"Ma'am Kiara, why is there a chest of drawers in front of your mirror? Should I move it back to its original place? I want to clean the bathroom." Rosaline asked while she carried a mop bucket and some cleaning utensils into Kiara's bathroom.
"Just leave it there, Rosaline," Kiara snapped.
Her response was so abrupt and carried with it anger and rudeness that Rosaline dared not ask one more question. She quietly cleaned the bathroom and when she was done, silently said her goodbyes and quickly disappeared.
Left in her room, Kiara was singing a bit for her son. She hated how her life had become. Never in her life had she thought that a time could come when she would miss seeing the sun, the sky and the clouds. The room in which she stayed had no access whatsoever to the outside world, for it was built as part of a suite. It connected to a balcony, with large windows, but then those doors and windows were all locked and shielded by massive thick curtains which ran all the way to the floor. Kiara hated that bedroom of hers. It was always dim, even during the daytime. She always needed the lights to be on if she was to see her way in that prison cell of hers.
Her little boy was playing with his toys, and she too sat with him, playing and talking. After a while of having fun with the boy, Kiara realised that the little one was yawning and looking sleepy. She gently rocked him to sleep and placed him neatly in bed.
***
Dear Kimmy
I put up a chest of drawers in order to cover the broken mirror. Why is there a hole in the wall? I have done my best to forget about it, but the more I try, the more curious I become.
I have to know; I need to know. Where does that tunnel lead to? What is hidden in that tunnel? How often do they use it? Could there be someone who peeps in there at night to spy on me? But no…if they wanted to spy on me, I believe they would have better ways. They could easily place a camera somewhere.
Dear Kimmy; one thing I know is Vine will not kill me. He needs me. For the sake of Vincent; I must live. So I am taking the risk. Today, when it is all silent in the night, I will crawl into that tunnel, and I will have to find out where it leads to, and what it hides.
I have made my decision, dear Kimmy.
***
Soon after eating her dinner, Kiara thanked Rosaline and asked for her space. She was not too sure about Vincent. Was it safe to crawl into the tunnel and leave Vincent alone in the bedroom? What if he cried? What if he fell off the bed?
But was it also safe to leave him with either lady Pinkerton or the evil dad? That second option carried more risk, according to Kiara. The best option, the way she saw it, was to just go in there and leave the child sleeping on the bed.
Kiara failed to sleep. She continued to guess what time it was, for she had no watch in her room. There was neither watch not phone…there was nothing to help her know what time it was.
When there was dead silence in the mansion, Kiara told herself that it was time to act. Vincent Lisandro was sleeping like the baby that he was, breathing softly under the fine linen that his mother covered him with.
Unsure of what lay ahead, Kiara wore very tight fitting jeans and a similarly tight t-shirt. She had sneakers on, for who knew, what if she needed shoes once she got down that tunnel? She tied her hair into a tight bun, because she could not handle any disturbances such as hair getting into her face.
She stood in the bathroom and sighed. The decision had been made. It was time to carry it out. The girl moved the chest of drawers aside, removed the broken mirror and, as her heart pounded like it had never pounded before, she crawled into the tunnel.
On all fours, Kiara continued to go forward, her heart drumming louder and louder as she went.
It was dark inside, and she used her hands to feel ahead of her before crawling forward. Where on earth was the tunnel leading to? Why did the Pinkertons need a tunnel in their home?
She continued to go until a point she felt with her hand, and she could feel that there was a descending step. A step? There were steps in the tunnel? Unsure of how huge the step would be, Kiara blindly felt with her right hand, and she realised that it was not too big. After making sure of everything, she descended and proceeded.
Suddenly there was a ray of light ahead of her. And a stench. A smell of something rotten. She fought hard not to cough or sneeze, and curiosity getting in control, she moved faster, making sure to look out in case there was one or more stairs ahead of her.
The light continued to grow brighter and brighter just as the stench also grew. Kiara kept going, stopping every now and then to listen in case there were voices or footsteps. Soon the tunnel ended, and in front of her was something wooden. A door? Was it a door? Kiara was not sure. It did not look like a door, rather it looked like just a wooden plank. And it was big.
So then what was the way forward? Was it safe for her to move that plank? Who was on the other side? What if there was a bodyguard there waiting, holding a gun in his or her hands? What would happen? Would the person have the guts to shoot her; to pull the trigger on her, when she was the mother of Vincent Lisandro; the most loved baby in the Pinkerton clan.
She waited while listening. A fight was going on inside her mind. One part of her mind urged her to remove the plank and see what lay on the other side, while the other part told her to just turn and crawl back to her bedroom before things got seriously ugly.
