Trigger warning- Blood and gore. If you are sensitive to these topics, please do not read.

~

“Nova!” I scream, rushing after the troublesome black cat who had run away with my dinner, yet another time.

Stumbling over roots and rocks, it takes me a while before I get to her favorite hiding space. The flower room.

The flower room is a room filled full of what its name suggests, flowers. Bunches of dark red and pink roses line the walls. Lillies bloom on the mahogany wood floor. Hibiscus flowers cover the ceiling. The fragrant smell of sweet vanilla, honey, and cloves fill the air. It’s Nova’s favorite place to be in because the fragrance masks the smell of the food she steals, and the clumps of tall plants sprouting up from the floor covers her body when she crouches down.

I suddenly slow down to a stop, realizing that she got out of my sight. I turn around the plant filled room, and sigh in exasperation.

“I wonder where Nova is?” I purposefully say loudly, hiding a smile when I see a long, raven-colored tail waving in the air next to a patch of daises.

I slowly walk over to where she is, and then grab her.

“Got you!” I yell, giggling at her chubby cheeks filled with lettuce and carrots.

I take her out of the room, taking care not to crush any of the flowers, and lead her back into the main room. I take a seat on a chair engraved with small markings of poppies and orchids, softly petting her silky fur.

“Do you ever wonder what’s out there?” I ask her, looking into her calming yellow-green eyes.

She seems to shake her head in a yes gesture and settles down more comfortably into my lap, claws digging into my pants and vegetables in her mouth.

I trace the outlines of the flowers on the chair and memories come flooding back.

“Mommy.” I said, my younger self’s long brown hair spills over my shoulders. Heading towards the kitchen, I stop in front of a woman cutting slices of tomatoes. The woman turns around and looks down at me. I gaze up into my mom’s kind face and swampy green eyes, so similar to mine that I could’ve been a carbon copy of her.

“What’s outside of this house?” I asked her in a curious voice.

“Well, there’s more flowers, and more trees, and more plants…” She replied vaguely, patting my head.

“But what else is out there?” I asked, not intending to give up until she gave me a straight answer.

“Just more of what you see in here.” She said, finally looking me straight in the eyes.

“But Mom-“ She cutted me off with a pat on my head.

“You don’t need to worry about it.” She said, thrn turned back around to finish her task.

Up until this day, I still don’t know what there was to worry about. I always assumed my mother would tell me when I was older, but she died when I was fourteen years old from a disease. Now I’m sixteen and there hasn’t been one day that’s passed by when I don’t miss her terribly. Sometimes when the pain in my heart gets too much for me to bear, I pretend I’m cuddling up next to her for bedtime like I was a child, when in reality I’m lying on the cold wooden floor, all alone.

I suddenly hear a sharp ‘meow!’ of pain and quickly snap out of the trance I was in.

“Oh my gosh, Nova did I hurt you!” I ask the annoyed cat in a rush. She climbs out of my lap and lies down on the magnolia covered couch. I smile at her nervously, but she lets out a sniff and looks away haughtily.

“Ha ha, you’re like an angry queen.” I say as I walk towards the kitchen. If it was even to be considered a kitchen. There’s one small cupboard which stores the grains and dough, and a fridge that holds all the vegetables, fruit, milk, and eggs.

Grabbing an apron from a hanging rack and tying it around my waist, I get to work making blueberry muffins. I have the biggest sweet tooth imaginable, and ever since I learned to bake I’d been making sweets ever single day. Wether it be chocolate chip cookies or lemon tarts, there’s always something to satisy my craving in the fridge.

As I finish pouring the batter into a bowl and put it in the oven, I look outside of the kitchen window and sigh.

Though I love where I live, I can’t help but wonder what more there is to see. But I knew that was impossible, as a magical charm had been cast on my house centuries ago, which prevented the inhabitants of it of ever leaving.

Just then, a painful ‘meow’ sounds in the living room like a plea for help, snapping me out of the trance I was in. I run as fast as my legs allow, the muffins lie forgotten in the oven.

“Nova!” I yell, cupping my hands over my mouth.

“Nova…Nova, please come out!” I scream as loud as I can. When I hear no ‘meow’ or soft scratching in return, I begin to lose hope.

Searching around the room, I check every couch and table, desperate to find something.

“No, she’s not there…” I mutter to myself out of instinct when I look under a hibiscus covered chair.

“Or there…” I say again, distraught. I turn around in a circle, looking out for anything suspicious.

A mound of black and red in the corner of the room, partly hidden behind a chair, catches my eye.

“That’s weird…” I say. It wasn’t there before I left to go to the kitchen. I decide it’s probably some clothes I left on the floor, but decide to go check anyways.

Walking over to the corner, I still check around the room making sure to keep an eye out. As I near it, the mound becomes a mass, and is more clear than from a distance. I suddenly halt as I go around the chair.

What I find is not clothes, but the mutilated body of Nova. Dark red covers her body, encasing her into a shell of blood. Her skin is torn up like a crumpled piece of paper. I gasp and cover my hands over my mouth as I see what I think used to be her leg, but now has jagged pieces of white bone sticking out of the severed skin. I can’t stand it for a moment longer, and throw up into the pristine white carpet of lillies.

Shaking, I try to get back up to my feet but can feel no blood in my legs. I fall after every attempt and stay lying on the floor, gasping for air.

“Well, well, well, there’s another one.” I hear a deep, scratchy voice call out. I try to turn my head, but immediately get stopped by the cool feeling of a sharp metal edge pressed against my neck.

“Wh-who, who ar-are you?” I hate how my voice shakes, but I am so terrified that I can’t stop the tremble that comes out.

“Turn around, sweetie.” They say. I can imagine the amused look on their face from my afraid voice.

The cool feeling is removed from my neck, and hesitantly I look backwards.

And scream in absolute terror.