Befriended ✔️

Chapter 19: Girl in the Bathroom

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Mariam's POV

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"Over here." I heard him called out after me as I continued to walk down the hallway. We've walked through many long, confusing hallways. I would get lost easily if I ever came down here alone. As if I would. It's been about ten minutes since we've left the execution room and have been walking through these hallways since.

I stopped and turned around to find him standing in front of a door. I walked towards him while he opened the door. He stepped aside and let me go first. I looked through the door to find another staircase leading upstairs. It wasn't dark this time. Actual light bulbs illuminated the staircase. I haven't seen a single one around here except for torches.

"What are you waiting for?" I heard my guard say.

"Yeah, yeah. I'm going." I say and began stepping up the steps. They were wooden and each step had a smooth surface. They looked slippery, but weren't really. The walls was also painted blood-red here. I pressed my index and middle finger onto the wall and let it travel as I went up the stairs. There was no sign of dusty walls or dust at all.

As we almost reached the top, I got a sudden thought. Sir Immortia was a magician. And around magicians, there were likely to be jinn's. Then in the place... Where there any jinn's around here? He did mention he has Amina's jinn friend and, Amina, herself locked up somewhere. I remember what Amina wrote in her second journal. I needed a way to escape. She had to be here. She was planning her escape.

We finally reached the top of the stairs and I made way for the guard to unlock and it. After unlocking it, he, again, had me go in first. I guess he was afraid that if he walked in front, I'd try to hide somewhere and plan to escape, without him watching my back.

I stepped into, yet, another hallway. I was really getting tired of all these hallways. But this one wasn't like the others. It wasn't some kind of underground hallway. We were above ground and pretty much standing in the hallway of the mansion. I only saw blood-red walls and black marble floors. There wasn't much furniture. There were paintings of dark images and photos of men and women I didn't recognize. The lighting wasn't very bright either. There were flickering candles that gave a creepy atmosphere. The candles didn't give much light and we were left with mostly darkness. The air was moist and humid. I was still taking the scene in when the guard took off his hood.

I never really saw any of the cloaked men take off there hoods and seen only one pair of hands, so this was really intimidating. He had his hood off and I looked at him. His face was nothing but scars. He wasn't really old. He looked about thirty years of age.

He had the eyes of a cat. And If I looked closely there was a small tattoo under his left eye. I couldn't make it out because of the scars. His hair was a dirty blond and he had no eyebrows.

"It's hot." He said as he noticed my surprised face. "Let's get to your room now."

He made our way into the main hall. It was also really dark here. I could see there were long gothic windows around the circular room. They faced the distant town. It was so easy to just walk out and escape but I soon found it wasn't easy as there were many cloaked men guarding every window, every entrance. I could see over here too, the walls were painted blood-red. I remembered the rule that we were allowed to go in the rooms that were painted red only. What did Sir Immortia mean by that?

There was a grand staircase in the main hall. We went up the black, polished marble steps. Ever step bounced around the room. We went up three more flights of staircases before we reached the fourth floor where my bedroom existed.