Part Fifteen✔️

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The next few days passed in a blur. Most of Grey's time was spent in the room she slept in, staring up at the ceiling, memorizing even the tiniest of details on the walls, furniture and even floors. The only time she left was to make the long and lonely walk to the kitchen to always find every meal cooked and placed on a porcelain plate ready for her. She'd sit on the cushioned ledge in the bay window and stare out at the slowly melting snow as she ate, watching spring fast approaching. Her friends would begin to worry. She thought often about escaping, trying to run again but the fear of those magic trees was far greater than the beasts that lived under this roof. So she decided to wait.

A week passed like this, with Grey slowly going insane with no human contact. She thought she'd made a small break towards friendship with the gloomy Maksim and would've even enjoyed a 'hello' but there was no sight of him or even the beast. She secretly waited for him to come storming down the stairs and into the kitchen every time she ate; she wanted him to just look at her with those blue eyes that haunted her dreams. Even a glare she'd be thankful for.

She just wanted to see someone beside herself everyday.

On the eighth day, after she'd cleaned off her plate from breakfast she made her way up the stairs, stopping at the point where they broke into two. Staring at the stairwell to her left and that always dark hallway that called to her. She could feel her heart pounding in her chest as she debated on going back to her cave or exploring the many rooms this little castle held. It seemed then that her feet had been possessed and with her heart pounding beneath her chest, she climbed the stairs she'd never touched before.

At the top, the hallway she found was - in most ways - similar to the one she'd been up and down a thousand times. The same burgundy walls and dark tiled floors yet this hall only held but five doors and not a single piece of artwork adorned the walls. There were four doors spread along evenly - two on either side - and the last one, a beautiful set of double doors was placed at the very end of the hall.

There was something about those double doors that had Grey ignoring all the other doors and making her way down the hall. Upon reaching it, she noticed how it went all the way to the high ceiling and from corner to corner of each door were beautifully carved designs, a story swirling beneath the haunting images. Wolves were carved in the wood, wolves running, wolves howling, wolves tearing each other apart. Few Russian words were written here or there but her eyes couldn't leave the image of a wolf with it's teeth in the neck of a human woman.

With a heavy breath and that image burned in the back of her mind her hands fell on the brass handle of one door. Whipping her head around, she looked back to the mouth of the hallway, expecting those blue eyes to be watching her with that ever present anger. She was almost waiting for him to walk around that corner and grow angry at her and yell at her to stay away from this place; something about this hall felt so forbidden.

Her fingers pushed down the handle and it clicked open, echoing down the hall. Pressing a palm to the intricately carved wood, she pushed the door wide open with a long creaking noise.

Creeping inside, her flats made the only noise against the tiled floors before she shut the loud door as quietly as she could and was engulfed in darkness. Pressing her hands against the wall, she moved them all directions until she found the light switch beside the large doors and flicked it on. A dim glow from a stunning chandelier lit up the light blue walls and gray tiles beneath her feet.

All breath left Grey's lungs as she took in the room, adorned with a large white rug in the middle and two white loveseats sat back-to-back atop it. There were a few statues carved from granite in the corners but what really caught her eyes were the portraits that lined the walls.

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