The cold was spreading through Daniel's body, caused by a touch of the woman with long brown hair. She was inviting him to come with her to the cabin.

Eventually, his legs obeyed, even though his mind objected. He walked after her as if he were half-asleep. He climbed the stairs and let her take him into the cabin. Although, what he thought was a cabin, turned out to be a brick house. The boards on the outside were nothing but a cover.

On the other side of the heavy door, a cozy living room welcomed him. Bathed in the warm light from the pendant light above it, a dark green sofa with soft cushions was inviting him to sit. On the opposite side stood two matching armchairs, and in between a massive wooden coffee table.

On the right side, an arched doorway led to the kitchen far tidier than the one in his mother's apartment. There were no dirty dishes on the counters, and through the glass on the kitchen cabinet doors you could see crystal clean glasses.

Daniel's eyes were searching for the signs that might reveal something about the identity of the two women, but other than a few empty vases and porcelain figurines, they found no personal belongings. He didn't notice a single photo, not on the wall or the shelf against the wall.

He found lack of photos unusually strange. Even his mother kept photographs of her children in the apartment. On one of them was Barbara, with her curly hair and freckles on the nose and cheeks. She was smiling. That was a rare sight, Daniel always thought to himself when he looked at that picture.

The other one was a photo of Robert in his army uniform, and on the third one was Daniel as a schoolboy. A few days before the picture was taken, he lost one of the front baby teeth, and the void that was left in its place was forever captured by a photographer.

"Sit," the dark-haired woman broke his thoughts.

Daniel sat on the edge of an armchair closest to him, not daring to relax. He rubbed the palm of his hand to return some warmth into it.

"You are the one they call Daniel, aren't you'" she asked. The eyes that were looking at him were blue, nothing like those he saw earlier that evening.

He opened his mouth, trying to speak, but it was too difficult to utter a single word. Therefore, he simply nodded.

She smiled slightly. "I am Anastasia. And my sister's name is Teresa."

He tried to return the smile, but without much success.

"Those young men you were with, they were embodiment of malice," the other one said, stepping up to him, towering above. Teresa, that was her name. "Are you like the rest of them?"

He vigorously shook his head left to right. That time he did manage to speak. "No," he said. "I am not like them."

"Funny you should say so." Teresa stood up straight and crossed her arms in front of her chest. "You know what they say - Birds of a feather flock together. Yet you say that you aren't like the rest. Then how come you ended up with them?"

Coincidence! A series of unfortunate events and a life that didn't turn out the way I thought it would.

That was what he wanted to say, but once more, his throat closed. So he just shrugged his shoulders and quietly said, "I don't even know."

"They deserved what was coming," Teresa said coldly. "When it comes to you, I'm not quite sure yet."

Daniel saw no remorse in her eyes. She meant what she said.

"Does that mean that you are going to..." He didn't finish the sentence. He couldn't force himself to say the last two words out loud. Not after everything that had happened to his friends at the factory. Yes, Lucio and his gang were ruthless. They were no strangers to violence. Daniel was sure they wouldn't even shy away from murder.

And now they were all dead. Every single one of them. Is it really true? It all seemed like a bad dream, like a nightmare he just didn't manage to wake up from.

"Like I said, I am not yet sure about you." Teresa's cold stare made him shudder.

Ana sat on the sofa, opposite him. Traces of a smile still lingered on her lips. "Tonight, you will stay here. Tomorrow we will decide what to do next."

Tomorrow we will decide... For some reason, that part didn't make him confident.

Daniel kept wondering who might be the two mysterious women in whose home he found himself. The more he thought about them and the cold efficiency they demonstrated when they took out his friends, the surer he was that this wasn't their first massacre. There was no other way to think about what went down in the factory – it really was a massacre.

Maybe they were paid assassins, it occurred him. Maybe someone found out it was Lucio and his gang that robbed the Mayor's house. Maybe that someone didn't want to wait for the police to gather hard evidence. Maybe that person sent these ruthless killers to eliminate them.

All of them, that was what Teresa said.

