The sharp pain in her chest and the crackling sound of thunder outside the Euphrasia kingdom was enough to awaken Anna from her deep slumbers.
With a gasp escaping her parted lips, her eyes snapped open as she hurriedly sat up on her bed, staring blankly at the darkness which encompassed the room and leaving her staring at its emptiness.
Her heart thundered repeatedly against her chest while her breathing came short, she was sweating all over, her nightgown already clung to her skin due to the wetness of her body. She focused on calming herself down after realizing it was the same nightmare again, giving her chest a gentle pat.
The nightmare which had refused to let her be ever since she survived the terrible incident.
The whoosh! Sound of air swiftly invaded her room like an unwelcome breeze, cooling her system which made the terrified Anna shiver impulsively as it hit the sweat which ran across her back.
She turned her head to the direction of her window and a soft sigh escaped her lips, she found it open due to the force of the heavy wind outside. Not only that, it was raining quite heavily too. The splattering sound of the rain hitting the ground could be heard faintly. No wonder her candles had gone out, it was no one else but the winds doing.
Relieving her heart from the earlier ache, she wiped the tears which had uncontrollably rolled down to her face before getting out of bed and hurriedly going over to close the window.
With the quick lighting of matches, she had lit up the candles in her room again, feeling it with the yellow brightness it had lost due to the wind outside.
Staring at the burning flame, her chocolate brown eyes couldn't look any prettier despite the tears which lingered on her lashes, they looked distant, filled with longing and neverending pain which she had no time explaining to people anymore.
It's funny how easily the candle defy and define darkness, just like her life, she had learned to be a slave of darkness and get accustomed to it. Falling asleep was out of the question cause she'd only go back to dreaming about that night which haunts her till this day.
She had lost everything in the blink of an eye that night, yet she was the only person who survived the awful incident.
Another unstoppable tear rolled from the brim of her eyes and down her smooth cheek like a piece of velvet, her tears glistened against the light of the candle. Her heart felt heavy the more she kept recalling the incident, but her saddened recollection got disrupted when a loud bang from outside her door grabbed her attention, like something had fallen.
She hurriedly got to her feet with another gasp escaping her lips the moment she heard that sound, she stared out through her window and it was still late. Who could be wandering around the palace at this hour? And so late at night?
Wanting to satisfy her curiosity and convince herself that no one has broken into the palace, she grabbed one of the candles in her room and cautiously headed towards the door with silent steps. Holding onto the doorknob with a firm grip, it slowly creaked open.
She popped her head out at first, staring at the dark passageway before bringing her candle out in case there was someone there. To her surprise, the passageway was quiet and empty, nothing seemed to have fallen or broken. It was just oddly quiet.
"Strange, I thought I heard…" she paused for a few seconds the moment her sensitive ears grasped the sound of light footsteps fading into the distance. From her childhood, she had the gift of being able to hear things which were quite farther from her, it had saved her from getting into too many troubles while staying in the palace, because it gave her a chance to eavesdrop on the plans of most of the maidens in the palace.
Gathering enough courage, she stepped out of her room and followed the sound of those footsteps she kept hearing, quite bothered about the person who would wander around so late at night.
With only her candle as her source of light, she shielded it carefully so the wind wouldn't blow it out again, hastily making her way past the passageway. Her heart drummed nevertheless when the footsteps were starting to get closer and closer with each stride she took.
She was afraid, but her willingness to know who it was drove her to keep walking. After making it to the stairway where she last heard the footsteps, there was no one at sight, even the guards were nowhere to be seen. The footsteps couldn't be heard either like it just…. Disappeared.
"Who's there?" Her songbird voice echoed softly through the stairway as she continuously glanced around, flashing her candle to each direction her eyes were fixated on, but there was no one at sight.
Finding the situation to be nothing but strange and bizarre, she decided to retreat to her chamber's when an unexpected push behind her back made her stumble forward.
"Ahhh!!"
She lost her balance due to the force of the push and the next second, she found herself rolling through the neverending hard stairs.