She pointed her weapon, the paintbrush, dangerously at Otto. Her hands are shaking from the burning rage and her eyebrows knitted firmly that she could lose control of her face. It seems that her grim expression might stay that way forever if she doesn't relax soon.
Thana will only get uglier then.
But the old man went overboard with his antics that it's no longer funny to her. Thana never found him funny from the start, for he proved himself only to be a lunatic in front of her. She can't help but bury herself in deep regret and wonder whether she can turn back time. Maybe she would have gone past that bookstore and prevented such misfortunes as this from happening.
Now this old man claims Thana to be dead. That would only mean that he had killed her with that cup of tea; he had just admitted that he's a murderer. Thinking about it made her tremble in anger, mostly at herself for being so gullible.
She couldn't help herself as she bends and pulls her right arm, holding the paintbrush backward before hurling it forcefully at Otto, taking him by surprise. Unfortunately, he dodged it as if old age did nothing to his agility and stared at Thana with wide, surprised eyes.
"You could have stabbed me right in the eyes!" he screeched for the first time. Thana scowls at how ugly he sounds when he isn't as calm as he usually is and responds, "I would have been thrilled if it did."
Otto sighs, "you shouldn't be this aggressive; I was only trying to help and make your life better. But now you've pained my feelings for wanting to kill me with that brush."
"Who are you trying to make my life better? If your plan of improving my life was to place me in that forest so I could stumble down the cliff and come very close to meeting death, then god forbids you to meddle with people's lives anymore."
"Listen, young lady, falling down that cliff was all on you. I'm not in charge of your misfortunes when in fact, I'm like a fairy godfather," Otto shakes his head, folding his arms, chuckling to himself.
Thana stared for a few seconds at his absurdity.
"Enough of this. Just bring me back to my world or whatever, and I should forget about this nonsense you're trying to say that I'm inside a book," Thana said the last word slowly and with a pop of her lips.
The old man could only fiddle with his fingers looking down at his feet like a little child. Otto knows that he could no longer calm her down or try to convince the young lady further since time is running out. Either way, she would never believe him, and she'd only be angered. Who knows what else she can do? Thana had already tried stabbing his eyes.
He sighs, mumbling, "and I brought her here because I was excited about her mission."
"What?" Thana snaps bitterly, and Otto looks up at her with an understanding smile. It meant nothing good to her as she knows that something foolish is about to come out of that mouth whenever he smiles in any way.
"Maybe I should give you a bit more time to get accustomed to the world you're in before we discuss your purpose in my book. Trust me, you'll love it there," Otto said, almost too pleasantly.
Thanas squinted her eyes at him, unsatisfied with the answer she received. She clenches her fist, muttering under her breath, "you're a dead man."
But Otto continued on, "just remember that you're Adelaide in this world. And your identity is interesting, but you'll have to find out more later on when we meet again."
"-I'm going to kill you," she says a bit louder.
"We should meet again soon when you're ready to listen," Otto says, waving his hand at her as he slowly starts to disappear into thin air as golden sparkling dust.
"No, no. Don't you dare!"
Thana begins to run, but like what happened before, she doesn't seem to move no matter how hard she tries. The old man vanishes before her eyes, and there's nothing she could do about it. Everything becomes a peaceful silence; it's just Thana in the middle of the place called the limbo.
She breathed heavily, eyeing her surroundings, thinking about how she could escape being in such a place. As Thana was about to open her mouth to give out a random call, a thundering sound almost broke her eardrums.
It was loud enough to send Thana down to her knees and cover her ears as she screamed with her eyes shut tight. Thana is afraid of many things, and one of them is the harsh and blaring noise of either glass shattering or guns fired.
Her mind became a fuzzy whirlwind, and she waited until the deafening racket went away. Before Thana could throw up with her eyes closed, she jolts up and snaps her eyes open. Thana gasps out loud, seeing two unfamiliar figures in front of her.
One of them is a lady in her mid-50s wearing a print vintage gown and a clean white apron around her waist. The lady wears a simple white cap on top of her short lovely brown curls she tied messily. She looked at Thana with her wide emerald eyes and with mouth agape.
Thana looked at her with the same expression, but she shifted her attention to the man wearing an odd blue coat with golden embroideries and buttons lapelled to the waist. He wears tight white trousers that show his perfectly shaped bum as he faces Thana sideways.
What the man is wearing looked awfully familiar to Thana. It looked very similar to the military attires she remembers from one of the history books she was forced to study.
Not only did she realize the odd-looking people in front of her, but she gasped and clenched the sheets she's holding when her eyes wandered on her surroundings.
"Adelaide?"
Thana snaps her head toward the lady that spoke, studying her features, seeing every wrinkled line appearing on the side of her eyes as the lady smiled.
"You're Adelaide, right?"