Dictator

26. The Masque of the Red Death, Part One

These next few chapters are inspired by Edgar Allan Poe's short story; The Masque of the Red Death, chapter 21 of Moriarty the Patriot, and chapters 7-8 of Vanitas no Carte. I hope you enjoy this combination as much as I did. <3

Note: These chapters have not been proofread as of now, please forgive any grammatical or spelling errors. I'll try my best to go over then as soon as I can. Thank you!

———

Tomie's eyes shot wide open in a state of visible distress and panic. Air was knocked out of her lungs and she found herself gasping for air, as if she barely escaped death from drowning in an unknown sea. Her head was absolutely pounding with pain, she almost felt like she was run over with the power of ten horses at once. Her heart was beating incredibly fast for some reason. It was almost like she's just recovered from a near heart attack. She slowly rose from her lying position, mind still not able to register her surroundings, and she pinched her temples from the throbbing pain in her skull, she felt as though her brain was swelling.

Tomie was able to vaguely remember what happened however long ago it was. She remembered Q and Elise going missing, and she remembered calling Chuuya for help, and when he arrived, suddenly they vanished, as though they were swallowed by some mysterious dark mist that engulfed them and sent them to an outer world. She had no idea for how long she's been out.

Somehow everything and nothing made sense at the same time. They were sucked into a book. Judging by the raccoon they saw earlier, and the nature of the Ability that trapped them certainly made Tomie settle on one person and one person alone; Edgar Allan Poe of The Guild. What she failed to understand, however, was why. The Guild has already been riven to pieces, so if he was doing this because he was ordered to, who would he be ordered by if the organization was no more? Unless, he wasn't ordered at all. And he was simply acting upon his own personal intentions— grudges.

That's when it suddenly hit her— Tomie was suddenly hyper-aware of her surroundings, alarm bells ringing in her head very loudly. She was fully alerted that their lives were in grave danger— not her own, she didn't ever seem to care very much for what could potentially happen to her. She somehow possessed a nightmarish ability (or a curse, as she liked to put) to avoid every corner of death, however, she was not certain that she could say the same for Chuuya's life, and that's exactly what she was panicking about inside.

She looked at her surroundings. She was lying on a queen-sized bed with silky, maroon covers. It felt way too comfortable. The room was arguably larger than average. Fancy, soft carpeting covering the wooden floor, golden lining across the walls where it reached the ceiling and ended at the giant chandelier that hung low, lighting the room in a warm, orange glow. There was a giant window across the room that led to a balcony. The curtains were drawn, however, but judging by how dark it seemed outside, Tomie assumed it must've been late at night. One side of the wall was completely made of bookshelves, it had an intricate design that gave it a semi-modern look. In fact, the design choice for the whole room was rather odd. It felt like a mix between a Victorian era with that of modern, as if both worlds were mixed into one.

Sensing Tomie's distressed aura, a man, who was sitting with his back against the bedside on the ground, shifted to throw his head back on the edge of the bed to look at her. "Relax. I'm here."

Tomie immediately recognized that husky, youthful voice; it belonged to none other than her best friend, Chuuya Nakahara. Tomie released a sigh of relief at the sight of the ginger-haired male and shifted in her covers to lay her feet on the ground next to Chuuya. That's when she realized she wasn't wearing the same outfit anymore. Instead, she was wearing a cream shirt with a ruffle blouse , a dark brown vest on top, khaki trousers, and black boots that reached just below her knees. Chuuya, too, wasn't wearing his iconic outfit either. He was wearing a white shirt, a dark, short vest on top. Beige-colored trousers, off-black blazer and gloves. He was missing his hat too, which seemed to caused him a bit of stress as Tomie noticed. He kept running his hand through his russet locks as if he was missing a piece of his own body and hoped to feel it at some point but with no luck.