The next morning I got up early, I had not slept too much.
Every time I tried to sleep the nightmares reemerged.
Went down from the hotel to get some ingredients at the nearest supermarket to get several simple ingredients for breakfast.
The culinary culture in this world is not very different from that of Earth, in fact it was quite similar.
- POV Iris.
Three weeks had passed since I was locked in that hell.
Every day each of us was taken away to receive the "treatments" we needed.
If any of us complained he was beaten almost to death, but no one was ever killed, because we were necessary for them.
I endured for weeks the loneliness, the suffering of all this hell.
At the beginning I was alone, but fortunately I managed to make friends with someone.
Levi was the oldest boy among all of us.
He had green hair and light green eyes, among all the boys he was certainly the most beautiful, but what could be understood most in his face were the pointed ears, a sign of his elf lineage.
Those pointed ears reminded me a bit of mine, so I felt a sense of familiarity with him.
Levi was a very friendly person, apparently he too had been kidnapped and taken away from his family only recently.
Because of my ability that I obtained at my awakening I could distinguish if a person told the truth or a lie, this led me to not make many friends.
I met Lily, Rose, Miri, Caspian and many other kids, I became very attached to them, I considered them not only friends, but brother and sister.
A strong sense of protection emerged from within me every time I saw the suffering they went through in this place.
Today would have been the day of the auction.
We were all scared for what might happen in our future.
While they dragged us towards the auction room.
I felt the terror in the face of my friends.
Levi tried to keep us united, whispering words of comfort that even he could not believe, but his green eyes were glassy.
I hoped that death would arrive soon, but for us it seemed that death was a luxury too expensive.
Then, suddenly, the darkness.
The lights went out and a dull roar made the foundations of the building shake.
In that chaos of screams and smoke, I saw a figure.
He wore a mask that did not reflect the light and moved with a lethal grace, as if he belonged to the shadows themselves.
When the ice shattered the bars of our cage.
But then the fire arrived.
The heat of Victor was the most terrifying thing I had ever seen.
I saw Rose, Caspian and Lily disappear in an orange flash.
Their screams stopped so quickly that they left a void in my chest that I could not fill.
I was certain that we would be the next.
Instead, that masked boy dragged us out of hell.
But the shock was too strong and my consciousness diminished until I fainted.
I woke up in luxury.
The sheets were soft, the ceiling of the room was high, decorated with golden stuccos that had nothing to do with the damp concrete of the cell.
Beside me, I felt the familiar warmth of Levi and the light breath of Miri.
They were alive.
We were alive.
But the void left by the others weighed like a mountain.
I heard the sound of a door closing.
I got up with difficulty, ignoring the pain in the joints.
Levi moved in his sleep, murmuring something, but he did not wake up.
I headed towards the living area of the apartment.
There was a scent that I had not smelled for a long time, eggs, bacon, pancakes and butter.
Rain was there, standing in front of a marble counter, intent on arranging the plates with calmness.
He was no longer wearing the mask.
His face was young, almost delicate, but his eyes...
The image of the figure of a masked man reemerged from my head in strong contrast with the figure of the boy in front of me.
He noticed me but did not say anything immediately.
He continued to cut some fresh fruit.
"Food is ready," he said finally, without turning around.
"Wake up the others."
I looked at him with suspicion.
Why should a person like him have risked everything for us?
"Why?" I asked, my voice was hoarse and weak.
- POV Rain.
Iris stared at me with an intensity almost painful, searching for ripples in my voice that did not arrive.
"I saved you because I wanted to do it." I said, without turning my gaze from hers.
"Now however out of here, in this moment, you do not have a single place where to go, I am the only alternative you have." I omitted a lot, but I did not lie.
My contempt for Victor was real as much as the necessity to have someone who knew the ugly face of this world.
Iris remained immobile, then an imperceptible relaxation of the jaw made me understand that her ability had confirmed my truth.
Shortly after, Levi and little Miri approached the table.
We ate in a silence full of unformulated questions.
Levi was the oldest and was 17 years old, Iris the suspicious mind and was my same age, while Miri...
Miri was only a girl of 12 years who found herself in the wrong place at the wrong moment.
"Stay here for a few hours," I said getting up.
"Do not open to anyone. The hotel is safe."
I went out into the crisp air of Artoria.
After having purchased some smartphones in cash in an anonymous shop in the suburbs, I headed towards a real estate agency.
I was looking for a safe place where I could go to live in tranquility, far from the suffocating and rigid environment of the Academy.
I chose a villa immersed in the green, far from the city center, covered in ivy with a large garden outside.
I purchased the villa at the value of 25 gold coins, leaving the agent with his mouth open in front of the speed of the transaction.
While I was returning towards the hotel, I felt the weight of the keys and the new phones.
The plan was to protect them while I prepared the weapons for the war that only I knew to be imminent.
I returned to the hotel with the bags of the purchases and a strange calm in the heart.
Entering the suite, I found the three kids sitting on the sofa, still tense but visibly more rested.
Before leaving, I opened my dimensional ring and extracted from it several sets of new clothes that I had purchased in the center, together with supplies of food and basic necessities.
