I wake up from a rare peaceful slumber, they didn't occur regularly because my slumbers were usually interrupted with a series of nightmares so feeling that little tinge of disappointment tugging at the threads of my heart wasn't at all shocking. I rub my eyes coming to acceptance that I couldn't continue dreaming and that reality had to come staggering back down on me. I close my eyes trying to catch the fragments of the dream, trying to hear the sweet lullaby my mom always sang to me but it was gone. I wasn't very good at grasping dreams. They were out of mind the minute my eyes slammed open. But its sibling, nightmares haunted me for days.

I am tugged out of my dream catching by a soft knock. Two shadows of legs were peeping at me from the small opening at the bottom of the wooden door.

"Go away," I throw the blanket back on myself and look towards the winking stars and the big yellow moon that cast dancing shadows on the reflecting wood floor.

Groaning when another soft knock is sounded from my door, I frustratingly throw the blanket off of me and stomp towards the door.

"I said go..." the tan young man from earlier was standing right in front of me with his head held low. He was tall, really tall and even though I looked up at him I couldn't see anything of his face in the dark, not even the moonlight was helping.

"Tell them I'm not hungry," his head slightly rises to look at me but all I could make out was the whites of his eyes.

"Sorry Ma'am your dad demands of your presence immediately," his voice was deep and heavily accented. I frown at him suddenly hating his presence that thought it was appropriate to come knocking at my door and reminding me of the existence of that man I deigned to call dad.

"Go away," he took a step back away from me.

"Ma'am please," the same desperation in his voice like that from his old friend with the same uniform. It had a tinge of fear in it and I didn't understand why.

"Are you okay?" For the first time since our encounter he completely raises his head from the floor to look directly at me, the shadows on his face not helping at all in deciphering the look on his face.

"Im just asking because you seem scared?" For a fleeting second I thought I saw the shadow of a smile but I couldn't really decipher much as all I could see in this overwhelming dark hallway was his silhouette.

"Im-Im fine," I nod and shrug on my coat that was lying on the book racks next to the door.

"We can go now," he nods and turns on his heels to lead me downstairs. The light from the first floor welcomes us and I quickly turn my head to him, to actually look at him but his head hang low and all I could make out was his tan skin and jawline, it was like looking at him from two storeys up all over again and it didn't help my frustration one bit. It didn't help the anger that was building up, storing away in my bones as it waited like a cunning cat to finally launch.

I notice the gulp going down his throat as I continued to stare at him shamelessly, undoubtedly I was making him feel uncomfortable so I divert my stare from him to the stairs that descended to the ground floor. Dad and his mistress already settled at the long marble table.

The young man quickens his pace as we reach the ground floor and another pebble of saliva travels down his throat. Dad raises his head to look at him and they silently stare at each other for a second or so before the young man stumbles away, nearly tripping on his own legs, ashy bare legs I notice.

"I'm not hungry," his eyes go up and down my body and his face pulls back in an expression I couldn't decipher but looked very much like disgust.

"You are losing weight, you are becoming flimsy," the table was huge, I eyed a seat at the far end of it that was concealed with shadows and far away from the flirtatious smiles the mistress threw at my dad.

"I don't see the problem with that, I'll just wither away and you'll replace me with a new daughter in a matter of time," I pull the chair back and I'm about to be seated when I hear the scrapes of his own chair against the floor.

"You will talk to me with respect young lady! Now bring yourself here, this is a family dinner and I would like all of us to be near ear distance. And I do not expect a word from that foul mouth of yours," tears were prickling my eyes because my father never talked to me like this, never has actually and this was the first time he had used such a tone on me. So I glare at him, with the tears that threatened to spill and nod. He was not my dad, he was not the man I looked up to. He had become a monster and for a moment I wondered if he used moms death as an excuse to unleash what he really was. Maybe mom had to endure this monster behind closed doors while smiles and good words were passed to me. I shuddered at that thought as I pulled yet another chair across the Mistress and sat down.

He had seen the tears in my eyes and I saw the pain that fleeted in his eyes but it was gone, replaced with hard cold that told me it was going to be there for a very long time. No more warmth, no more pampering me like a kid.

"I'm sorry Emilia, you have lost your manners lately and it will not take me long to be forced to reinstall them," I look at the empty plate in front of me letting the open threat he just proposed linger in the air for a while, guilt him into apologising again.

"I'm sorry Emilia," and it did. I look at him and it was like I was looking at a stranger and not the man that had been by my side for 17 years.

"What happened to you dad?" He raises an eyebrow though I could see it was an act. He knew what I was referring to and acting stupid. So I was to give him the pleasure.

