A life in a villa

I lay in a bed so comfortable I still couldn’t believe I was a kidnapped hostage. It had been three days since I met these strange people. The only information I got from them was that they kidnapped me to lure in Rui, who could track my location because I was possessed by a ghost, something they learned from my text messages with her. They let me use my phone when someone texted me, or when I had to inform my school I wouldn’t be coming that week, using the excuse that I was sick.

I was a perfect person to be kidnapped because I didn’t have that many friends and didn’t live with my parents, but I didn’t really know what they planned to do for the upcoming school days. If I were to be absent for more than seven days, I would need a note from my doctor, which I had no way of getting in my situation. And if I didn’t show up for a long time, the police would start searching for me and that would mean trouble for the kidnappers.

I didn’t have to pretend to sleep at night because they knew I wasn’t able to, but what surprised me was that nobody in this villa even seemed to be sleeping. Whenever I walked around the building, I always saw the same few people. It was the three I originally met, plus one more man and a woman. They brought me food, but they themselves never ate, at least not to my knowledge.

I got up from my bed, dressed in the clothes they provided me with, and went outside my room.

I was allowed to freely walk inside the villa, but they never let me outside. The few windows that this house had were locked and as I was told really sturdy and even bulletproof, so there wasn’t a point in trying to escape through them.

I walked into the kitchen and calmly went to the fridge. I took out some milk and apple juice, placing them on the kitchen table before taking a bowl, a spoon, and a glass from the cabinets next to the fridge. Then, I grabbed chocolate and cinnamon cereal from the pantry, pouring it into the bowl before pouring milk on top. Last, I poured the apple juice into the glass before taking a spoonful of cereal and putting it in my mouth.

To someone not in the know, I probably looked like a normal kid having breakfast, not like a kidnapped person, which I actually was.

Funnily enough, the fact that I didn’t sleep at all fixed my daily schedule. I got up at 6 or 7 am, had breakfast, tried to read a little, and worked out before lunch. After, I either worked out again or simply went on a walk, hung out with friends, or simply did some random stuff. Then I had dinner and went to sleep, by which I mean about eight hours of watching videos online or playing games on my phone. Then the next morning, I repeated the same routine.

I finished my breakfast, washed the dishes, and put them on the counter to dry. I didn’t need to do any of that, but I felt like if I didn’t keep myself occupied, I’d eventually go crazy. So, I washed my dishes and clothes on my own and made food for myself. The house was always full of ingredients, so I could even experiment a little and teach myself how to cook better with the laptop they provided me. They only let me use it if someone else was supervising me, so I wouldn’t try to contact anyone.

I sat on the sofa and turned on the TV.

*

“Good morning, dear.”

About half an hour into a documentary about bats, the woman who first kidnapped me sat uncomfortably close to me on the sofa. I still didn’t know any of their names, nor did they give me any nicknames I could call them by.

“Sorry to disrupt your rest, but I’ll need you to come with me for a moment, okay?”

She still talked in a fake loving voice, which gave me the creeps every time I heard it.

“Where are we going?” I asked calmly, as if talking to a friend I could be casual with. Over the three days I spent here already, I learned to interact with all of them naturally, so as to not give in to depression and despair.

“Outside,” she said, a mischievous smile appearing on her lips.

“You have a visitor.”

“A visitor? Wait, Rui?!”

She didn’t answer me, but by her widening smile, I could tell I guessed right.

She really came...

I was hoping she wouldn’t come, but at the time, I was afraid of what would happen to me if she didn’t. Maybe they’d disregard me once they determined that she wouldn’t be coming. I was relieved that she came to save me. She was an elf, after all. Humans couldn’t stand up to her in normal circumstances, but something about these people didn’t sit right with me, and I couldn’t help but be worried.

For the first time in three days, I went outside, accompanied by four of the five people who held me hostage here. The younger man I met among the first ones wasn’t present.

She said Rui was supposed to be here, but I didn’t see her anywhere. I tried looking around, when the woman suddenly took my hand and forcefully interlocked fingers with me as if I were her lover.

I naturally didn’t like that, so I tried to free my hand from her grasp, but she was surprisingly strong despite how frail she looked, so I was unable to do so.

I turned to face her, meeting her disturbingly creepy blood-red eyes. As usual, she was smiling, but this time, it was somehow different. It wasn’t the same cold, fake smile as always, but one filled with hatred and resentment. At the same time, there was a deep sense of craving and restrained hunger, like a beast trying to hold off on devouring its prey without saving even a scrap for later.

Even though her eyes were looking at me, I could tell her hunger wasn’t. It was directed at someone else. And that someone was walking toward us from a distance. Even from so far away, I could tell it was her. Her hair was brown, hiding her long ears. She was wearing a black oversized hoodie and dark blue jeans, looking like any ordinary person you would find on the street.

“Rui...”

I whispered her name to myself, so quietly even I couldn’t properly hear it, yet the woman still holding my hand answered me.

“That’s right. Are you relieved your little elf girlfriend came to save you, dear? Ah, such young love, how truly magnificent. Oh, how truly jealous I am.”

With every word she spoke, the yearning and hunger in her eyes grew, so much so she even started shaking a little, as if unable to restrain herself for much longer. The other kidnappers exhibited similar reactions.

When Rui was close enough for me to see her expression, I was surprised to see her face contorted in anger, rage and a slight confusion and disbelief. Like she wasn’t willing to accept what her eyes were showing her.

I gulped loudly. I found myself suddenly more nervous than before. I’ve never seen such an unsightly expression on her face. It gave me a slight fright.

As Rui was walking slowly towards us, her hair started to change color. The dark brown slowly receded downwards, a bright blue shining with silver replacing it. The exact second her hair color had fully transformed, and her ears were visible for all to see, she dashed forward and disappeared on the spot.

In the next moment, the head of the woman not holding my hand was no longer on her neck, but lying on the ground several meters away from the body it belonged to.

Blood slowly flowed from it while it rolled on the ground, before stopping, its red eyes still open, facing the sky. The headless body stood still, not collapsing despite losing its head.

Before I even had the chance to be shocked, the headless body turned around, walking slowly towards its missing head. But after only a couple steps, Rui appeared out of nowhere in front of it, driving her bare hand into the body’s chest, piercing its heart. When she took her hand out, the lifeless body finally collapsed, no longer capable of movement in search of its stolen head.