The song of the waves and the fire of the sun greeted me. The cold water is kissing my feet and it sends chill through my bones.

I tried to move my feet away from the water but I can’t. It is as if my feet have its own brain. I tried to move in a sitting position but I cannot do it. My body do not want to cooperate with me because every part of me aches like hell. I shut my eyes because the brightness of the sun is stabbing my eyes. My hands found my throat. I try to mutter a word but what's all I can do is to growl like an animal.

Something thunders in my head. Water. Waves. Sand. Sun. I am not at their mercy anymore, I guess. Not until they find me.

 I roll over and crawl to the sand like a crab. My whole body is screaming for me to stop what I am doing but I just can't. Not now. There's no time for resting. It doesn't matter if every bone in my body cracks. What matter most is that they would never catch me breathing. I do not want to be their animal. Not anymore.

My hands are shaking reaching for the huge stone in front me. I got a hold of it. I move my other hand and I felt a bleeding pain. Someone stepped on my wrist.

“Do you have any right to step on my territory?” His angry voice reaches my eardrums. I try hard to answer him but no words would come out from my mouth.

“You aren't a mute, yes?”

The irritation in his voice vibrates in my ear.

“Oh. You don’t hear me? You are probably deaf.”

 He steps even more at my wrist that all I could do is to whimper in pain.

“The hell are you doing in here?”

 The guy is unnerving. Why can he not see I’m out of voice?

“I am trying to be the nicest guy on Earth here, and you are trying to be the worst people of all, aren’t you?”

Nicest guy? To break a wrist is a nice thing to do of a nice guy? If I could just spit the words at his face. If I could just talk. If I could just find my voice I will tell him that he is worst at trying. And If I am not a crab here, I will definitely kick him.

The more he gets no answers from me the more he steps on my wrist and the more I cry in pain. And when he didn't get any answers, he sat on the huge stone in front of me where my other hand is gripping for support. Maybe I escaped those bastards but here is this guy trying to kill me just because I can’t answer his worth a billion dollar question. I start to open my mouth to try to say a word.

“What? You are saying something?” He asks lowering his head to mine. He put a hand to my chin and when he see my face, his features soften. His hand runs to my face. He pulls his hand back and looks at it. He furrows his brows to what he sees in his hands. Then I black out.

I'm in peace and it makes me nervous.

I do not want to open my eyes. I am scared. Scared to see their hungry faces for answers at me. Eyes still close and the tears stream down my face.

“She might be having a nightmare.” A concerned voice says.

“Do you think she might wake tonight?”

That voice, I remember it from earlier. That voice whose foot tried to break my wrist. No, he who might broke my wrist.

I am not opening my eyes. Not yet. I might just see that the guy I met earlier selling me to the worst of all the worst nightmares.

“Well then, get whatever she needs when she wakes up.”

I hear footsteps walking out the room. I wait for the other guy to walk away and then I hear footsteps stepping away from where I am. I slowly open my eyes and I am not expecting where my eyes lock. It is from a man’s eyes maybe around his late twenties. I gulp my nervousness that rises up my throat.

“My dear, have you thought I will leave the room?”

I act like I haven’t heard him. I try to move in a sitting position, and I make it with a lesser pain this time. I don’t feel any searing pain from my wrist. It is as if the guy never stepped on it but then it is bandaged.

I look around me. This room is huge that it might occupy Three King beds. And then my eyes stuck to the man’s.

“What do you want?” My voice is croaky. But never mind that, as long as I am finding my voice again.

“Seems the liquid works perfectly.” He smiles and walks to my bed. His hands quickly move to the side table full of different colours of liquid. I gulp my scare.

“What do you want?” I ask again looking at what he’s doing.

He smiles at the cup of mixed-colour liquid and offers it to me.

“Drink. It might help more.”

I stare at him a little longer. Three whole minutes of silence and the cup in his hand is still waiting for me to reach for it.

“What’s that?” I ask my eyes are on the cup. I think of something he put in it. Blue liquid from the flask, or the red liquid from the test tube. Or the yellow one or---

“Don’t worry, drinking this won’t kill you.”

His eyes promised. So I take it from him and look at it. This looks disgusting. I don’t expect to drink such thing like this in my life. This is like water from a mud.

“Don’t bother with the look of it.”

I raise my brow at him as I put to my mouth the cup. He nods a yes. I close my eyes and slowly take the liquid to my mouth. It’s cool and tastes different from its look. It just tastes, wine mixed with milk and a bit of chocolate and wax and pepper and rust. The look is different with the taste because the taste is more disgusting than it looks.

“Finish it up.”

I did empty the cup. I return the empty cup to him feeling as if I just drink the one that will make a house of insects inside my body.

“How do you feel?”

I raise a brow at him once again. Does the liquid he made me drink should make me feel better? But I don’t feel anything different or anything changed after drinking it, except for one, I am not taking a drink again from him.

“What do you think should someone feel after making them drink a muddy water?”

He laughs.

“You’ll find out.”

Then his eyes turn serious again as if he didn’t do laugh. His glassy eyes are waiting for my answer and I don’t lie to what I feel.

“I’m feeling a little better after the guy found me by the side of the shore. I am not even feeling a pain from the broken wrist he gave me.” I look up at him to find an angry face towards the guy who nearly broke my wrist but I didn’t. So I continue talking.

“I guess you healed whatever bruise you found in my body in hours. I do not know how you do it, but, thank you.”

“You shouldn’t be thanking me lady, you should be thanking the master.”

“Master?”

“I’m sure you need a rest. I should probably be going. After all, I gave you what you most need.”

He bows and turns his back to me.

Master? The guy who is maybe a jerk is the man’s master?

And what he said he gave me what I need the most? The hell the disgusting drink I need.