"What happened to that man I loved a few weeks ago, the man who loved my mom with all his heart, the man who-who would have never replaced her..." my eyes shoot at the mistress, letting her see the malice in them and my next words come out as a hiss of a serpent, "...with this," she looks up at me and the pain in her eyes make me almost regret saying it like that but there was going to be no regret, she deserved it, every single drop of my hate that was building up in my small body, driving me. She was a whore, a whore who was after my dads money.

"She is a human, not an object and you will refer to her as mother," the whites of his knuckles were an open image at how angry I was making him feel. Maybe he stored the same anger I was storing in his bones too but like me, remembered that mother would have never wanted us to unleash it.

"Mother!?" I look at her, at the eyes that I wanted to gouge out so badly.

"This- This excuse of a woman!?" More pain in her eyes but for some reason that didn't make me feel any better but instead deepened the empty hole in my chest.

"Apologize! I have had enough of your foul manners young lady!" I looked over at the whore wanting to make eye contact with her again but she stared at her naked thighs, her hair hiding her face from my view. For a second I thought I saw a tear land on her thigh but the thought disappeared as quickly as it came

"No," a stinging pain shot through my face as his hard hand came into contact with my cheek. I feel a tear trail down my face but I keep my head down. I had a feeling that if I looked him into his eyes, the tears that would fall wouldn't just be from my stinging cheek but from all the pain and loneliness I was feeling. From all that he was putting me through. From making me mourn her all alone, from making me feel all alone and empty without her while he flirted with other woman. So I place a hand on my cheek and look at the uninteresting reflecting wood, similar from the one in my bedroom, the same moonlight scattered across its plane.

"My dad..." I start with more malice dripping in my voice than I have ever heard myself. Mom wouldn't have liked hearing such a voice especially directed to my dad. For a moment the memory of her gentleness and her desire of constant peace and love seemed to sooth me, seemed to scratch at the hollow curve in my chest but not enough to fill it, "...would have never ever slapped me," and with that I push the chair back and stomp towards the stairs.

"You are not my dad," and when he looks at me with his feigned pain all the tears I was also storing in me flowed out. I carried them to my room.

.

A soft knock, I look up from where I was sleeping, enjoying the view of twinkling stars and a moon so bright.

"Come in," the young man pushes the door open with his thigh as his hands were carrying a platter. I jump off the bed and put my hand out to help but he simply shakes his head no.

"I'm not hungry, did dad tell you to bring this up?" He shakes his head again, I frown as I await for an explanation on whom.

"Madam Rose told me to bring up food."

"Madam Rose?" His shadowed head turns to me as he sets the platter on a low lying table.

"Your dad's...um... Your dads wife?" A question not an answer but I understood why, because of all the bantering downstairs that he had witnessed as he was not standing far away with his head inclined downwards.

"Ah, thank you," what was she trying to do? Trying to convince me to call her mother? And what benefit was that going to be for her? I nearly stomped out of there to go bash her head in.

"I shall bring a candle."

"No it's okay," he slightly bows, his blue hat falling off but he quickly manages to catch it and place it right back on top. It somehow made my lips twitch up ever so slightly at how scared he looked at just dropping his hat and nearly not being able to catch it.

He walks to the door, I couldn't continue referring to him as tan young man, "What's your name?" He stops and the shadow of him turns to look at me.

"Masud," I close the distance between us and out stretch my hand towards him. Even in the moonlit darkness that surrounded us I could feel the uncertainty and- and fear? Reeking off of him. As if shaking my hand would disintegrate him.

"I don't bite," his head drops down towards my hand and his moves, slowly... closing the distance until his cold, very cold hand grips mine in a firm hold. I look at our hands and smile a little, that was some sort of effort.

"Emilia Otto."

A pause, our hands still in a grip then, "Pleasure to make your acquaintance Miss Otto," a mere whisper and so formal. Could we ever be friends with such formality between us?

He was the one to let go first and as he reaches for the door again I stop him, "Will I be seeing you around a lot?"

He opens the door and steps out, "I don't know," and vanishes into the shadows.

I frown at the dark hallway and shrug, leaving my food unattended and to rot. Not if that whore was the one to send it up. I go back to bed and resume glaring back at the stars. Somehow they were the only ones who cared, my only family and I hoped they mourned for her as much as I did because they knew her too, they've existed for the longest while and have seen her span of life and what a remarkable woman she was. They've seen that no one compared to her. She was an angel in human form and maybe she was one of the twinkling stars that didn't make me feel any less lonely.

I was going crazy I realised, from comparing myself to tree to finding friendship in stars that only twinkled and seemed to mock me.

I was indeed going crazy.