Brutal History, Great Mystery

14. Exploration continues...

Alexa-

Flinching feeling the cool air on my bare arms, I continue moving in the dark hallways of the second floor of the castle. As I look ahead in the forlorn hallway, I see the dust particles floating in the air because of the sunlight peeking through the tattered curtains making a beautiful grid pattern on the wall across. 

My legs seem to be moving on their own and not even once my intuition has let me down in finding the directions. I seem to know every corner here. All the turns and everything. I went on the first floor but didn't feel like being there for a long time. It's like an unknown force pushing me to come here. 

I continue moving, passing the lonely dark path by each new step. The doors all locked with heavy big locks and as if that was not enough, they have been secured with iron chains around the locks too. I don't know what is so secretive that all the doors are locked with iron chains besides big a*s locks!

Heaving a sigh, I turn around from another locked door and then turn to my left, out of there. Moving further on my right is another big room and What the f**k! It isn't locked!

I don't know whether to be happy or shake my head at the person's stupidity who might have gotten the responsibility of locking the doors. Like if all the doors are so protected then they must have great importance. 

'Then be a good person and tell Diego about this.' My subconscious teases me because it knows I won't do just that. 

"Come on, one look wouldn't hurt, right?" I say to myself before pushing open the door that makes a loud noise. 

"f**k!" I exclaim quickly leaving the door and making it still. I push myself through the door sideways from the little space or it'll only make more noise if I try to open it further than this. That rusty, annoying weeping noise. 

"WOW!" The first word comes out of my mouth seeing the grand room. Hell! how many well-built homes can it fit inside itself!? It is so grand! Like you can literally make a jogging track in the room itself!  

A big bed with beautiful carvings on its headboard and four high bedposts with curtains hanging halfway from the top. That is how they used to cover the bed and sleep. It is of the net but isn't see-through. Like you can only see things blurry but not clear.

"Such a sweet way to have privacy. And no wonder they needed covers around the bed too. The room is just so big..." I murmur moving onto the portraits hanging on the wall while touching the ancient bedside table and lamp. 

The portrait of a man and a woman sitting on a couch. But the man's face is covered with spider webs and the woman in his arms with her head held high. She looks beautiful in her royal blue gown embedded with jewels which I'm sure are real. A gorgeous diamond Tiara that is beautifying her already beautiful self. A long strand of hair falling down her temple and a few more up to her waist. Her eyes so piercing and her posture oozing out confidence like no other. A diamond necklace around her slender neck that looks simply elegant. Her dress smooth and the long piece of the dress that trails behind is placed perfectly on the ground. Everything is so in place and I bet she might look breathtakingly beautiful in real back then. The beauty that lights up the place where there is darkness. And I feel it's her jewelry's pleasure to have a chance to adore her with themselves. She is that beautiful.

I reluctantly move my eyes from her and trail them down the portrait where I find a plank of some metal and I can see something is carved on it. Inquisitive, I pull down my sleeves and rub on the plank to clear it from all the webs. What I see is a name in beautiful cursive handwriting. Besides, there is another name but for some reason, it is over carved making it hard to understand what it is. I leave that and focus on the other name that says,

"Alexandra," I say trying it on my tongue. The same name Diego called me from.

Does he know who are these people? 

I drift my eyes away from there and move on to the other portrait that has the picture of only Alexandra in a marvelous maroon gown. The next one is with a man that I feel is the same as the first portrait. But his face is covered with a hell lot of spider webs in this portrait too. It looks like the man has been deliberately covered because the queen doesn't even have a single web over her portrait and no tinge of dust too. 

"Guess someone didn't like him..." I giggle to myself and flinch when my sound echoes. 

"Hell!" I mutter under my breath. That was scary. 

But then what catches my eyes is a big box. Like it is big in width and it is up to my stomach, just a little below my under boobs. Again inquisitive with what I would come across, I open the two latches on both its end that make a little noise. Hmm... surprising... Opening the latches, now it's time to lift it up where I'm sure the hinges would make a loud noise. But surprisingly, it opens smoothly. Now,  I can bet there is someone who comes here regularly. Like the gate was open, then the portrait was clean, not of the man but of the beauty, and then next, this box didn't make any noise. It opened smoothly and that can only happen when someone regularly opens it. 

I look inside and find several things. Like small boxes, a pair of gloves which I'm sure is of that beauty cause they are girlish and many other things. But what catches my attention is a piece of paper lying beneath all the things. I try to reach it but I cannot with all the stuff placed over it and my hand doesn't even reach that deep. That paper... I want to read it and the only way is to get inside the box and then read it. 

I contemplate before putting my right leg over the edge of the box and lifting myself up, balancing my weight on my hands before jumping inside the box.

"Let's see what is that piece of paper about, shall we?"