"Change yourself." I said placing the clothes on the table.
Miri, the smallest, approached timidly and took a sweater of soft wool.
She squeezed it to her chest for an instant, closing her eyes.
"It is... it is warm." She whispered.
Then, with a maturity that squeezed my heart, she looked at Levi and Iris.
"Must we help him to carry the things? We are in debt, no?"
Levi hinted a smile, the first since I had met him.
"Miri is right. Tell us what we must do, Rain."
"Help me clean the house," I said and their faces became confused at my response.
After they had cleaned themselves up and changed, we left the hotel.
The journey towards the villa was silent, but no longer full of terror.
When we arrived in front of the villa, Iris and Miri held their breath.
The structure was magnificent.
The climbing ivy wrapped the walls of light stone, giving to the building the appearance of a castle forgotten by time, perfectly merged with the surrounding vegetation.
The air here was light, full of the scent of pine and wet earth..
"It is huge." Said Miri, running towards the main door, recovering for a moment the vitality of her twelve years.
"Can we really stay here?"
"It is yours," I replied simply, opening the door.
The interior was spacious and flooded with solar light that filtered from the large windows.
There was a light layer of dust on the furniture of fine wood and on the marble floors, but the atmosphere was incredibly pleasant.
The villa had five large bedrooms, three bathrooms and a main hall with a monumental fireplace that dominated the environment.
Without me having to say anything, a sort of cleaning ritual began.
Miri, despite her stature, got busy to dust the lowest shelves with a methodical precision, while Levi and Iris took care of refreshing the upper rooms.
There was a tacit understanding between them, a bond forged in pain that now transformed into coordination.
I took care of unloading the supplies in the kitchen.
I extracted from the ring fresh ingredients, flour, milk and vegetables.
While I was arranging the things, I heard light steps.
It was Miri.
She looked at me with curiosity while she tried to reach a high shelf to arrange a vase.
I helped her, lifting her slightly.
"Thank you," she said, fixing her hair.
"You know... even if you are a noble, you do not seem mean like the others."
Her words caught me by surprise.
The maturity of that girl was a double-edged sword.
I smiled just a little, shaking my head. "Miri, go to help Iris, in a little while I will prepare dinner."
While I saw her running away, I looked around.
The villa was returning to shine.
It was a sanctuary of peace, a place where they could heal.
But I knew that this peace was a loan.
Outside those walls of ivy, the world was still waiting to explode, and I had to be ready.
- POV Miri
My fingers are sunk in the wool of the sweater that Rain gave me.
It is so soft that it seems like stroking a cloud.
For weeks I have had on only that rough tunic that bit the skin and smelled.
I squeezed the sweater very very tight against the face, inhaling the scent of clean, and for a moment I had fear.
And if it were a dream?
If I close my eyes and I reopen them, will I return in that cage?
But when I reopened the eyes, I was still there.
In the car I remained with the eyes glued towards the landscape outside.
The trees outside ran fast.
They were so green!
I had not seen the green for a very long time.
When we stopped in front of the villa, I remained with my mouth open.
"It looks like the house of the fairies." I thought.
"It is huge." I whispered, feeling the legs that wanted to start running.
"Can we really stay here?"
Rain said yes.
His voice is strange, it seems cold but it does not make fear.
It makes me feel safe.
As soon as we entered, I felt the smell of dust.
But it was not bad dust.
It was dust of a house that has slept for a long time.
I took a rag and I started to rub the low little tables.
I wanted to see them shine.
Levi and Iris went upstairs.
In the kitchen, Rain was pulling out so many good things from that magic ring.
There was a lot of food!!
An incredible hunger came to me.
I tried to put a small jar on a high shelf, but even if I put myself on tiptoe I did not arrive there.
Suddenly, I felt two big hands that grabbed me and lifted me up high, as if I were light as a feather.
"Thank you," I said, fixing my shirt when he put me back down.
I looked him well in the eyes.
He is a noble, and the nobles usually shout or look at us badly.
"You know... even if you are a noble, you do not seem mean like the others." I said.
He remained a bit quiet, but after a bit a smile was put from his face.
He looked like an angel.
I ran up the stairs, skipping on the wooden steps that creaked.
I arrived in one of the large rooms and I saw Iris who was opening the windows to let the sun in and Levi who was shaking a carpet.
They looked so different under this light, without the darkness of the cell on them.
"Sister! Brother! Look!" I shouted running towards them and throwing myself in the middle of the two.
I hugged them tight to the legs, sinking the head between them.
I felt the heart of sister Iris beat a bit fast and the big hands of brother Levi that placed themselves on my head.
For the first time after a long time, Levi started to laugh.
It was a warm laugh, true.
He lifted me and made me do a carousel in the air while Iris looked at us with a very sweet smile.
"Have you seen, Miri?" Levi told me putting me back down and giving me a little tap on the cheek.
"No more suffering. Only us."
"Yes," added Iris, approaching and taking my hand.
"We are together again."
The tears formed in my eyes at their answers.
We remained there for a bit, all three hugged.
In that moment we were no longer prisoners or slaves.
We were a family.