Beast And The Beauty

Retreating into a corner, Mathis held the stick in front of him, ready to lash out at anything that could possibly come into his view, which was extremely limited.

Only a few candles were lit in the room, staring and barely blinking, Mathis felt like he was seeing movement everywhere as his heart started beating faster and faster, harder and harder.

A bucket of cold water was poured on him as the remaining candles were mysteriously put out, everything was locked completely, as indicated by the utter darkness, meaning that someone had blown air onto them however, Mathis had seen and heard none of it.

His heavy breathing seemed to be the only thing that existed in the darkness, not wanting to remain in one spot, he started moving alongside the wall, wanting to get as far as possible from this room.

He need to lock himself somewhere safe or find a way out, none of those seemed like they were achievable.

He felt that he was at the doorway, although he wasn't confident in himself, he tried to run toward the stairs in spite of his current blindness.

He did fairly well for a few seconds before he hit what felt like a wall.

Almost falling to the ground as he ran face first into the obstacle, making a bit dizzy but not confusing him to the point that he truly believed to have ran straight into a wall, he definitely should have been in the middle of the hallway, he had only taken one or two steps after touching the wall to his right.

Though, he wasn't certain what he had hit, it truly felt like he had hit something immovable, something beyong heavy and hard.

A match was lit, barely a second after the collision, setting a candle alight and revealing a face amidst the engulfing darkness.

"You haven't eaten anything yet Mathis" the face wasn't normal, it was a doll-like face, definitely resting on someone's face as a mask.

Light purple eyes peeking from underneath the disembodied doll visage.

Long dark hair and a thick neck were visible, standing much higher than Mathis's own head.

The hand holding the candle was the same as earlier but it seemed like Mathis had been wrong about the owner of these hands, for the voice that had come from behind the emotionless mask was clearly a woman's, with an unusually deep voice but definitely not a man.

"I-! I am not feeling so well, that is all!" he blurted out, feeling like he should justify himself for not dining at the same table as corpses.

"Is that so?" the masked woman put her hand on his forehead, Mathis still had the stick in his hand but he was completely frozen and despite his wishes, wouldn't move at all.

She stayed silent for a few moments before clicking her tongue and grabbing him by the shoulder, throwing him towards the stairs.

"Why so afraid?! Why do you all fear me? What wrong have I committed?!" she snarled at him as his body finally decided that running was indeed a good idea, he climb the stairs, tripping one too many times but never falling completely to the ground.

"This won't work between us" she calmly stated, extinguishing the candle by snuffing it out in between two fingers.

Mathis heard her footsteps clearly, as it sounded closer to stomping than anything else, just by the sound, he could here that in spite of the darkness, she was running up the stairs, multiple steps at a time.

In his hurry, he didn't notice when the stomping had stopped, one moment, it sounded as if she was right behind him and the next, as if she had disappeared from existence.

He managed to find his way to a room and locked himself inside, thankfully, the doctor left the keys on the doors, putting his back against the locked door, he slid down as he breathed heavily, feeling like he had run a whole marathon when in truth, he had barely ran at all.

Feeling oppressed by the darkness more than ever, he carefully searched the room he was in, managing to get a hold of a match box, which had been put in an awfully secured place, inside a metal box, put on a table, far away from any furniture or wall, Pi truly was paranoiac of fires.

Lighting the candles of the room, he certainly felt much better, he checked the closet and under the bed as well, just to be certain, but once he confirmed that he was safe, he sat at the end of the bed, slowly calming down.

He didn't understand what was going on but he wasn't going to leave this room any time soon, he tried to force the window, he even forgo his attempt at being an examplary manor-sitter and tried to shatter the glass by repeatedly bashing it with the small table but whatever glass this was, was incredibly resistant.

"Why would the doctor install such windows?" he wondered, he may be worried of fires but burglaries would be unlikely in such a place, far away from everything else.

He sat back on the bed, defeated as he stared in the direction of the window, even if the height from the second floor would be perilous to fall from, that was the only possibility he could think of, with a maniac roaming the place in total blackness.

As he thought deepy, he didn't notice something slowly coming down from the ceiling behind him.

Mathis felt the mattress slightly sinking in and without thinking swung the stick as he turned around.

The hook-like piece, embedding itself into the neck of the doll-faced woman, the pain made her move back and without waiting, she pulled out the tool and threw it away.

"You... Attacked me?" she asked and Mathis tried running for the door, only to be intercepted and thrown back onto the bed.

She wrapped her big hands around his neck and squeezed, immediately suffocating him.

"You're the worst of all!" her neck was bleeding strongly and without thinking, the young man shoved his fingers into the wound, the woman screamed in pain and anger, letting go of him as she pushed his hand away and tried to stop the bleeding.

Coughing uncontrollably, Mathis took hold of the small table that had failed to break the window and instead took it to the skull of his assaillants, hitting so hard the it slipped out of his grasp after the hit.

The doll-faced woman stopped moving.