Chapter 107

Chapter 107
"The Flaming Fire"

Everything has significantly changed. When I returned to the old house, my previously straightforward idea got more difficult. I became Carlo's prisoner, and I could see the determination in his face as he planned what he was going to do to me. He'll never listen to me again. And I'm at his mercy to do anything he wants.
My head was racing and my senses were jumbled. I felt as if I were being wrapped in an invincible shroud. And the hopelessness pervaded my entire system.
After a few minutes, I regained my composure and asked Carlo a question.
"You're not going to do this to me, Carlo."
"Yes, Monica, I can, and I'm starting to accomplish what I've always wanted to do."
Carlo's eyes were different from before. The formerly soothing and warmed eyes have turned frigid and blank.
And knowing that Madam Mea was aware of my photos with her husband would almost certainly spark a conflict between her and Rafael. And my son may be a bystander.
"Don't let my son perish as a result of my sin, Carlo," I begged. "You duped me by arranging a phony marriage."
"It all started when you lied to me." His voice was cold.
"I didn't lie to you, Carlo; since the beginning, I've previously confessed to you how I felt about Rafael, but you continued your desire to have me." I retold the past in the hope that he would see that it was partly his mistake.
"You keep giving me hope, Monica, that one day you'll be able to fall in love with me, but it was all lies and tricks," he grumbled.
"Everything happened at random, Carlo; I didn't plan anything, including the time Rafael and I were in the house after your acquaintance shot me in the chest," I screamed, blaming both myself and him, adding, "I didn't ask Rafael to take me in that house."
"If that's the case, he deserves to die."
"No! Please, Carlo, stop thinking of killing him; he is not the one who deserves to be blamed; we all have defects! "
Carlo rose up and began walking towards me.
I went backwards to avoid getting too close to him. And he came to a halt in the midst of the photos on the floor.
"You are correct; we all make mistakes, but you made the majority of them with the doctor."
"Punish me if you want, but just leave Rafael alone," I wailed as I went on. "When things went bad with me in the hands of his wife, my son needed him; he must not die."
Carlo, on the other hand, was no longer concerned with my feelings. All he wanted was to even the score with Rafael.
"Remember how excellent Rafael is for you as your boss, Carlo."
He isn't very good because he wanted everything. "You are the most important thing he desired, along with your child." He then approached the door.
"Please Carlo, let me go," I begged him.
"No. I'm done with all the yeses in my life with you. This time, you have to follow me." He quickly unlocked the door and went outside before I got near the door. He slammed it hard and locked it outside.
I bumped the door, but it didn't stir a bit. The door was old but solid, and I couldn't make my way through it now that it was locked.
My heart lipped like a wild animal looking for a way out. I ran to the kitchen and looked for open windows, but it was impossible to get out with that iron grill outside. I sat back down at the table, exhausted and helpless.
My eyes roamed around the room, trying to figure out what I should do next.
I have to do something.
I ran back to the living room and looked outside the window. I saw the empty parking lot outside the grilled gate. All my energy was drained out of me by the situation I was in.
There’s no way out. That’s for sure. So I decided to sit down on the sofa and focus again on the pictures that Carlo had tossed angrily on the floor. And I picked one to cool down my hypertension mood.
What I picked was the picture where I sat beside Rafael on the bench. And I remembered what really happened that day. The nurse was summoned by him, and then never came back. Rafael appeared instead of the nurse. And I was both happy and excited to have Rafael by my side that day. It was my last day in that house. And that day, I felt the love Rafael had for me. He was so loving and caring, and it was interrupted with the bad news. Someone called, reporting that my son was in the hospital. And that was it. Mea was again the possible culprit of my son’s hospitalization.
The thought of Mea brought me back to the tension I was suffering earlier. So I rose up to the pink room. I was looking for something I didn’t know. I looked out the window where Annie had jumped.
What if I just jump from here? Do I have a chance to survive?
I screamed in panic. A lot of scenarios were flashing in my head. Some are so gruesome that I shook them off with another scream. I was hopeless at that moment. All I wanted was my son, and all I gained was a trap for my most trusted man, Carlo.
How could he do this to me? I thought.
I slammed my body onto the bed, trying to muster a plan that would lead me out of the house. And then, my eyes focused again on the window. I went back and looked outside again to calculate the height from below. It would be a long jump that would cripple me if possible.
"I have to find my way out," I mumbled. My anger was building up towards what happened, and I panicked again, thinking about my son.
