Gray ↠ Gabriel Lightwood [1]

ONE

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T H E   D A R K   H O U S E

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Six Weeks Later

If there was one thing Elise took pride in, it was her practicality. It was the quality of hers that made her seem like more than just the child she was, instead bringing about a sense of maturity and a problem-solving mind that helped her wherever she went.

She knew that no matter what she faced, there was always an explanation, a reasonable explanation, that put an end to all of the childish nonsense the people her age liked to blabber about.

For example, the kids her age believed rainbows to be a sign of magic with the end holding a pot of gold beyond one's wildest dreams. Elise knew this was nothing but nonsense. Rainbows came from light reflecting through water droplets in the sky, the bending of the light causing it to split into wavelengths that created the colors one saw in the sky. There was no pot of gold at the end. It was nothing but a matter of science—a practical explanation for an ordinary phenomenon.

Elise refused to believe the impossible, so when it came to explaining where she found herself at that very moment, she deduced it to nothing but madness. After all, how else would one explain the shattering of their reality?

None of it was real. It couldn't be real.

But the pain she felt was real. The scars upon her skin from the constant reopening of wounds was real. The screams that escaped her sister's lips as she was forced to do the unbelievable was real.

That's why Elise believed all of this to be nothing but a dream. She must've fallen asleep on the Main and she would open her eyes soon enough to find herself sleeping beside her sister and eventually in the arms of her brother who would assure her that her nightmares had been nothing but that—nightmares.

However, just like every day that had gone by over the past six weeks, Elise felt the pain before she could even open her eyes and she knew this was her reality.

A soft whimper escaped her lips, a moment of weakness that she silently cursed herself for. Sucking in a shaky breath that felt as if a million needles were stabbing her lungs, Elise let her eyes flicker open and the brightness of the sun shining through the one window of the room and onto her face was enough to make her cringe.

The taste of copper was heavy in her mouth, the feeling of blood dried upon her skin something she was, unfortunately, used to. It took all the young girl had not to let out a cry of pain as she sat up from her bed, the beating she had gotten the night before leaving her still caked in blood and bruised to the point where she looked like an old banana due to her golden hair. Elise wouldn't be allowed a bath until the end of the week, maybe earlier if lucky.