I was quite certain that I had not watched a documentary before in my life about the topic of starvation and what it could do to the human body. Of course, from my various trainings, I knew how it all worked and exactly what would happen in detailed stages. However, that did not explain the documentary-like voice that rang through my mind as it repeated the effects of starvation on the human body.
The troubled state of mind was followed by my mind deciding to have a private talk with itself. I could hear my own voice echoing in my mind as it asked and then answered its own questions.
What if she dies...?
She won’t die.
What if she gets sick?
“Fuck...” I cursed softly as my eyes snapped opened.
By that time, I had already lost all patience with myself and had given up on the idea of sleeping for the night. It did occur to me that I might be going insane but that didn’t scare me at all. Immediately, I regretted not drinking enough alcohol to knock myself out for the night.
It felt like years ago since I last came to stand in front of this door although it hadn’t been all that long since I was last here. I stared at the door silently before I blinked my eyes rapidly a couple of times. Simply because I knew that I didn’t possess the ability to teleport from one location to another, I figured that my legs must have brought me here.
Dahlia is on the other side of this door...
The mix of emotions that struggled to take hold of me as they battled each other out inside my chest made me feel slightly uncomfortable. I raised my fist with the intention of knocking on her door but my hand wouldn’t move.
“What am I doing?” I whispered to myself as I lowered my fist.
My hands hung loosely at my side as I continued staring at the door as if the lifeless piece of wood would magically open up for me. Of course, no such miracle happened. I told myself that there was no reason for me to see her. What she wanted was what I wasn’t ready to give. Everything would just lead to more arguments between us, and she would just raise even more questions that I couldn’t and wouldn’t answer. After reaching that conclusion, I walked silently back to my bedroom while running my fingers through my tousled hair.
The decision to simply walk back to my bedroom without doing anything that I made last night ended up haunting me for the rest of the night and the entire day afterwards. Leaving things undone didn’t sit well with my nature and I should have known better than that. With the determination to get rid of the nagging feeling at the back of my mind and to avoid repeating the same mistake, I marched towards Dahlia’s room.
While repressing the urge to just turn around and leave, I lifted my fist up and then knocked softly on the door. After waiting patiently and listening for a few seconds, all was silent. Dahlia did not respond in anyway. I knocked louder on her door although I knew that there was no way that she didn’t hear me knocking the first time.
A thought flashed into my mind that perhaps she was no longer in her room. However, that was impossible. There was no other place that she would be, and I couldn’t imagine Dahlia changing her mind about locking herself up that easily. After all, she had not achieved her objective of regaining her freedom. I knocked even louder on her door but still couldn’t hear anything from the other side of the door.
Looking down, I could see the tray of food that she had placed on the floor in front of her room. A feeling that closely resembled relief flooded my chest when I realized that the food had not gone absolutely untouched.
At least, she’s eating something...
“Diana!” I called her name before banging my fist against her door.
Once again, there was no reply. What concerned me wasn’t the fact that she wasn’t answering my call of her name but the fact that I couldn’t hear any sound or movement from the other side of the door at all. After cursing under my breath, I raised my fist and banged louder on her door.
“Dahlia! Dahlia!” I yelled her real name so loudly that I had to worry that the entire household might hear it.
This could cause some problems later on...and I’ll worry about them if and when the time comes...
I turned the doorknob to find that it was locked just as I had expected. My eyes narrowed when my loyal gut told me that something extremely fishy was going on. I let out a sigh as I felt my anger rising to the surface because I knew that my gut feeling had never betrayed me. While I was debating with myself whether I should grab the key to her room or simply kick down the door, a panicked Jenna arrived to save the day.
“Brad...” Jenna whispered my name as her eyes darted all over the place in her panic.
“Great that you’re here. Give me the key to her room,” I instructed.
“Oh...yes. I thought you might need it. Thank God I got here before you tore down the door...” she replied while hinting at the fact that she must have heard me banging loudly on Dahlia’s door.
Jenna quickly slipped the key into my hand, and I quickly unlocked the door. By that time, I was already convinced that something must have either happened to Dahlia or she wasn’t inside her room anymore. I had no idea which outcome I preferred out of the two.
“Diana!” I yelled her name loudly as I marched into her bedroom.
With one sweep of my eyes, I could tell that there was no one in the room. The night breeze blew in from the open balcony and made the curtains flutter. A cold numbness seemed to take over my body as I stood in the middle of her bedroom.
--To be continued...