Mistakenly Eaten

64. A Stormy Night

“Althea!”

Fiona stubbornly shook Althea’s shoulder, breaking her out of her trance and making her look at her friends, who stared at her in a completely bewildered manner.

They noticed that suddenly Althea had began hyperventilating, as her face grew paler and her breaths heavier, they can sense and observe that she was visibly shaking out of what they could only tell by the look on her face and conclude it to be fear.

But what could suddenly make her feel so afraid.

The two looked at each other at first, wondering what had happened in their surrounding that had made Althea go so pale all of a sudden and the two even tried to search around them to see if there was a wild animal or a ghost that may have caught Althea’s attention but instead, they couldn’t find anything out of the ordinary.

Fiona shook her and Althea finally felt being brought back to Earth after what she felt like a trip to a grotesque past that had sudden driven her in to a state of sheer terror and pure lostness.

Althea lowered her gaze and noticed her hands that rested in her laps, with her cards that she had dropped, scattered everyone on the pool chair.

Her breaths were heavy and her mind was in a state of complete shambles, she couldn’t even think straight.

“What happened? You just froze all of a sudden. Are you okay?” Andrew inquired and Althea nodded taking a deep but shaky breath and pulled her hair out of her face, as she ran a hand through them, shaking her head lazily.

“I am just a bit tired and I want to sleep. I think, I’ll call it a night. You guys enjoy.”

With that she abruptly got up and left for her room, leaving the two, Fiona and Andrew entirely baffled.

One moment – everything seemed fine and Althea seemed to be completely and totally relaxed, as she laughed and played with them but the next, she was abruptly leaving for the room.

The two shrugged, looking at each other, resuming back their game and just as Althea was about to enter inside the house, another flash of light struck through the clouds and even though Althea couldn’t see it this time, since she face was turned on the other side, she could still hear it and the loud thundering sound that hit her ears, made her shake up in sheer terror.

She paused for a moment, sensing and realizing that a stormy night was about to come and there were going to be loud and continuous thunders that were going to hit the clouds, since cool winds began blowing and even Fiona and Andrew realized that it was about to rain, so they also decided to call it a night and turn towards their rooms.

Althea on the other hand, simply kept her hands over her ears and rushed up the stairways, making sure to not to let the sound of the thunders hit her ever again and make her heart feel as if it had stopped beating.

Placing her hands firmly over her ears, she ran up the stairs, rushing out of the sight of the thunders, determined to keep herself hidden somewhere in the dark.

As she rushed up the stairs, Nicholas walked out of the corridors, his eyes suddenly darting towards the staircase, where he found Althea flying up the steps, with her hands held over her ears, as if she were shielding herself from something.

He hastened towards the stairs but he was a bit too late since Althea had already vanished in to thin air, leaving him baffled and alone.

At the very same instance, Fiona and Andrew entered the main foyer, closing the doors that led towards the pool area behind them.

Nicholas looked at their condition, as their hair looked quite disheveled and the color of their face seemed to be blown away.

“Gosh! The pathetic monsoons are here now.” Fiona complained, as she walked with Andrew and the two came face to face with Nicholas, who stood by the bottom of the stairway.

“What is going on? You guys are up till this late?” he asked the two and Andrew answered.

“We were sitting out by the pool area and playing poker when it began flashing and thundering, I guess that the monsoon is about to start and strong winds also began blowing as well. That is an indicator of most probably a storm.”

Nicholas nodded to that information for a moment and then something struck his mind.

“Wait! Was Althea also present out there with you guys?” he asked the two and both of them nodded.

“s**t!”

Nicholas mind waved with a realization that rose flags of concern in his mind, making him rush out of the foyer and towards his room.

Fiona and Andrew shared a confused gaze wondering what went through Nicholas’s mind that made him act so abruptly.

Nicholas on the other hand, ran towards his room, knowing very well what made Althea actually climb up the stairs in such an abrupt manner.

