*Warning: This chapter contains mild, suggestive details that might trigger people who are victims of sexual assault.

At first, Amelia thought it was a small pet.

Then she recognized the person.

The young girl looked somewhat better compared to the last time, but not by much. Her small face was still dirty. At least, it was clean of blood this time.

The girl poked her head out from one corner of the stairs' landing like a wild fox with her mane of red hair. She was young, definitely younger than Amelia. Her irises danced like two small fires, full of curiosity and something else hard to describe. Amelia couldn't make out the color, but the intense gaze made her sad, guilty, and all around, uneasy.

Suddenly, the young girl pulled back into the shadow. Luc must have watched her closely too because he immediately let go of Amelia and chased after the girl. He disappeared around the landing corner, and the floorboards upstairs creaked loudly under their hurried footsteps. Luc called out several times in a foreign language that Amelia had never heard before, and then all the noises stopped.

Amelia rooted there, dumbfounded by what had just happened.

"I hope everything is alright..." She mumbled to herself while bending down to pick up the bonnet and coat.

After a while, Luc came back down. His expression was unreadable. He stopped in the middle of the stairs with his eyes glued to the ceiling. "I'm afraid we will have to continue our conversation on a different day..." He said.

"Oh, don't worry. I want to do some shopping before tea time anyway," Amelia sighed with one foot already out the door, "Today is such a nice day to let go to waste."

Amelia didn't want to stay here any longer than she had to and participate in whatever this was. She had gotten what she came here for. Well, unless... Luc especially requested. In that case, he'd better pay extra.

"Can I hail you a cab at least?" Luc said. "Albert has gone home for the day..."

He looked obviously distracted with his head tilted up like a cat on a hunt.

Amelia exhaled sharply as the cold wind hit her face, "I'm a big girl, Luc." She fastened her bonnet and closed the door.



Today was another day Aida dreamed of escaping.

The house was big, but its layout was quite simple. There was no chain or lock to keep her, so why was she still here?

In the past three weeks, Aida's world had been limited to these dusty walls. She had no idea what the outside looked like. She could run out the door, but what came next was daunting. Aida had no money and no sense of direction. She knew no one and didn't speak the language of this land. Where could she go? What could she do next?

Aida glared daggers at the man, whose name she refused to acknowledge. Her 'master'.

He stood at the door, telling her that cursed story again. The one about the creature who had lost its way home. Horrible bedtime story, as it was intended, but nothing could scare Aida more than her own mind already had.

She was exhausted from nightmares, but those only happened on the rare occasions Aida could sleep. Most of the time, she stared into the dark void.

Another sleepless night tonight, Aida could already feel it. Her eyes felt like stones. She knew there was only so much she could take without proper sleep, but her whole body hurt from old and new wounds. Many were her own doing in moments of fear and confusion.

The first few nights, Aida had wished she would die. Every time she closed her eyes, trying to sleep, her mind would slip right back to the cage. They were all there. The smells, noises, and images. Sometimes, it was the stench of sweat, blood, and vomit. Other times, it was the rocking motion of the sea. The screaming, moaning, and crying of people who begged their ancestors or gods to take away their suffering souls never stopped. In her hallucinations or nightmares, Aida even saw the tiny crack above her head where the sun had found its way in every day, giving her not enough hope and too much pain...

She pressed herself to the wall now, trying her best to ignore the man and his story. He was just a fly, someone who had nothing to do with her.

The thing was they both knew it wasn't true.

"...And so, he was hung upside down on the burning tree for a whole year. Nothing but the songs of insects mocking him and his failure. His beautiful scales were scorched. Their ashes covered the ground like thick snow. He was peeled clean, like a piece of roasted meat. The fire was so aggressive that it licked his every pore. The whole time, he felt everything. He felt it and he couldn't move an inch." The man finally stopped and stared out the window. He looked at the full moon wistfully as if he could see the creature in his story dangling in front of him.

He must have really liked that story. The smile he displayed gave Aida chills. It didn't make any sense. Nothing did.

Everything about this man felt wrong. The way he looked. Smelled. Talked. How he loved to stare at her. What kind of deranged person would stare at another person for hours on end, sometimes, barely blinking? Aida was sure he didn't buy her just for that purpose, but for what? She didn't know and would rather not think about it.

On the night that he brought her to this house, it had been so cold. Aida thought that she wouldn't make it. She had dreamed of her late Mama, and then her Baba had appeared with the big staff that he always carried around while walking the cattle and chased after Aida. He flogged her within an inch of her life in the dream.

Aida didn't know why her gentle Baba would have done that. She held on to his legs, begging him to stop, but he didn't.

Then day turned into evening and Aida woke up. Her head swayed violently and her stomach felt as if someone had set it on fire. There was pain, but dull. Not something Aida couldn't take. Matter of fact, she felt better. Lighter, physically, but a sense of something deeply wrong rose in her guts.

Aida was on the bed, naked as the day she was born. The dirty rags she had used to cover her body were nowhere to be found. A strange stink lingered in the air. In that moment, Aida panicked, searching her body for signs of an assault, but couldn't find anything.

The place was quiet that evening. Its unsettling silence drove Aida mad with anxiety. It reminded her of where she had been and where she had not. Everything that had happened since the day she was shoved into that cage on the ship happened again, in her mind, all at once. The grim realization set in after. Aida was a slave. Not a person. A slave. Bought and sold like cattle. Her life, however short it might be, was to serve in whatever way her master demanded. She wanted to weep, but there were no tears left. She wanted to hurt herself but her body didn't listen...

The man stepped into the room and crouched down in front of Aida, pulling her back to reality. He blocked her way to the bed, Aida's only haven, just as he had done many times in the past three weeks.

She glanced at him and then the piece of peeled wallpaper in the corner. His taunting sometimes worked, but not this time. Aida was not in the mood to play his game.

She shook in the pitifully thin garment that only reached the middle of her calves. It resembled Baba's tunic but without the trousers. Her legs were wrapped in two pieces of long white fabric. 'Stockings' were their names, she had learned. They gave little comfort. Aida needed to get back to her nest under the bed before she froze to death.

"What are you thinking, Mouse?" The man inched to her with his head tilted to the side. The innocent gesture, however, made him look more like a sand viper.

Aida's nails and teeth were ready. For some reason, this man had never learned his lesson. Aida only hoped her hatred would stay long enough this time to sustain her attack on him.