Burn for you (English)

Chapter 3

Are you ready to find out more about our protagonist? Hope you're excited!

Despite the exertions, I was up early.

The sun barely kissed the horizon, but all the hours of sleep had replenished all energy reserves. The physical effort of the escape and the consequences of hypothermia had forced my body to devote itself undividedly to its recovery. The head thus left no opportunity to hostage me with nightmares and delusional flashbacks that were my companions every night.

As soon as the sunlight ushered in the day, I left the bed. The entire house was eerily silent: no music or people, only my footsteps, which made the wooden floorboards crackle uncontrollably. In the bathroom, I freshened up with the help of the toothbrush and a hairbrush found among Mandy's hygiene items. The clothes, however, I did not change. In the small rustic chest of drawers of my room I had found some more things, but it rather raised the question whether this bedroom did not in fact belong to someone who was not at home at the moment. Apart from the bed with the light brown covers, a lamp on the side table next to it, and a large mirror, the room was not furnished. If anyone lived here, he didn't seem to be an avid interior designer who had mastered his own touch.

"Adina?" A knock. "Are you awake?"

I opened the door to the only person I came close to trusting in this place. Mandy greeted me - again with an array of goodies in her hands.

"Good morning," I said, smiling bravely.

"You're looking far more refreshed. Did you sleep well?"

Silently, I answered her question in the affirmative.

She came in and set the tray down, happily noting that the bowls from yesterday were empty. For breakfast, she served me fried bacon strips, pancakes and fruit. Contrary to my own well-honed cooking skills, it had been a long time since I had been served such sumptuous meals.

I would be a fool to spurn it. "Thank you."

"You shouldn't be thanking me." There was a lecturing expression in her eyes, similar to that of a teacher who encouraged her students to think for themselves. "He was the one who saved you from death."

"I know," I confessed to both of us. Reaper would receive the thanks once the time came for me to talk to him.

With the plate of pancakes I had cut into small pieces earlier, I sat on the edge of the bed. While eating, Mandy removed the compress on my head. "The doc wanted to take another look at it yesterday. You really shouldn't have any concerns in front of us." She addressed the locked door. Contrary to my fears, however, she didn't probe further. "Seems to be healing nicely," she murmured.

I convinced myself of this with a cursory glance in the mirror. The skin around the deep red tear was slightly swollen and purple discolored, the wound itself had long since been covered by a crust.

"When does he want to see me?"

I'd rather get it over with quickly than spend hours dwelling on it. Mandy, on the other hand, shook her head. "First you eat in peace, and then I'll take you downstairs. You'll have plenty of time to talk, because you don't seem like you have any plans to get out of here."

I had neither plans nor ideas. To leave this place was my intention, but a goal whose time and extent I was not able to estimate now.

Silence spread between us, which oppressed me far more because I felt her probing, steel-gray eyes on me. The skin on the back of my neck got goosebumps, tingling, similar to the moments when I was threatened with danger by Elijah. A warning mechanism of sorts.

"I don't know what happened to a poor thing like you, but," Mandy braced her hands on her hips, sighing, "we're not the ones you should be afraid of."

Never would this woman understand the outrages I had been through, and yet she showed me how clearly she understood that my greatest fear was not for her or the people here.