Chapter 10: Alone No Longer

SERENE

It was a birthday party that the three guests had attended. And now, Victoria Hughes would leave the mansion, three guests no longer, but a lone woman with a gun held tightly in her hand, hair disheveled and her black dress swaying gracefully from the sudden gush of wind taking her head-on as she takes a step outside the mansion doors.

She leaves her bag, from which she had taken the gun out of behind on the cold marble floors of the magnificent lobby, taking in the sights of the island, the empty dock they had first arrived on, the green grass dancing along with the flowers in the field as the wind blew by - all that had painted the scene outside the mansion. All that and yet here Victoria was, with only one goal in mind.

And as if on cue, as Victoria had stood in the midst of the windy field in front of the mansion, a small innocent voice could be heard coming out from the wide open doors behind her and it piqued Victoria's interest. And oh dear, but Samantha hadn't the slightest idea of what might be coming for her. Worry etched across the innocent face of a young maid as she slowly walks out the mansion and towards the woman with a gun.

"Ma'am, is there something wrong? Breakfast is ready in the hall and no one seems to have taken an interest in entering yet." Samantha queries so sheepishly.

"Ah yes." Victoria lets out a kind smile, trying to move her hand holding unto the gun subtly hidden behind her back. "I'll be joining soon." she declared with a smile, although her voice had offered the thought of what seemed like Victoria was rather telling herself that than actually replying to Samantha. As if implying that she were to join the gone guests soon.

Victoria took a step forward towards Samantha and gave her a huge heartfelt smile, red lips curling brilliantly high and teeth showing no other than signs than happiness and bliss, but her eyes were clouded with hot burning tears as they so threaten to fall from her dark brown orbs sparkling under the warm sunlight that had basked their scene.

"I will join you all soon, dear." Victoria mentioned one last time as she motioned her hand, gun pointing directly at Samantha and after a single cock, with Samantha's lips curling up as well, eyes glimmering so innocently, she smiled and replied in a small voice, "yes, you will." and BANG - the gun went.

Samantha clutches tightly unto her abdominal area as the beautiful colour of crimson red stains her hands and ruins her neat maid uniform. She coughs up a few spews of blood as well but she finds herself never ceasing from that innocent smile she had put on earlier.

"I guess I'll finally get to see him properly again." Samantha let out in her final breath as she collapsed unto the cold marble floors of the lobby, half of her body inside the mansion, and the other half lying lifelessly outside. Victoria looks at her hands, shaking so violently as her eyes dilate and she realizes what she had just committed.

She drags Samantha's whole body into the lobby as she slowly closes the massive main doors of the mansion and drops the gun on the floor, landing it just by the left side of Samantha's head.

Victoria seemed to have lost all sense now. She didn't understand what she was doing, nor did she know where she was going. What's going to happen now? - She would have thought, but Victoria's mind no longer worked in the way she had wanted it to. And as if muscle memory had taken over, her legs had brought her mindless body in front of her bedroom door.

And as Victoria places her warm hand on the conflictingly cold door knob, she twists it so carefully and pushes the door inward, revealing a scene she'd have never thought she'd encounter in her whole life. A scene so inviting as if the rooms was speaking to her weak heart. Streaks of light coming in through her curtains, beautiful specs of dust floating around. Suddenly everything seemed so still and beautiful in Victoria's eyes, and she smiled.

Walking slowly to the center of her room, Victoria had climbed on the chair that was readied for her. The hook on her ceiling decorated by a beautifully tied noose that was now within her reach. As if someone had prepared everything for her before entering, Victoria smiled, and with a single tear falling from her eye staining her pale yet cold flushed cheeks, Victoria mouthed silently, "Thank you."

And she kicked the chair off, until her feet could no longer stand ground, as she could feel every tiny bit of fibre from the rope creating friction on her neck - painlessly taking her to a place far away. The noose tightened and slowly Victoria closed her eyes, breathing coming to a stop, and so quietly she hung high, silence encasing her everything as her world would soon turn to black, and there'd never be a 'going back'.

꧁_꧂

It was quiet now. There was nothing left in the mansion but a mass of deafening silence. Gentle wind blowing in through the open doors making the curtains sway with such grace that even the royal opera house's prima ballerinas would fall short of such elegance, and the distant sounds of scattered waves hitting upon the rocks by the dock of Dawn Island mix in and become one with white noise.

But somewhere in the darkness of the hallways, tiny gentle footsteps could audibly be made out - the kind that seemed like it was made by that of a playful innocent little child, and in the small streaks of sunlight penetrating from the thick curtains of the mansion basked a face with a smile so happy - a grin so wide you could even say it transcended any forms of joy a person could ever exhibit.

It was a face of euphoria, a grin that literally went from ear to ear, cheeks slightly tinted in a beautiful flush, and a voice could be heard, "Thank god" it whispered.

It was beautiful. She was beautiful - a young woman standing in the warmth of sunlight with lips coloured in the slightest bit of pink and a face so full of life, eyes so bright that saying they shone like stars would even be an understatement.

The young woman spun around in her white dress, the soft fabric swirling as she dances to the ghost of sweet symphonies in her head, making the most out of this silence and there she was a scene so serene. Dancing around in the corridors as the little specs of dust prance along with her and soon, a young man would join in.

Two people so happy, their gentle sounds of laughter overlapping as it echoes in through the halls, until a loud honk of a horn interrupts the soundless music playing in their heads and in between childish giggles, one of them says, "We're going home."