I Wish To Die Peacefully

Chapter 2: Memories

AVA

When I opened my eyes, I saw a brightly-lit room filled with warm-toned interior and familiar furniture.

Strange... Aren't I supposed to be dead? Is this place supposed to be the after-life? I was expecting a long vast tunnel of darkness stretching before me. This brightness is quite a surprise.

"Lottie..." a soft, lovely feminine voice called out all of a sudden, sounding extremely close by. As a matter of fact, it came from right by my side.

The voice sounded familiar, nostalgic even. I looked sideward and realized that I am holding hands with a blonde woman.

Staring at me with a gentle smile, she crouched down to my eye-level and caressed my cheek. "Why, Lottie... You have been so quiet ever since you returned home. Come and hug your dear father and brothers. They've missed you so much," she told me, engulfing my shoulders in a soft embrace.

Then it hit me. This is a scene from the past, the very first time that I was brought to the Krauser mansion and presented to the Duke and the three young masters by the confused and sick Duchess.

Ahh, is this the so-called 'one's life passing before their eyes' that people who escaped from the clutches of death often talked about?

Before I could collect my thoughts, I was brought back to the memory as if the images were being forced into my mind. I was transported to seven years ago, on the day that caused my life to be changed forever.

Though I remember the rest of the day vividly, the memories on the morning before I was picked up by the Duchess were in pieces. All I could recall was the cold and damp alleyway, the hunger and the life draining out of me.

Perhaps what saved me during that moment of death was the warmth of the nicely-dressed lady who held my cold body and asked me to go home with her. She was like an angel and for a moment, I thought she was there to take my soul and guide me to somewhere, someplace where all my pain and suffering would disappear.

I had not eaten for days and occasionally quenched my hunger by chewing on the bark of the few trees around the city that had not died yet. It was autumn and quickly approaching winter, making the outside bitingly freezing to my bare feet and small body clothed with only an over-sized shirt tightly wound around my waist by a long piece of string.

I could remember nodding weakly in agreement to the lady's offer but what happened after we entered the carriage was a blur. The last thing I remembered was a warm coat being wrapped around me and the woman's gentle arms supporting my body as the carriage rocked me to sleep.

I awakened as soon as we reached the mansion. Groggy and disoriented, I was brought inside a large luxurious bathroom and there were bustling servants who helped the woman give me a bath.

Although still unable to grasp the situation completely, I was not oblivious of the looks that I have been getting from the servants. The gazes that the maids gave me were of scorn and disgust, exactly how the people of the city looked at me when I pass by them begging for alms and scraps of food.

Aside from the blonde woman, no one was willing to touch my filthy, stagnant body that had not been washed for months. Thus, the maids only helped by preparing the warm water and things like soaps and fragrances, working diligently on their own tasks so that their master wouldn't notice their unwillingness to touch me.

It felt quite strange to be reliving my past memories with my fifteen-year-old mind intact. What was visible to my eight-year-old self and my previous interpretation of the things happening around me were different when viewed with my fifteen-year-old mindset.