VERGLAS (Complete)

CHANGING THE APPEARANCE

I wake up with the sound of a vacuum cleaner in the room and I shoot up immediately and stand straight from the bed; I look the time at the digital cloak and I panic. I am late and Ellen must be angry about this, but after observing my surroundings, I came back to my senses. I am in the motel room and a maid is cleaning the room. I sigh loudly and sit back on the bed, slowly. It is going to take time to leave my regular life behind after this chaos. It is so f*****g haunting that sometimes I still feel Ellen standing beside me, and she will taunt me for not doing the chores properly. Suddenly, Daphne comes out from the bathroom while drying her hair with the towel.  

I sigh heavily which did not go unnoticed by Daphne, and she came to my side and pat my back to calm me down, “bad dream?” she asks and I shook my head. I am in no mood of conversation, so I went to the bathroom to take a shower. I need to relax my body even though my mind is still trying to consume everything that is happened earlier. I take a long and warm shower, which soothes my sore muscles. I did not realise when I fall asleep in the shower until I got up by the knock on the door. “Silver, are you okay? It serves the food. Come out quickly and have it before it gets cold.” Daphne informs me, and I jump out of the tub and wear the same pair of clothes. I notice my prune fingers, “I must have fall asleep” I thought.

I come out of the bathroom and went to the bed. Daphne hands me a full plate of Hakka noodles, and my mouth waters and stomach growls shamelessly. I take the plate from her hands and finish the food in few minutes. Daphne looks shock, but I ignore her presence at that time.

“Silver, are you having any bad dreams lately? You talk in sleep. I Am worried for you.” She shows her concern to me. 

“The memories may fade away, but the haunting impact stays in your mind forever. You are my protector, you have always kept your eyes on me, I thought you must have known what I have been through all these years.” I shoot a look at her, but then continue stuffing noodles in my mouth.

She remains silent for a few minutes. But from her expressions, she seems depressed. I chose not to care about her because she was not there at that time with me, then why should I care for her. “Finish your food first then we will leave from this place.” she states.

“Why?” I ask. Why we are leaving, and most important, where she is taking to me?

“We can’t stay here for too long, as the police will find us here. More, I saw a shopping mall nearby this area when I left to navigate the place yesterday.” She smiles at me.

 I furrow by brows at her, “why do we need to visit a mall? What do we have to buy from there?” I ask her while looking outside the window. The road is full of vehicles now; it was like the place came back to life.

“I will tell you later about that, but right now, I am going to check out from the motel. Stay here, as you are safe from everything.” She leaves the room. I finish the noodles and put the empty plate on the nightstand. I pack my stuff into the bag and I pull out a golden locket from the bag and wear it. I admire myself in the mirror and I wonder constantly, how an ordinary girl like me, with no social life or family, turn out to be a magical being. I don't know exactly to call myself?

Daphne distract my thoughts when she is back in the room and she packs her stuff too and starts taking out her bag, so did I. we reach at the parking lot but I got confused as the car was not the one we drive in here. I ask her in confusion, “Whose car is this? I thought we came in a BLACK ONE.” I sound dumbfounded.

 After putting the bags in the car, she turns to me and reply, “I can’t take any risk to get noticed by anyone, so I changed it. Did you like this one?” She asks and gets into the driver's seat where I take the passenger seat and we drive away from the parking lot.

“Can I ask you something?” I ask her, tentatively. 

She notices my nervousness. “Yes, you can ask anything.” She stated casually.

 “What exactly I am?” I notice her mixed expression of the face. She slams on the brakes and look at me in delirium.

 I continue, “I mean, what kind of creatures we are? I am just curious to know.” i explain my words.

She stares blankly at me but smiles in a joyful way. “We are a descendent of a species called Caillech, and we have magical powers to manipulate snow, in simpler words, we are snow mutants.”

“Okay! Phew! I can't believe, too much information to consume. So, where are we going now?” I ask abruptly.

 “first, to the mall” she simply states.

 “For what?” I ask while scrunching my brows.

“To buy a few sets of clothes and shoes for you.” she continues. “Before you refuse, I know that you don’t own many any cloths with you and we will head for Iceland in few days, so you will need heavy cloths too.” I look her with my mouth hanging down.

“Why are we going to Iceland? This is madness!” I ask in confusion.

 “I will explain everything to you later, now let’s get to the mall. We have to shop first and we need to change your appearance too.” She said.

“Wait! what? Why do I need to change my appearance?” I ask her angrily.

 She smiles and says, “The police have your photo and they must be searching for you. They don’t have any identification proof for me so we have to change your appearance temporarily.” She got a point.

We park the car in the mall's basement and head to the ground floor first. Daphne takes me into many fancy showrooms where all the dresses are way too expensive. I reluctantly refuse to buy any of them because i don't have enough money with me, so Daphne purchases a few of them for me. I never wore an expensive dress before, not even on my birthdays. I was hell tired already; I hate shopping.

“So we bought dresses and shoes, what next now?” I ask in annoyance. 

She laughs and says, “Next is your appointment in the best salon in this area.”

“arghhhh.” I grit my teeth in irritation. We are in the salon's front, which is on 2nd floor. A lady took me inside and made me sit on a salon chair. She took out different types of scissors and some bowls and  a white creme material in a plastic bag, I guess it is a colorant. My anger fuels and I turn to face Daphne, who is having an amusing smile on her lips, “I won’t let them dye my hairs.” I spat in fury.

She looks serious and approach me, “you have to let them dye your hairs if you want to escape this place without getting noticed by the police and it is temporary and will wash out with three washes so worry a little about it.” For f**k’s sake, I never thought of dying my hair, but we are here. It took more than 4 hours in this stupid procedure. Meanwhile, they give me pedicure and a French manicure and a nice facial massage, I felt great while getting pampered.

Daphne came back and was totally shocked to see me. My hairs are raven black now and they did a little makeup to change my appearance, “oh my god! Silver! You look beautiful.” She turns me to the mirror so I can see myself. I did look pretty, but the girl does not look like me. She is someone else. I shrugged and went outside, Daphne says my name but I did not respond. I felt humiliated.

I ran to the corner of the floor, a stranded area, and it frustrated me with everything. First, Ellen ruled me and now Daphne is trying to control. No one asks me what I wanted. Daphne came to me and hugged me and I tried to push her but her grips only tightens, “I know what you are feeling right now but I swear, this is really important...” I cut her in between, “no! You don’t know what I am feeling right now. All I wanted to be me but guess what neither Ellen nor you want me to be my self. Everyone tries to rule me by their ways, but not anymore, I won’t let that happen.” I try to jump out of the window, but Daphne pulls me back and slap hard on my face.

I sobbed; and my cheek was red and stinging badly. I glared at her but she was already giving me death glare, “Enough!” she pulls her hair, “you really are a rebellious child. I tried to be friendly, but not anymore. Do you know why I changed you appearance?” she asks me in a threatening tone, to which I shook my head. “Well because the guy, police officer, is not a police officer. He was one of the enemy’s puppets who wanted to take you to them. They know about you Silver, you don’t know how dangerous the situation is. Your photo is already circulated in different areas as it charges you with two murders. Human may stop searching for you, but that enemy won’t. I can’t take any risk with you. That’s why we are leaving early. Now you understand?” I don’t want to make her mad, so I simply nodded my head.

“Great. We are leaving now and no more questions till we reach a safe house.” She blasted on me this time and took the bags with her. I followed her down to the basement where the car is parked. My mind is vibrating like thousands of violins are playing, I can’t focus anymore.

We sit inside the car and she drives us out of the town. I am having this unusual feeling in my guts. What I have gotten myself into?