Smokescreen

I opened my eyes and blinked a couple of times to find myself in my room but with the lights off which never happened before. For some reason, they were always kept on making me think that they cannot be turned off at all.

The night glowed outside and shined in through the glass windows and inside the room, making things barely but enough visible for me to walk towards the door. My hand felt cold against the warm doorknob as I frowned and realized that I didn't know they had a centralized heating system either. Why were things suddenly changing?

I turned around with my hand still secured around the knob, eyes searching and confirming that I was indeed alone in the room otherwise I wouldn't have made so far across from the bed without being interrupted.

The wooden floor whispered in squeaks underneath my feet as I made my way towards the staircase. It was hard to forget what I saw. I knew now that Dimitri's odd behaviour was triggered only because of the accident that happened here. The door behind the wall.

He wanted to distract me, and he did do it very cleverly. I had no memory of going back up the stairs though, so it meant that I fell asleep. Strange because I have always had a hard time doing so. I didn't like the second answer I came up with either. He must have drugged me somehow because there was no way I would have let myself off guard around him.

He was clearly hiding something.

The quiet house was drowned in darkness except for the dim moonlight that hardly made anything visible. My only assist was the sense of touch as my hands slid against the walls, using them both as a guide and a support while I limped my way across the wall.

Dimitri was hiding something and Ivan knew what it was. His cryptic hints were impossible to crack, but I would have never imagined a room behind the walls. It was straight out of a movie, one that doesn't exist in real life. Then again, I'm sure that the situation I was in didn't exist in movies either.

I would have completely missed the stairwell in the darkness if it wasn't because of the starking bright warm light coming from the hidden door which was now open. Frozen, I stood there, contemplating my next move. It was a trap, it had to be a trap, I will get caught.

Liza might be in there.

After all that I went through as a result of my foolish mistakes, I was not going to jump into something without a plan or precaution. There wasn't much I could come up with at that moment  except for a diversion that would give me enough time to finish my doing and stealthily make my way back to the room, in the bed, under the cover. Like I didn't move at all.

It was a wishful thinking. A little win that I wanted for myself after all the fails that I faced consecutively. I desperately needed this to work not only to get a step closer to Liza but also for me, so that I know and believe that I can do this. That this is not and will not be my life for however long I live. I needed this very badly.

I scored my mind for every possible way and the only proper train of thought I could come up with seemed the most realistically possible.

The place that they'll always look first to find me is the room I was kept in. So making it seem like I was there should be enough. Perhaps the comforter, bunched up in a body shape should do it. Something not too obvious that I did it intentionally and yet something that gives an illusion of something that isn't present.

It wasn't enough though. I would definitely need another smokescreen that would detour them from the actual place I would be in and the only other place I could supposedly be without causing too much suspicion was the bathroom. I can't keep the water running in there because it would definitely cause too much unnecessary attention in the first place, but I could definitely keep the dimmest light on and the door shut ajar. Hopefully they won't be able to understand much in the already dark hallway and would leave me alone if my first plan fails or doesn't.

Walking and executing all that seemed too much work. My ankle throbbed in anticipation of all the effort and work I have to put in but nonetheless it was nothing against the little spark of undying hope that pushed through every pain and every unsettling feeling that said it was a bad idea.

****

My hand gripped the handrail as tightly as possible as I carefully placed my foot down on the first step down. It was hard to get in a rhythm to help my bad foot co-ordinate with the good one, but things worked out somehow, and soon I found myself standing in front of the door, the answer to all my questions.

Fear and anxiety shook my ragged breaths as I exhaled slowly and tried to ignore the voices in my head shouting warnings and hurling every possible situation that would end up being very unfavourable. Maybe it was indeed a little late...maybe I did take a lot of time in creating distractions that it was too late. Dimitri would come out of there any moment now and catch me red-handed and punish me again. Maybe even kill me.

I stepped in and was met with a wall. Two stairs on either side. One lead upstairs and one lead down. The map of the house was still not quite in my grasp and I didn't know which one to scout first. Climbing up the stairs in the state I was seemed to be the harder task, so naturally it made more sense to get it over with.

It was strange how it exactly mirrored the one outside but a narrower and tighter version. Secluded like secret. The walls here were exactly as wooden and panelled as the rest of the house which meant that whoever built it, built it when the house was originally made. There was not a single scruff or damage on anything, nor were there any cobwebs or dust as one would have expected from a secret hideout such as this. The floorboards didn't make a single noise as the ones inside the house either. It only meant that it was maintained and used more often than known.

At the end of the staircase laid a narrow hallway with doors lining the walls against the inside of the house. The belief that Liza might be behind one of these doors ignited in me and I felt my anxious self getting a sudden shot of adrenaline as I wasted no time and lunged towards the closest door near me to open it up.

Luck, unbelievably, seemed to be on my side as the door opened without any hesitation and revealed a horror which only got worse the more I stepped inside the bare room. The cemented walls and floor seemed to be of no importance to the owner. Their sole focus on the singular windowpane and the only source of light into the room.

A window into the bathroom that I used, a double-sided mirror.