Static

12. Dormant Refuge

The quiet mansion seemed deafening for him. The lack of people in this spacious maze was daunting even for him who had spent the entirety of his life in solemn isolation. It just doesn't feel right.

He figured nobody was coming to meet him. It was Saturday, his mentor was busy in an another small town case profile. The only person in the house left was nowhere to be seen. Strange, he would say to himself. She wasn't even crossing stares at him since this morning.

He was half-expecting her to go down the stairs though. But that simmered into nothing as he sighed and went outside onto the backyard garden.

His only companion was a book that he had kept carefully for years. He knew his mentor would gladly confiscate the thing as it has nothing to do with studying law. It just contained a simple story, told by his late real Father when he was a kid.

When those unforgiving nights came routinely— when he knew he wasn't going to get sleep in the lonely corridors of his vast, empty room, he began reading the book. Hearing his Father's voice soothed him enough to pull him into slumber.

However, this time, he red the book in broad daylight. As if there was a book like these in the von Karma library other than law books, case files of suspects, and autopsy reports of victims. He soon realized he was reimagining his simple life with his Father, playing some kind of game in the middle of a grassy park. The bruises and different kinds of marks he sustained from his mentor yesterday stung as the harsh memory replayed into his mind.

He vowed to get out of this hellhole. Not for the constant hitting and beating, but for freedom— a chain that no longer restraints him like a criminal everytime he or she would slip up, even in the slightest of movements.

This isn't discipline. It was torture. For him, it truly was.

Suddenly, he heard the door from which he came through open with a faint creak. He wondered if the Master of the House had finally arrived, for he was left in the open with his Father's only memoir in tow.

Then he saw nothing of the sort. It was her. He sighed lightly.

But as he took a glance at her, he immediately knew there was something wrong.

No matter how she had wanted to conceal her wounds and bruises, he can still see it. Nobody knew what it looked like under her ruffly clothes other than him. They lived in constant fear everyday, sharing sympathies when the monstrous eyes on the wall had finally distracted himself back to his study or his office.

She sat beside him, her fingers going numb from tolerating pain yesterday. Despite constant disagreements, she wasn't like her evil Father. Rather, she was utterly like him— weak, lost, imperfect.

But compared to him, he can stand up for himself. Hell, he even stood up for her when the 'punishment' was going too far that he was certain that the old man was going to straight‐up kill her. His own daughter.

"Can't sleep?" He inquired in concern. It was really strange when he didn't see her wake up earlier than him.

She gave him a subtle shake of her head. At least she was being painfully honest. She thought her spine was splintered in half, cuddling the pillow tightly as if it was her only lifeline to cling upon. He also saw how visible the dark rings were under her eyes from cramming too much knowledge in one night.

She definitely needed sleep, if it didn't stepped up to desperation already.

He was rethinking of his prized book. Although it cannot help them both to numb pain, but at least he had the comfort of knowing that she could temporarily sleep without physical pain.

He brought the book onto his lap, staring at the cover which showed a tree. She looked onto it curiously, adamant on knowing what it was.

"What is that?"

"It's a storybook." He said solemnly. "My Father used to read me this when I couldn't sleep."

She raised an eyebrow at him. "Well, did it work?"

He half-smiled at her seemingly-innocent question. Somehow, her young mind still held onto the unexplainable. That was a good thing. "Yeah. Maybe it can help you too."

Yet her eyes flashed fear, for it may both send them another ticket to torture. "B-But... what about Papa? If he finds out we're still up later, he might beat us into pulp!"

Ah yes, the monster lurking within the confines of the wall of flesh. His thoughts sure are metaphoric today, but unfortunately, no matter how metaphorically-colorful he insulted his mentor, it was unbelievably real.

She had a point, her Father patrols the night like a restless stalker, who wanted nothing more than having the chance to hurt them again. 

But Miles wanted to help her. That's what mattered to him above all else. He knew she took the beating for him last night when she summoned courage at the dining table and barked back at her Father in defiance— her voice was strikingly crisp and clear like raw sunlight.

The little girl had it within her when he didn't. Although he despised her arrogant and rash behavior from the start, he had to admit— she is a tough one when she toasts for an upbringing.

But right now, he had to return that favor. She was grasping onto thin straws, and he wouldn't have it. She needed to know that she is doing fine. That she is stronger than she ever thought she was.

"I don't care about him." He reassured her. However, the young girl was still fearing that they might get caught. "If he is going to beat us up again, I'll put up a fight with him... just like what you did last night."

She trembled, her hands having the worst presentation. "N-No! I won't let you get hurt again, I-"

Her sentence was cut off as he pulled her in for a timid hug. He rubbed her small back, wanting to abolish any traces of fright within her. "Shh... it's okay. We'll be fine, I assure you."

The girl looked up to him hopefully. "R-Really?"

Those eyes... it was staring back at him like huge window panes of her fragmented spirit.

It was supposed to be full of life, but it was so mute and bleak that innocence was just the only thing that he could get out of it. Her emotions seemed to be locked up like guarded walls as her scars and bruises gnawed at her alive.

It was heartbreaking for him to see this blue-haired girl lose her own sense of direction as a person, as her pale skin earned those scars and bruises for her bravery. And her Father doing nothing but molding her into one of his own; a soulless, legal machinery that would someday lose its empathetic fire.

He stroked her hair softly, sinking his chin onto her small shoulder as he closed his eyes. If this huge house was hell itself, then he might as well save her as he would do to himself.

She was all he had left in this perilous world, and he cannot afford to lose her like his Father did in that dreaded elevator.

"Yes. I will make sure it won't happen again, Franziska. I promise."