Trashes of the Counts' Families || Trash of the Count's Family || OC

˗ ˏ ˋ❆ Winter Special ❆ ˎˊ ˗

In the Temple of Death, where they slept during the day and stayed awake during the night, every noise was familiar and she knew them all. The birds chirping, the footsteps walking. Every individual voice was familiar to her.

Maybe that was why she couldn't sleep right now. Because for those 4 years she spent with her favourite people, she stayed awake during the night. Maybe that was why she was just staring at the ceiling for most of the night.

Maybe there was another reason.

She always had nightmares. She had them since that night when her brother tried to kill her. But, she noticed, that the dreams were worse now that she lived in her Father's house.

She blinked, not feeling tired at all. She knew she would have to change her sleeping patterns. Because she could not sleep during the day. She needed to work. And the shadows seemed darker than usual.

Staring at a particularly dark shadow, she sighed again. It seemed as if the shadow was moving, and that was stupid. She must be quite tired if she thought a shadow was moving. She shifted in the bed, trying to turn to one side.

As she turned, a sharp, searing pain went through her shoulder. She gasped involuntarily, tears prickling in her eyes.

She tried to touch her shoulder, feeling cold metal pushing aside her flesh. Her shoulder felt warm around what she recognised as a dagger, and wet. The pain was sharp and it was burning. She wanted to scream.

But then she looked up. And she saw the mean glint in someone's eyes. The figure was too tall to be her brother. And their chest too bumpy not to be a woman. It was definitely not her brother. But... who was it?

Who would try to kill her?

The woman reached towards the dagger, and Adara gasped again when the cold metal dagger was pulled out of her shoulder. She clutched the wound, feeling the warm blood seep onto her fingers.

Fear took hold of her, catching her breath in her throat. The room seemed smaller, trapping her within with this murderous woman. The woman raised the dagger again, trying to stab her in the heart this time. But Adara's adrenaline kicked in, as she rolled off the bed. Avoiding the fatal strike.

The bloody dagger cut into her bed where Adara's body would have been. She was afraid. She knew she was afraid.

Adara, in her heightened state of adrenaline, realised that this woman was an assassin. And she meant to kill her. She scrambled off the floor, seeing the assassin already approaching her.

She looked around, trying to find anything she could use as a weapon.

She saw herself staring at her reflection in a mirror she hated on the wall opposite her. She ran quickly to the mirror, a blur of a person. With her speed, she raised her fist and broke the mirror. Shards of the broken mirror rained down on her, most of them covered in her own blood.

She hesitated.

She was afraid. Afraid that she—.

The assassin was closing in on her.

She rapped one up, wielding it as a weapon to the assassin now behind her.

Her defence and attacks were slow compared to the assassin who was quick and lethal, trying hard to hit her anywhere it hurt. She knew how to swordfight, she knew how to use a dagger, even a mirror shard. But her reactions were too slow.

She tripped to the ground as she narrowly avoided another attack from the assassin. In a quick thought, she kicked the assassin and tripped her as well.

Once the assassin fell, momentarily surprised, Adara crawled towards her and raised the shard of glass above her head and brought it down on her. And again. And again. And again.

Adara did not stop stabbing the assassin until she felt that pain in her arm again and she dropped the shard. Covered in blood. That— for once— was not hers.

She was afraid. Afraid that when she takes a life... she would not feel anything.

She could not breathe as she looked down at the assassin.

Her eyes, which were once malicious, were now vacant, with tears streaking down them. Her neck was torn open, blood all over, with her bones on display. Her mouth was open, almost as if she wanted to scream. She was dead. She was very dead.

And Adara did not feel anything. She looked away from the body under her, more horrified with the revelation that she did not regret it than with the deed she just did. Her eyes landed on the broken mirror shards. She saw herself in them.

She was covered head to toe in blood.

She felt tears fall down her face. Her breathing heavy.

It was her or the assassin.

She knew that.

She knew it.

Her or the assassin.

She had to choose one.

And she chose.

She chose herself.

Nobody would blame her for that.

But she could at least feel something.