🌹 Chapter 1. Laconic ◝
🌹 Chapter 1. Laconic ◝
Linette settled her dull interest on the green-patterned walls ahead of her, blindly stirring the cream into her tea—rekindling its hue to a charming light brown. The crackles of the fire and violent pattering of snow against her window seemed ablur echoing into the silence of her mind. She raised her teacup, sparing not a glance as she mindlessly took a sip.
She sneered, sputtering out the hot liquid as her tongue recoiled. The rude awakening from the comfort of her daydreams had left smudges in her thoughts, smudges too dire to undo, thoughts too late forgotten to float in her mind once more.
Linette's eyes shot open in an instant as she awoke. She was in the presence of a lady no older than she—a lady she didn't recognize.
"I was wondering when you'd return to me, Linette." Her soothing voice rang out in the otherwise silent atmosphere of the room.
The lady paused, a hint of confusion etching into her features. When Linette didn't reply, a silence seemed to sneak into the room once more, wavering in the air.
The silence cradled the confusion. Questions seemed to gurgle in the back of her throat, the words fading into nothing.
Across the table, the woman's face, once laced with pain and confusion at Linette's ignorance, seemed to fade abstractly within the room. Linette felt a stirred urge to move and grasp at the woman.
She attempted to stand but her body simply sat in place, almost as if it was to its judgment, lowering her hands she dug her nails into her legs, and to her horror, she was met with numbness, the woman was no longer recognizable, she sat still with her once beautifully tainted features, now all smudged about.
Splashes of broken colors and dark marks spasmed in a circle hiding her face.
Linette brought her hands to the table, clawing desperately to reach the woman, she managed only half of her torso over, tears welling in her vision at her inability to save her. The woman reached her pale and bony hands upon the table and caressed Linette's face as if to comfort her. She awoke once more in confusion, her mind was left in a broken haze. her heart felt heavy and sprouted with unspoken pains and yearning for the woman, a woman bound to her dreams, one she'd never see again. ◝৲ 🌹