" Alice! Stop before you injure yourself!"
" You evil creep! Where am I? Tell me right now!"
" If you stop thrashing about, trying rather pathetically to kick me, I might tell you what is going on."
His calm, sarcastic voice set me over the edge and I dealt him a blow with my foot in his chest so hard that he stumbled backward for a moment.
" If you weren't so important to me, I would have
killed you for that," he growled with such anger in his voice that I immediately
became still and waited for him to start talking again. When he finally
caught his breath, he
looked at me vehemently. I noticed that his eyes had changed
from their blue color to a fiery red. I let out a gasp of surprise,
which caused him to get closer to me while hissing,
" Do you see that I am a dangerous person? I hope you have gotten the idea that I am not one to be messed with. Be careful of what you do. I do not have the patience to deal with it."
" Why do you have the mask on? I want to see your face!" I cried out stupidly.
With a frightened cry, he practically leaped away from me and covered his mask with both hands.
" You must never touch it! Do you understand me? It would kill me for you to see my face. It is so ugly, that even your wildest dreams of monsters wouldn't even be close to my face."
I thought that it was a little odd at the way he had reacted to my question, but I was starting to get my courage back.
" So Erik, why have you brought me here and why am I chained to a wall?" He looked at me with surprise, like it had just occurred to him that I had kicked him, not hit him, he came back over to me and unlocked the chains.
" I am so sorry, I had to chain you because I was
afraid you would sleepwalk right out of my house! By the way, in
case you are wondering about your night gown, your real one is still on
underneath, but I think this one
looks much better on you."
My legs were sore from holding my weight, so I sat down on the soft floor to listen, or tried to. My eyes were starting to droop, which Erik noticed and picked me up off the floor before I could protest.
" Hey! Put me down! I am not a weakling!"
" Don't struggle. I am bringing you to your new room. Your legs are worn out from dancing and holding all your weight."
I reluctantly let him bring me into a dark room, fighting the horrible thoughts of what could happen in there. Once he had set me down on a large, comfy bed, he lit a lamp next to me.
" Are you ready to listen to why you were chained and why you are down here?"
" More than ready."
" Good, I promise it won't take long. It is very short. I have been watching you for a long time. I have decided that you are just what I need in my lonely life. Right now, I just need you as a friend. Maybe it will grow stronger than friendship, but if it doesn't, I will be content to have you as a friend. I could even pass as your father, if the truth be told that I am about as old as him."
I looked at him in shock. He did not look 40 years old. He looked exactly like a teenage boy. He saw my reaction and laughed.
" I was just kidding. I am in fact a couple years older than you are, but not that far off. I see a great potential in your voice and viola career. Oh, I might as well admit that I don't know exactly why I brought you down here, but I plan on finding out sooner or later."
" Ok, so you have a weird obsession with me. That creeps me out. But I want to know why you chained me to the wall."
" While I was bringing you down here, you started to sleep walk away from me, and I didn't want to tie you to the bed. Your new gown, I will explain later."
By this time I was starting to wonder if I was hallucinating.
This strange guy in front of me had whisked me out of my world for a reason
that even he did not know. This is my only explanation of why I took
his mask off. After
a long period of silence, I realized that he had another mask on underneath
it, except it was not white, but a weird purple color.
" Did I not tell you to leave my mask alone? Maybe this will teach you a lesson."
He said those words so coldly and evilly, that it made me shiver.
Before I could ask what he was going to do to me, he swiftly smacked me
so hard, that everything momentarily went black.