The curious part of her mind won. She told herself; I have already come this far anyway; let me just get it over and done with. And with those words in her mind, the young mother pushed the wooden plank. It easily moved, but it still hung from the top; on whatever was supporting it. She let her hands out, and held the plank on both sides, carefully lifting it up and removing it from where it hung. Oh! It was actually a picture frame. A beautiful picture of a lion.
The frame was hanging right above a table. The table, as Kiara could clearly see, was placed strategically so that whoever would have come using the tunnel could step on it before descending to the floor. She did just that.
She crawled on to the table and slowly and carefully descended, then stood on the floor.
In front of her was an extremely huge room with nothing but dirty things. Boxes of papers were placed randomly in the room, and there were three stretcher beds also haphazardly placed. She saw three doors connecting to the room, and the desire to know what was behind them grew. Thus she moved as slowly as she could, heading towards one of the doors.
What if it creaked? Was it safe to try and open it? Was someone inside that room? She slowly pushed, and the door opened to reveal a toilet. Not just a toilet, but a seriously dirty one. That was where the stench was coming from. There were even stains of blood on the wall, and from just seeing them, it was clear to Kiara that the blood had been there for ages. Whose blood was it?
She retreated, covering her nose with her mouth, and she wanted to see what was in the second door. She slowly opened it. It was a sliding door which she ever so carefully slid, and she entered into the room. The lights in that room were off, and she dared not switch them on. Using the rays of the light from the bigger room, Kiara was able to make out a lot of bed linen scattered on the floor. Some of it had blood on it.
She told herself that it was time to leave. She needed to leave at that very moment. What on earth?
Just at the moment when she meant to turn and leave, the third door creaked open, and she heard sounds as if someone was having difficulties in breathing. Kiara was seriously scared, and regretted why she had ever come.
The person who had opened the third door moved. Moving sounds could be heard, but the person was surely not walking. It sounded as if the person was pulling themselves on the floor; or were they crawling?
Kiara asked God to help her, and pleaded for her life. What had she done? Why did she even come to the place? The door of the room in which she hid was not properly closed. She had not slid it to the end, such that if she had wanted, she could have peeked to see who was crawling on the other side of the room. But she dared not. How could she even think of doing that? She stood stuck to the wall, shaking like a leaf. She smelt death in her face, and cursed herself over and over for ever making the decision to venture into the tunnel.
The person who was crawling moved until they got to the bathroom, and she heard sounds of vomiting. It sounded more like the person was forcing his or herself to vomit, but nothing was really coming up. Throwing up? The person was sick? She heard the sound of the toilet flushing, and the person started going back to the room where they had come from.
Who was that? Why were they in that place, and vomiting without anyone to attend to them? If Kiara had ever been terrified in her entire life, that day was the worst for her. Her entire body shook, and she suddenly felt sudden changes in temperature; for while she felt hot at one moment, she suddenly felt cold the next moment. Her breathing, although she did a good job suppressing it, was threatening to sell her out.
She listened and the person moved back to their room, and she told herself it was time to leave. She had to leave. There were no two options about that. For the sake of her life and sanity; it was time to leave.
She pursed her lips while carefully sliding the door, and sure enough, the door cooperated well, for it did not make any sound. She tiptoed, headed to the table, so that she could make her way out, but on her fourth of fifth step, she stepped on something wet and slippery on the floor.
What the hell! Her shoes had good grip, but fear and panic must have contributed to her almost fall, so she ended up holding on to one stretcher bed which was just close by, and it moved, making a sound.
"Anybody there?" a frail voice called from the room.
Kiara dared not move. It was a frail, female voice. Who was that? A lady? She had never assumed the person would be female. Somehow, her mind had just concluded that they person would be male.
"Help me," the feeble voice pleaded.
Before she knew it, Kiara saw the door opening, and a very weak person, pulling herself by the buttocks, came out.
"Help me," the person repeated.
Kiara shivered in immense trepidation. The person was still by the doorway, thus it was not too easy to make out their face. The person's hair was roughly cut. It was uneven, looking as if whoever had cut it had just picked a hand scissors and chopped off chunks of hair from various areas of the head. And the person wore a pair of yellow pajamas. She wore no jersey or anything else besides the pajamas.
"Help me," she repeated.
Kiara looked at the person and swore to herself that she was not going to have anything to do with her. What if it was all a trap? Headed to the table, she quickly climbed on to the table and was about to remove the picture frame so that she could hop back into the tunnel when the delicate voice came again,
"You have to help me."
She froze in her tracks. Why on earth did the voice sound familiar? What kind of trick as that?
She remained on the table, the picture frame in her hand.
"Help me, please." The voice cried again, and Kiara instantly recognised it.