembering my act of wooing her and then find the perfect knife to stab her. "But you aren't like others," I mumble pulling out her fingers from the knife's hold and holding her hand. "I know that you are trying to be like normal people but we both know you don't fall in that category. So, don't try to act, be what you are."

Her violet eyes widen hearing my confession. "Really? You'll be okay to see me be a psychopath for a week?" I laugh nodding my head swirling warmth in my eyes as I present her my kind of manipulation. And that does the trick, her fingers clutch mine.

Then I remember last night's event. So, as I tell her to clean the dirt, she does while limping, at the same time I ask her, "Do you sleep like a pig?"

She snorts. "Why, did you hear me snoozing?" I shake my head put the tea pan on the electric stove and fill it with tap water.

"No, but I called you repeatedly but you didn't reply once," I state watching the water slowly boil. But when I don't hear any response, I turn back to look at her only to find the knife that I left is being held by her. Blood drips from her hold as I quickly rush to remove the knife from her grasp. "What the fuck are you doing? You're already limping and now this shit?"

"Do I smell caring from you, Mr. Carrozza?" She softly asks me.

I make a frustrated noise from my mouth but don't say anything 'cause by the term of my heart racing just by looking at her getting hurt is forcing my bad side to take a pause and not proceed ahead. I put her palm in the tap water. "Where is the first aid box? I guess I need to tie it knowing that you will all the time get hurt."

She chuckles but somber quickly, "Why did you need me?" She then thinks something dirty causes her eyes to hold mischief. She drags her eyes from my face to my nether region making my dick hard. "Did somebody needs me?" She coos.

"What?" I splutter. I shake my head, "No." I sigh. "You are a pervert. Whatever, I heard something like someone hitting or getting hit upstairs." I put ointment on her palm but to my utter surprise, she yelp in pain. I smirk at her making her roll her eyes.

"Didn't you hear anything at all, even though the room was not far away from yours? I also found an underground passage and there was someone but before catching the culprit, it fled away." I sigh not understanding where did it go.

"You might be hallucinating. Also, yesterday I had two sleeping pills instead of one so I couldn't wake up." She hastily replies. I pinch my brows as I examine her stiff posture. Knowing that she won't open up, I look around and find the hall to be clean so the maids did come early and had done their work.

"What are you going to do now?" I wash my hands and walk to the boiling water to pour a few tea leaves. "Milk or without it?" I ask not looking back at her.

"Milk." I nod my head and fetch the milk cartoon from beside me into a cup and wait for the water to get mixed properly. Then I spill the milk into the pan and take her request of one sugar cube and mine too into the two cups. With a final stir, I pour the tea into the cups with the help of a tea strainer.

She mumbles a quiet thank you, her cheeks in heat of embarrassment, after a while she replies to my question, "I don't know, probably clean the field behind to start the grow of vegetables."

I nod my head, the time to search for her history will be easy for me. "Okay."

She turns to look at me. "You can come and help me."

I do an awkward laugh. "I am not good at gardening. Also, I need some rest. I couldn't sleep due to the constant thought of someone present rather than us."

She sighs. "I'm telling you, you're hallucinating."

I shake my head. "I'm not and it'll be better if I'm. Also, I wasn't drunk, Caterina that I will imagine things."

"Maybe the sound came from outside."

I snort. "My ears aren't that old to not distinguish where the sound came from. Then how come I walked down the underground staircase?" She abruptly stands and asks me to follow her, and I do.

"Which room?" I point at the last second room and we both head to the hallway. At last, we reach the room. "This one, right?" I nod my head and she opens the door. The same sound the door makes which confirms that I wasn't imagining.

She walks right and switches on the light. My eyes try to focus. I calculate the steps I had taken and when I reach the same trial, I tell her the hidden passage but she looks at me funnily. I look down and find that there isn't any hole like last night.

"It was here." I kick downwards to the white floor but not a sound of any hollowness appears. My wide eyes find her cold ones and I sheepishly say, "It was here. The hole, I swear."

"You're wasting my time, Leone. I'm going and you do whatever you want to." She walks out leaving me in the pool of confusion. I look down the closed gap but find nothing.

The last night was real, wasn't it?

I sigh and taking one last look at the attic, I proceed to move out not before stumbling over something hard. I glance down to find a small hardcover and lift it where the lines on the diary are: A mia figlia che è un mostro.

[ translation: to my daughter who is a monster.]

I flip the first few pages and find nothing until my finger reaches the hundredth page.

02nd April:

I look down at the baby with my blood coating every gap between each finger. I trace her beautiful face, it's the first time Aurora showed me my child, my heir, my beautiful made monster who will rule my kingdom. I smile at her penetrating violet eyes, those eyes that look so cruel, so violent yet so innocent and I'll be so glad to remove the last emotion.

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was anything real last night or was it just a fragment of his imagination?
However, I hope you are enjoying reading it.