Chapter 57.

No! Stop being deceived. This is how I get tricked every time.

She walked directly towards me then latched onto my hand, our fingers intertwined while she led me towards the mansion in the distance. It didn’t take long before we arrived in front of the front entrance of the mansion. We entered just in time to avoid the downpour outside.

“It’s been a while since we had to run from the rain, hasn’t it Darling?”

“Yeah, it really has.”

I tried to pull my hand away from her, but she didn’t release mine and instead dragged me into one of the rooms. It was a rather strangely laid out room. There appeared to be medical equipment in one corner, with shelves at the back of the room with rows of various bottles. The table at the center of the room was congested and gave the room a messy disordered sort of feel to it.

She sat down on a bench beside the table in the room and proceeded to take off the green jacket that covered her pale white shoulders. The fine lace shoulder straps on her black one piece slipped down to her sides when she removed her jacket, it portrayed a rather enticing scene to look at directly. The snake which was originally coiled around her right leg was now resting and lazily hanging its body off her exposed upper thigh. Her face was slightly tilted away from me, but I could still see her eyes peeking in my direction.

Was she trying to seduce me with a honey trap?

“Darling, take a seat.”

“Where? There’s only the one bench you’re sitting on.”

“Darling, did your IQ drop while we have been apart? I naturally picked this room for that specific reason. Just sit down beside me.”

I cautiously sat down on the opposite end of the bench. I kept a good distance between us.

“Why are you sitting so far away?”

“Eh? Uh. That would be-”

“You’re still shy about such things after all this time?”

“Yeah, you could say that… a bit I guess.”

Of course not, I’m just not confident enough to fully put my trust in you right now. Things will surely hit the fan soon. There’s no way a normal conversation between us is really possible.

“Darling, you look a bit tired, you must be exhausted after trekking through the woods to get here, you should take some time to rest before anything else.”

I had to admit, she was right, I was exhausted after walking for hours on end through the forest to get here. If things took a turn for the worse after I asked her what I wanted to know and I needed to flee for my life, I would definitely be disadvantaged greatly.

“You’re right, I am a bit tired. Do you mind if I use one of the bedrooms to take a nap?”

“I do mind actually. Just take a nap on this bench. Here you can use my lap as a pillow.”

“That would be a bit troubling.”

“Could it be my Darling has been unfaithful and has a guilty conscience?”

The sharp gleam in her eyes told me it was best to just cave here and do as she said. I definitely didn’t succumb to her sex appeal. Her overwhelming sex appeal definitely wasn’t what had me chanting Buddhist sutras in my head either. It was really just because I was afraid she’d snap and return to her insanely psychotic persona if I outright disobeyed her. Okay... so a small part of the reason might also be because of her sex appeal after all.

I was already used to the strange pets Adele had and I knew her pets were very obedient towards her, so the snake on her lap didn’t scare me too much. I laid my body down to the side on the bench and let my head rest on her left upper thigh with my face pointed towards her direction. Adele took the jacket she’d rested at her side and covered my upper body with it.

Her jacket smelled like her. It reminded me of the old Adele, before things took a turn for the worst. It was somehow a smell that put me at ease and reminded me of my first love. One that was ingrained in my mind deep down to my core, even after five long years had passed.

Adele raised her hand and rustled through my hair like she was trying to soothe me to sleep.

“You really need to take better care of your scraggly unkempt hair. Well, it’s one of the things I like about you as well though so it’s fine I guess.”

Every time I inhaled, I drowned a bit further within the familiar scent that radiated from her jacket. It was to the point her scent became the only thing I could focus on. I felt like I was on cloud nine, slowly floating away and drifting off into space. The woman I thought of as a trauma was also strangely a woman that made me feel like nothing mattered. It was ironic as she was both a poison and a remedy to my ailment. Like a drug that you knew would harm you, but you couldn’t resist but fall to it even when you knew the dangers that accompanied it.

In this peculiar muddle headed state, my consciousness faded to black.

…

When I awoke, I felt a strange sort of dissonance with respect to my surroundings. In front of me was a stream of light emitted from a slightly ajar door. The light was quivering unsteadily, wavering strangely, like it was birthed from a weak flickering flame.

Without any control over my body, it creeped forward. Silently. My body approached closer to the small crack to peer into the unknown world behind the door. From where I was, I heard a strange panting sound that originated from behind the door. The moment my hand was raised, it rested on the area between the gap of the door and frame to support my body. When I looked inside the room I immediately realized the reason for the dissonance I’d experienced.

The hand in my line of sight was small, tiny, perhaps even frail. They were very feminine, much unlike my own. It was only now that I realized the door knob was at eye level and I soon understood why. It was likely a dream similar to the one where I possessed another entity’s body.

Only this time I was self aware that it was a dream of some sort that I was presently in. It was a somewhat rare occurrence that I became aware in my dreams. When I thought I’d woken up earlier, it was actually just the child opening their eyes in the dream.