Carlo was correct: Mea would go insane if she saw the photos Rafael had taken of somebody, possibly Carlo himself. And she would possibly slam all her anguish on my son, which could possibly kill him.
I screamed angrily and clenched the bed sheet, almost tearing it, and yanked it out of the mattress. I was getting mad at that situation.
"I have to get out of here," I pulled out all the blankets from the cupboard and rummaged for a pair of scissors in Annie’s drawers, but I couldn’t find a pair. I ran down to the kitchen and pulled hard on all the drawers, but still no scissors. My eyes caught a glimpse of the knife rack, and I pulled out one that glittered with sharpness.
I climbed back to the pink room and gathered all the blankets and clothes that I could tie together to make a ladder down from the window. As I was making a cloth ladder, I felt like I was in a fantasy movie. I know I have to move quickly to race the time before my son gets hurt, and that if he was still untouched, again, my adrenaline shot up to the top of my head, which made my surroundings a bit hazy. My hands were shaking, which caused the delay in my cloth ladder making. And then I accidentally cut my hands.
I screamed again. I was in so much pain and despair, and I cried and cried and leaned on the wall, and watched numbly at the torn clothes on the floor. I bumped the back of my head on the wall where I was leaning, and it quaked. I turned my head to see what happened and saw that the secret playroom was a bit ajar.
I pulled it open with my right hand and the inside part of the room revealed something. I crawled to get a clear view of what I saw. The wall used to have clean flowered wall paper, but now it was stained with a liquefied red substance like blood, and a name was revealed written on the wall. It said, "DAVE was here."
I went inside the playroom and found everything in disarray. The teapot table and children’s chairs were scattered everywhere. Someone had been there disturbing those toys, and now the name Dave came up again.
I screamed, "Where are you?! Please stop connecting with me in this mysterious way. Show yourself to me, Dave." I cried. "I need your help now."
With so many emotions, I collapsed on the floor. I could only hear my own sobbing. And remember what Rico said back there on the island? Dave was looking for me in a private boat. How come he was on a private boat? As far as I could remember, he was a simple, poor driver, and renting a boat from his own pocket would be impossible.
I crawled back to the big room, where the torn blankets and clothes were scattered on the floor. I have to continue my escape before Carlo comes back.
A few minutes later, the cloth ladder I was working on was tied, but when I dropped it down, it was still too far down. And frustration started to eat me up. But the thought of my son pushed me to do something. I had to look for additional clothes for my ladder, so I went to the next room and the next to gather more clothes, and the last room I opened was the duplicate pink room that I suspected as Mea’s room. I opened all the cupboards but found a few blankets.
As I stood there watching Mea's room, I felt a surge of rage in my chest, causing my bloodied hand to slam against the wall. I was really mad at her.
I screamed, "You're a killer, Mea." Killer! Killer!" I saw a stool, and I slammed it against the drawer’s mirror. And it created a big smash when some of the mirror fragments hit my shoulder. But it didn’t tone down my anger at her. I was furiously destroying the room. And to my surprise, the broken mirror had revealed something from behind the wall. The wall paper had been damaged a bit, and there was something behind the torn wall paper that caught my attention.
I pulled the mirrors attached to the drawer away from the wall, and scratched the torn wall paper off the wall. The more I scratched, the more I saw scribbling on the wall. It was handwritten with a black pentel pen. It accelerated my energy to read everything that was written, so I moved as fast as I could to finish getting rid of all the wall paper on the wall. And after a few minutes, the message from the wall was revealed. It said, "Soon I will become Annie."
I felt goose bumps about what I had discovered. It was obvious that Mea had scribbled the promise to herself on the wall. And it confirmed that she was behind Annie’s death.
I dashed back to Annie’s room. What I had just discovered made me more aggressive in my attempts to get out of the house. And the only way out was to jump off the window, like Annie did.
After I tied all the clothes, it already made a longer cloth ladder for me. I threw it back down and started climbing up the window, but it was too small for my building. So I went back inside the room, trying to figure out how I could get out the window without falling. I tried again and again, but I didn’t fit in. And I'm curious about how Annie managed to squeeze herself into the window.
Frustration filled me up again. I knelt down and then lay down on the floor, feeling exhausted. I didn’t expect to doze off for an hour or more, maybe. And when I opened my eyes, I smelt a stinging odor, like gasoline.
I pulled myself up and saw a dark smoke outside Annie’s window. I climbed up to see what caused the smoke. It was coming from below, from the cloth ladder I made. It was flaming with fire.