I couldn’t sleep because I’m thinking of danger. Danger that will come for me any time and I am not in good condition yet to face it. I can’t help thinking of the little danger the good Samaritans could do to me. Their simple act of helping has something to do with evil intentions, I just know this. What will I do if these two men intend to do something to me? What if they kill me in my sleep? No, if they wanted to kill me from the beginning, they shouldn’t have wasted their time healing me, they should have done it earlier. But maybe they want to experiment me? That’s the only logical explanation, from this huge room to the materials they are using to heal me.

I stare at the side table, the liquid in each flask and tubes are glittering. I couldn’t find the things I want to see---cottons, operating scissors, gloves and maybe knives they used to me. I reach for one flask but my hand is greeted by an invisible glass. How the man did used what’s inside this invisible box awhile ago? His hands just reached straight, I didn’t see him unlocking or breaking a thing to access in using the apparatus. I knew it, there’s something wrong here.

I slip quietly off the bed and start walking quietly to the huge door. I look around the room and there I see what I can’t see awhile ago. The room is huge and has only one bed in the center. The source of light are the moonlight and lamp shade on the other side of the bed and the little twinkling blue circles by the upper part of the walls of the room. Instead of walking to the door directly, I turn to walk to the walls and I look more closely. What I thought earlier that there’s no something different in this room except that it is huge but looking closely to the walls, it seems…unexplainable things are attached to it. The walls look like there is a clear water flowing covering it.

I follow the water on the wall and it lead me to a square shape of vines. I couldn’t understand but this is where the water stops. Then to other side of the square, it looks like it is covered with fire. Does the fire flows through half of the walls to this room too like the water?

My inner is telling me to touch the walls but I couldn’t. What if the fire is true and will burn my hand? Then the water, maybe it will transport me in the middle of an ocean? I can’t just touch things here. Maybe I’ll just ask the man about these impossible things. Or maybe, maybe I’ve been drugged by them and I am imagining things? Oh no, is this what he meant when he said what I need the most? Fantasy?

I back away from the walls and look at the door. Would that door turn into a mouth of a shark and eat me whole? And what must be waiting for me there? A ship of pirates? I bravely start to walk to the door. I’m getting faster to the door, my breath is getting louder and louder as I come closer then I stop abruptly, my face is ten inches away from the door. It seems like it isn’t alive. A relief flood my body. I push open the door and I am mesmerize to what I am seeing.

I slap myself to wake. I twist my hand and I cry in pain. I hurt myself enough to realize that this is really happening. I step to the glassy marble floor. I feel the coolness to my bare feet. It is so relaxing. I walk slowly looking around and find out that everything are made up of precious gems: from the chairs to the tables to the figurines to the mirrors on the walls, and to the stairs. There’s a beautiful chandelier, too beautiful for my eyes to look away from it. I walk to the chairs and the table and examine every single detail of how it carved. I gasp at the touch of it. This is made up of Sapphire stones. Such a royalty feeling to feast here. My eyes land on the mirrors etched with ruby, sapphire, emerald and topaz stones. How majestic! This is such a palace, but then, where are the photo-framed of the king and queen? I can’t even see a photo hanging.

“You should have asked for me to tour you.”

“Oh, I don’t need it. In fact, I’m looking for the door?” I turn to look at him. He does seem like a real butler. I wonder if he is a demon butler.

“Lady, if you are planning to leave now, I am sorry but I cannot let you.” He bows.

Well, if I should have just ignored these fancy things, I should have been running outside of this palace. I look at the man whose eyes are still on me. His eyes are so glassy. It’s beautiful but haunting. Is he thinking of something to do to me? I should figure something out before he acts.

Gulping the horror building inside me, I asked where his master is. He gestured for me to take a seat. He pulled the chair for me and I did sit.

“Aren’t you going to take a seat? I guess I have a bunch of questions.”

“A servant isn’t allowed to sit to the imperial’s long table.”

And yet he gave me this seat. What makes this man think I am a royal?

“No one will know you sat here. Unless there’s some kind of bugs inside this place.”

He ignores me. So I ask things. Things about the healing liquid he made me drink. About the walls in the room I am staying. About this place. I even asked about his master. Where he is. I even spit the word ‘demon’ to him. He did not find it amusing. I didn’t get a straight answers from him. It is as if there is one thing he is hiding. No, he is hiding a million things.  He didn’t even answered my question regarding his master.

“Why can’t I leave tonight?”

“The master said so. But if you are eager to be feasted by animals, then you are free to go.”

I’m a prisoner of a beautiful place. And this prison is a sweet safe haven from animals he was talking about. I ask him what animals would probably take my head as a food, my arms and my legs. And I laugh at my own joke.

“You have no idea where you are, my lady.”

I stiffen in my seat. He isn’t making up things then, he is serious that I’m such in danger. Maybe he felt the overflowing nervousness that he follows up the likeable threat to me with a comforting words. I appreciate it so much but honestly, it doubles the anxiety I’m feeling. What horrible things could happen to me here that is more horrible from Vachiezia?

He escorts me back to the room I’m staying. It takes me much courage not to sue him away. This man I do not know his name who is alone with me in this house. I’m afraid of what he can do. I break the silence that is ringing to my head.

“I would want to know your name” I whisper to the air.

“Miel.”

“Well nice meeting you Miel, I am Ellizana.”

“I know lady. For you not to be surprise in the morning, the master will be waiting for you to wake up in your room. ”

I stop in my foot and look up to him. He bows and starts walking away from me before I could ask what he meant. How could he said he knows my name? And did he mean that his master will creep to the room while my eyes are close? The molecules building the feeling of panic started at my belly. I weakly push the door and nearly blackout at the sight of the nearly empty room I occupied earlier. Now, it’s been full of furniture.