As if she sensed that he was thinking about her, Teresa cast him one more cold look, then she walked up to the door and exited the cabin.

"You can sleep here on the sofa," Ana said. She moved the cushions to one side of it and reached for the thin blanket that was thrown over the armrest.

Daniel doubted that he would get any sleep at all in the home of these murderers, but he didn't say that out loud.

"Come here," Ana invited him, tapping the sofa next to her. Her blue eyes stared at him without blinking.

He returned the look, but his body refused to move. Somehow, he felt safer sitting on the edge of the armchair.

Noticing his hesitation, Ana closed her eyes for a moment, and when she opened them again, some of the blue color receded before the amber. "Come, sit next to me," she repeated.

As if invisible threads pulled him on his feet, he stood up, walked around the coffee table and sat just where she told him to sit – next to her. She let her eyes soak him up a while longer. Then she moved over, sat on the coffee table in front of the sofa.

The eyes marked by amber still looked at him when she said, "Lower your head onto a pillow."

Only his mind was trying to resist the spoken words. The body did as was ordered.

"Move all the bad thoughts aside. Empty your mind. There is nothing but darkness around you. Welcome it. Surrender yourself to it. Let it bring you sleep."

The words felt like cold water to burnt skin. His muscles relaxed, his eyes closed, and the darkness that was promised to him, embraced him like a long-lost friend.

Just before he drifted off, he thought he heard the click of the light switch, followed by the opening and closing of the door.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Daniel woke up with a headache. He put a pillow over his face, trying to ease it. He was grateful for the silence that surrounded him, but soon enough, it was the lack of sounds that worried him.

He opened his eyes, but there was no change; the darkness was all he saw.

He sat down, becoming aware that he still had his jacket on. He hadn't taken his shoes off either.

There should be a wall on the left, Daniel thought. If he managed to reach it, maybe he would be able to find the light switch somewhere on it. He stood up, he started pacing slowly in, hopefully, the right direction. He stretched his hands in front of him, like a zombie.

Soon enough, his hands touched something hard; a wall. As he moved on, his fingers were touching its surface in search of a plastic square. But it was the heavy fabric they found first. Under the tips of his fingers, it felt soft, velvety. Curtains, he thought, and sent his hands in search of two joining edges. Once he found them, he pulled the curtains apart. Despite it, the room remined coated in darkness; it hadn't dawned yet.

He kept touching the wall with his fingers until he found the light switch. The light poured into the room when he pressed it.

As he assumed, the cabin was empty. There was no sign of Anastasia or Teresa. Coming to a conclusion that he has nothing to lose but his life, which in all honesty, wasn't that much anyway, he decided to snoop around.

He scanned his surroundings. The house was perfectly tidy. Each thing had its place, and on the shelves and cabinets, there wasn't a layer of dust thick enough to sign his name. Total opposite to his mother's place.

Many items he noticed there seemed old, as if the women who brought him here liked antiquities.

He entered the kitchen, newer than the one in his mother's apartment. There too he found immaculate cleanliness. The white stove was so clean that Daniel found it hard to believe that anything was ever cooked on it. Or maybe they are just more skillful in cleaning, it occurred him.

He walked up to the window, also concealed by velvet curtains. He pulled them apart, but the darkness was all he could see on the other side.

He noticed two refrigerators standing side by side. It was the first kitchen he ever saw that had not one, but two fridges.

He reached for the door of the smaller one, the one whose top end was at the height of his waist. He opened it, but there was nothing inside. Not even the light turned on.

Maybe it's broken, he thought. Maybe that's why there's another one.

The second fridge was taller, almost twice the height of the smaller one. He wrapped his fingers around the handle and pulled.

This time, the light did turn on. Inside, Daniel's eyes found plastic bags filled with red substance, marked by labels. Most of the markings Daniel couldn't comprehend, but on each label, he could read capital letters: A, B, AB or O.

Just as his brain realized what he was looking at, the front door opened.

Thank you for reading my story.

Leave a comment, tell me what you think about Daniel, Anastasia and Teresa. Do you think they'll forgive him for snooping around?

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Until next chapter...