Fading Out

Chapter 5

Daisy’s POV

I watched him simply stand in the dark with regret clear on his face. It was too late though. Words and actions could never be undone. Especially those which are so damaging. No person has the right to play with a person, with their emotions, their feelings, their memories. Anger rose from within me even as I saw him go through the puzzle of dark attic and I created a rotten spot where he tried to step.

His sudden yelp of pain was a soothing balm to my wounds and I enjoyed his fear as he quickly realized that I was sealing these holes as well. I had placed him right next to the door and he was moving away from it. It must have been half an hour before he became reckless. What is he doing? I thought as I stared at him move without any caution. As a result he slipped into several real rotten spots.  By the time I understood what he was doing, he was already heading back for the door he had spotted with the help of the little light that seeped in through the holes. For some reason, this reminded me of Samuel.

“Please follow the instructions Samuel. They exist to make things fair.” I said in a composed voice to the back of Samuel and his horse as they ran off once again before the count was finished. Samuel froze and stopped his horse immediately and I internally smiled. He knew that my composed voice was the indicator that I was so angry that one more push would have me beating him mercilessly with a tree branch, of course after wrapping my handkerchief around the spot where I intend to hold it. I was a respectable lady-in-training, after all.

He gave me one of his large smiles, the placating one, and I responded with a bored expression. He flinched at that. Good. He knew I hated not following rules just for the sake of being rebellious. We were the proper people, not those worker-class people who didn’t even care how they looked. “Princess.” He liked to call me that, claiming that I was spoiled like one and hence deserved to be called one, as if he wasn’t one of those who spoiled me. “Sometimes, rules are meant to be broken. Where’s the fun if you aren’t a little rule-breaker? You only live once. Why waste it by living it in a life bound by customs and traditions that are ultimately useless?” This had always sparked off a long debate between the two of us that would continue for days.

It had been one of the things I had tearfully pointed out in the letters that I never sent to him when he was in the army. Like him, I too had kept a whole stash of letters that I never let anyone read. When he was gone, I had gone through them again, remembering fond memories, before tossing them into father’s fireplace.

This Nick was doomed. Everything he did reminded me of his betrayal and anger rose within me once again. As soon as he touched the door, I screamed “CHEATER!” and raised him in the air and shook him as if he were a rag doll. I almost threw him too but for some reason, I didn’t want him dead. I hadn’t killed anyone and he was not going to be my first. He wasn’t worth it. I did change his position so he could start again. An unintended side-effect of my anger was that I accidentally had the lights flashing in the room. It would have blinded me as well but being dead, nothing happened.

His panic at the failure pleased me a little and I spend the next one and a half hours watching him make it through the puzzle. I didn’t stop putting the magical rotten weak spots in his path and I knew his legs had to be hurting. I have no idea why I did what I did next. As he touched the door, I healed all of his injuries. I smiled, hoping for a sincere thanks, but nothing happened. He didn’t even realize.

And so, in petty anger, I made the main obstacle of my next puzzle even bigger. His scared expression was worth it. Though I have to say that it was scary to me too. The funny situation when he tried to scare the big bad spider with a simple small broom was enough to overcome the fear and turn it into a hilarious situation.