There was nothing but silence in Erick's room, the sun was slowly setting over the horizon, and shadows were beginning to form whereverthe corners met.
Johan breathed steadily on the bed, wrapped comfortably in a silk sheet, his chest rising and falling rhythmically.
There was nothing but silence inside that room so strange to the young man.
Johan, however, began to pant heavily as his hands reached for the void above him.
"No... You can't..." Johan mumbled, his voice shaking and covered in despair.
"You can't do this to me... My..."
With a scream, Johan woke up with a start, ready to throw a punch at someone non-existent before him.
"Ah..."
Panting, Johan almost fell to his side, wrapped in the sheet, but managed to balance himself at the last moment.
A few moments later, still frozen in that position, Johan looked at himself in the reflection of the wardrobe mirror, and finally seemed to return a little to reality.
Panting, Johan took off the sheet, got out of bed, and went to the bathroom inside the room.
He turned on the light, and turned on the sink faucet, splashing generous amounts of water on his face.
After becoming a little more conscious, Johan looked at the mirror.
"Dude... Is this serious...?"
Johan went to the bathroom stall and turned on the shower, letting the hot water create a curtain of steam inside the room.
He returned after a while, having already chosen the clothes he would wear for dinner, and undressed, getting into the bath and letting the water run over his tired body.
"It was supposed to be a restful sleep, not a nightmare..." Johan sighed, tired.
He felt as if every bone in his body had been crushed by a steamroller, but he let the images of that dream wash down the drain with the hot water and soap.
***
A few minutes later, the alarm that Johan had set to wake up and get ready finally went off, bringing a frown to Johan's face.
With a roll of his eyes, still getting used to the new environment, Johan went to the closet and picked up the pieces he would use.
Black dress pants, a white leather belt, a black dress shirt, a white silk tie, and a jacket, also black, with a white handkerchief in the breast pocket.
A few minutes later, Johan was ready, and staring at his completely unrecognizable reflection in the mirror.
Dazzled by what he saw in the mirror, Johan smiled, heading towards the bedroom door.
"Let's go..."
His heart was still tight from the nightmare.
Or was there some other reason why the silence in Johan's new room bothered him so much?
Leaving the thought aside, he left the room, and headed towards where the sound of the servants seemed loudest.
Going down the stairs, Johan tried to go unnoticed by some guests who were already arriving, stealthy as only someone taught on the streets, it didn't take much effort for Johan to avoid the attention of thenewly arrived guests.
He knew he was doing something that Erick probably wouldn't do, but the smell of food being prepared in the kitchen was simply too overwhelming for Johan not to go there and try to steal something.
Not that he needed to steal what, for the next five years of his life, was basically his.
But the kitchen seemed to be much more exciting than that flock of starchy people arriving from all sides, looking at everything Erick owned with vulture eyes.
A few moments later, Johan opened the kitchen door surreptitiously, entering without being announced or heard, watching the servants prepare the silverware, ceramics and crystals.
And, of course, the cooks preparing the food.
Johan expected to see chefs and their assistants cooking, but to his pleasant surprise, he saw cooks who looked like ordinary people.
Professionals, yes, but ordinary people, who seemed to have a background a little less close to the royalty that Johan had just become close to, and closer to people like him.
"Mister Vaughn!" One of the cooks, a lady who must have been in her late fifties, with pale skin full of fine wrinkles, and brown eyes that gave her the look of a kind grandmother, gasped. "We are late?"
There was some indescribable sadness in the lady's eyes, which made Johan wonder a few things, but he just shook his head, and replied.
"No..." A few seconds of pause later, Johan managed to remember the name Erick had called the cook, leader of the servants. "No, Alma, you're not late. I came here on a nosy, the smell was so good, I just couldn't resist."
Johan grimaced with a small, somewhat mischievous smile, looking at the lady, Alma.
The lady smiled, slowly, hesitantly approaching Johan.
"Do you want to taste some, Mr. Vaughn?"
Johan nodded, heading towards the huge stove in the corner of the kitchen, and opening one of the pans.
When he did so, an ecstatic aroma hit his nostrils from the hot steam of the beef stew.
"Pepper, garlic, onion, carrots, potatoes... How about adding some oregano and basil and more garlic?"
The stew was an almost sanguine reddish brown, and the texture was so creamy that Johan was seriously considering ordering a piece of bread to go with it.
Alma, however, looked at him with wide eyes, something like surprise and some other emotion that Johan couldn't identify.
"Is there a problem, Alma?" Johan asked, perplexed.
"No, Mr. Vaughn... It's just..." She paused. "This is the servants' meal..."
Alma looked at Johan with the expression of someone who expected a reproach, or someone who would throw the huge pan to the other side of the kitchen, dirtying everything around it.
Johan didn't understand why, he just held his chin with his fingers, and said, with a mischievous, crooked smile.
"Then serve me a plate of this, with a very thick slice of bread, because this beef stew smells much better than all the food we are going to serve to the guests!" And he laughed softly.
Widening his eyes for a moment, Johan corrected himself immediately afterwards.
"Don't get me wrong, the smell of the dishes you are all preparing is wonderful, but this stew..."
Alma smiled, while all the cooks looked, silent and with surprised eyes, at Johan. A few moments later, a tear ran down the kind lady's face.