Tearful Memories II

Nina remembered the first time that they met. She had run away from home and went into the city to hide from her parents. It was her first time outside her mansion since she wasn't allowed outside and so she was fascinated by all the buildings and people. She ran around the streets exploring and checking out whatever she could and not surprisingly, after a short while got lost.

In the beginning, she was very excited, but after wandering the city for a few hours, Nina started to miss home. She tried all that she could to find her way back but wasn't able to and decided to ask a random lady for help. She didn't know what a mansion was at the time and age and so she described it to the person as a big house with big doors and many people. The lady misunderstood and thought that she was talking about the orphanage and brought her there.

When they arrived, Nina initially thought that it was the mansion since the front of the orphanage looked very similar to the front of the mansion. The scenery was different but Nina just thought that it was another entrance to her house and thanked the lady. She quickly ran up to the large wooden door and knocked on it.

The door opened and a tall man greeted her. 'That's weird,' she thought to herself. She didn't recognize the man, but then again, there were a lot of servants in her mansion so it wouldn't be all that strange for her to not know him. Furthermore, the man was wearing black clothes which is also what the butlers in her mansion wore.

"Who are you?' the tall man asked her.

"I'm Nina, and I live here," she told him, still unaware that it wasn't her house but rather the orphanage.

The tall man gave Nina a confused look since he didn't recognize her at all and asked, "Are you one of the new ones that just arrived a few days ago?"

Nina didn't understand what the man meant by that and thought that he was talking about how long she had lived there, and said, "No, I lived here ever since I was born."

The man looked even more confused than before and asked Nina for her name again since he was sure that he had never seen her before. "Nina..." the man went through his head and tried to recall if he had someone with that name in the orphanage. After a minute of being lost in thought, he told her, "Sorry but, I don't remember there being a Nina here."

"But I really do live here," Nina told the man.

The man was certain that he hadn't heard her name before, but he was unsure of what to do since he saw that she wasn't lying. 'Well, I am getting a bit old. My memory is probably not as good as it used to be,' he thought to himself. The man apologized to Nina for not recognizing her and let her into the orphanage.

When Nina entered the orphanage, she was confused by how different it looked. She didn't remember the floor being made out of stone. Wasn't it supposed to be made out of wood? But she brushed it aside, thinking that she was on one of the sides of the mansion that she didn't see before.

"Dinner is ready in an hour, go upstairs and play with the other children for now," the man told her.

"The other children?" Nina asked. What did the man mean by the other children? She was the only child in the house. Since he looked pretty old, maybe he was referring to the younger servants as children?

"Yes, most of them are upstairs right now, but if you don't want to join them then you can do something by yourself. I have work to do so I need to go now." The man patted Nina's head and then walked away.

Nina put her hand on the spot where the man patted her. It was strange. Normally, the servants would avoid touching her and whenever they did, they would apologize. Nina didn't understand why they did that but she got used to it, and now she found it strange that the man had patted her.

Nina was starting to find 'this side of the mansion' weirder and weirder. Everything felt new and unusual for her and she didn't like it. She wanted to get back to her side of the mansion. She started to run around and look through doors to see if she recognized any of the rooms. After looking through all of them, she wasn't able to recognize any of the rooms and decided to go upstairs. The upstairs was a lot smaller and her room was also up there so it should be easy for her to find it.

Nina climbed up the steps and was even more confused now than ever. The hallways looked different and there were more doors than she had remembered. She started to feel that this wasn't her house. Worried, Nina ran down the hallway and tried to find her room. She stopped at one of the doors that was around the distance of where her room was from the stairs. She opened the door and saw that it wasn't her room.

"What are you doing in my room?"

"Ahhh!" Nina got startled by the voice behind her and jumped, scaring the boy as well, making him jump and shout out in surprise as well.

Nina's head hit the boy's head and knocked him over.

"Ow!" the boy cried out.

"Sorry- wait..." Nina looked carefully at the boy.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"I don't remember seeing you," said Nina. This was her first time meeting the boy and someone around her age. She had never seen him before in the mansion.

"What?" The boy examined Nina as well. "I don't remember seeing you either. Are you new here?"

"No, I lived here for a long, long time," Nina responded. Even though she didn't recognize anything here, she still thought that this place was her house. "When did you get here?"

The boy thought about her question for a moment and then answered, "I think I came here six years ago."

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