The girl woke up. It was night. Claire even regretted that she did not turn on the desk lamp before bedtime. The room was so quiet and dark that goosebumps running on the skin. In addition, it seemed to her that someone sits nearby. Right on the edge of her bed.
Satin bedspread slightly stretched under whose weight. Claire dropped her hair strands from her forehead and stared in the darkness. The fact that she could see seemed to her continuation of sleep. At the bed, someone sledged, as if dwarf. He had a manner of an evil gnome, even though figure and had a giant dimensions. Almost everything, except for hands and face, hid a cape, the same black as the darkness around. One thing was impossible to distinguish from the other. And yet, Claire managed to see that this man was strongly maimed. According to his movements, according to his deep sighs and convulsive gestures, it was possible to decide that he had just left the chamber of torture. But now it was impossible to be called him the victim. He longed for blood himself. Claire wanted to shout, call for help, but she could not. A hand with a knife leaned toward her shoulder, as if playing, spent the blade on the bending of the neck. The knife did not wounded until, but the chill began, in contact with the lively flesh, caused the feeling of intimacy of death. What a brutal game! True! And Claire for first glance regretted him for how he was crippled. It is a pity that it did not prevent him from hurting other people.
How is he just penetrated into the house? Does she forget to close the door? Or is the window too low above the ground level? Why did she not occur to pick up the windows with lattices? Someone could get here through a balcony or reveal the window through the unclosed file. If only before it is not a creature of sleep. Claire was waiting for what will happen next. The knife froze at the pearl necklace on her neck. The stranger looked at her as if he was waiting for something. Some kind of recognition. He asked if you would remember me? But she did not remember. Even if she saw him somewhere on the street among Londons beggars before, she could not remember him.
He waited, the blade froze on her throat, and suddenly his voice came: a hoarse and dry, as if escaping from the labyrinths of sleep and grave land.
«You cant even imagine how valuable: have beauty,» he whispered and the blade, caress, touched her cheeks. «In untouched form!»
He intentionally stressed the last words. All the moment and he could displease it, having kicked the blade along the cheek. All was in his power. She will not have time to dodge. And even if she has time, she does not break out of his hands. Claire has shovel breathing. One moment will solve her fate. Whether she will have to die immediately or live further, and covering the cheek with the scar. Before that, she really didnt think that it was valuable for a person, that his face was intact. One wave of the knife could change everything.
But the hand with a knife did not make any sharp movements. Claire felt like a chill of the blades distinguished from her, like the man who was sitting next. If only this miserable similarity could be called a man.
«Wait!»
But he has already gone into darkness. Claire did not hear a sound of steps. She felt like a nightgown clenches from the shoulders. The knife managed to cut lace straps, but did not touch the skin. All things in the room also remained intact. Although there was a lot of valuable things, the attacker did not take anything. He only wanted her. Her face. But for some reason not touched. Claire instinctively touched her cheeks. There are no scratches on the skin. And yet frost sobbed to the bones.
Who was this night guest; High, but hitched, like a dwarf, the whole dark, but covered with a ball of bloody scars. The guest with a knife! He brought his knife directly to the bed of Claire, but, leaving, left on the bed, not a blade, but a red rose. It was not difficult to guess that the rose was in her garden, and someones blood remained on the spikes.
Hallucination
The bright sunlight expelled bad memories. Claire woke up early and examined the windows and doors. She did not find any signs of hacking. There were also no traces of the house penetration. Nothing was damaged or stolen. Everything remains in their places. The night guest could consider the creature of nightmarish dreams if
If it were not rose.
It still lay on bed, with a fresh cut on the stem and bloody spikes. Someone cut off the flower with a knife with a bush in her garden. She herself raised these roses: purple-red, large, with velvety petals. The roses demanded a lot of care. Claire never cut flowers in vain. It is excluded that she herself could forget and disrupt the spiny flower. This did someone else. But who and how?
Claire wanted to take and throw a rose, but only wounded her fingers about the spikes. Her blood ran out on the bed. On the blue atlas there were sloppy strokes, similar to paint drops. What a pity! Dear fabric was ruined. Claire shuddered. In her soul, some long-standing memories of the luxurious passage commissioned by blood was moved. That was someones wedding dress stitched by the pattern of vintage mod. Claire rushed for a long time in her memory, but it was not able to remember whose dress it was, and why blood dripped on it.