Nicholas continued searching for something in particular throughout his room, trying his best to allocate it but all of his hard work seemed to be dispensed in to vein as he just couldn’t find what he felt to be in the dire need of at the moment.

As he continued his search a loud thunder rumbled somewhere up in the cloud, making Nicholas look out of his window and sigh in exhaustion, as the thunders kept on getting louder and louder and he couldn’t find his little treasure at the moment, all the while knowing that those very loud thunders are hitting Althea’s ears and he only wondered what situation she might be in.

As Nicholas worried about Althea, the girl in question laid on her bed, her quilt covering up her entire body including her face, as she sufficed and submerged herself in to a void of darkness, just wanting to stay there and never wanted to look at any light, especially those glimpses of sparks that ignited the sky in the dark, illuminating those greyish skies that reminded Althea of a time that she had buried somewhere deep in to the pits of her memory and just never wanted to open that box of pandora, that intoxicated and plagued her mind, rendering her motionless and functionless.

She held her hands over her ears, blocking any of those sounds of the loud thunders that reached her ears and yet it didn’t seem to work.

A wild blow of wind circled its way in to her room, slamming open the windows to her chamber, that made the stormy winds and the loud noises more clear and feelable to Althea, who squirmed harder underneath the comforter, feeling more punished by the gods of the storms and skies.

She closed her eyes, trying her best to block the rumbling sound of the heavy and dense clouds colliding against each other but it didn’t seem to work. Even when she held her hands firmly over her ears, trying her best to create vacuum, to prohibit the travel of any sort of sound to her ear drum but even the faintest of the sounds did reach her ears and it made her shut her eyes even more tightly.

All of those noises and the view of a storm and thunders in the sky, reminded her of the unluckiest night of her life, whereby, she ended up losing her father and the life of a princess that she lived was soon gone and turned in to a life of ashes and dust that she was left to eats crumbles of and live through the thin.

It was a night of great storm, she remembered sitting by the small single French door, of her parents’ single story house, that was situated on the top of the hill, right underneath which, were the deep waters, where his father took his boat out, despite of her mother, Monique’s warning. Who had tried to argue with Romeo to not to go down in the water but he believed that the storm was nothing like the ones that he had faced in the past and always believed that he got the most fishery caught during the hunt, especially in the storms.

Althea never wanted to be reminded of those moments, when she sat by that window, looking down at her father pulling his boat down in the water and the flashes of the light that rotated and threw light on the water that was swarming with storm raining down on it, with tides rose up to great heights.

As the light of the lighthouse passed on to her father, she remembered watching his warm smile that he passed and pressed on to his daughter, waving at Althea, who couldn’t see him clearly but of course, he could.

She decided to wake back at him, not even realizing whether the man could see her or not.

She remembered sitting by that door, watching the stormed atmosphere, the dark clouds and the flashes of skylight hitting the waters every now and then. The loud thunders still roared through her ears, till this very day. She remembered how the sky got merciless and despite of her prayers and hopes that her father would return safely, that sky didn’t care or listen to the poor girl’s wishes and got crueler as the rain and the storm grew heavier and stronger.

And what followed was a morning of clear sky and shiny sun that everyone else did rejoice but not Althea and her mother, who held her little infant daughter, Irene in her hands.

Monique held her daughters to her chest, as she cried loudly, finding her husband’s dead body brought back to her on that very boat that he left to fish some underwater lives out, to make a good living for the family that he loves and devoured to bits.

But what nobody ever knew was the fact that after that night and what followed after that and how Althea’s life became, Althea always felt scared of thunders and storms. That’s why, she laid down in her bed, all rolled up in her comforter, hiding away from the stormy sky and the bad weather, not even having the courage to close the windows of her room, but soon, she felt the very sounds and the cold winds that rustled in to the room, cut off, as she heard the windows of her room close down.

She felt a presence inside the room, which made her removed the quilt off her face and as she sat up straight, her eyes widened, finding Nicholas standing right in front of her bed, looking down at her with a wide smile covering his face.

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