A Fall of Red Roses | The Stolen Flesh
Author: Eve
Romance;Thriller
Chapter 7
- Monday 17 | 09:20 AM -
The freezing marble of the corridor did not merely chill my skin; it cut like shards of stagnant ice directly into the unhealed, weeping incisions on my knees. I was on all fours, a deformed beast reduced to an auxiliary appliance of the estate. My hands, bound in yellowing gauze, trembled as I forced a wet rag across the floorboards. Each forward slide was a calculated agony; the surgical wound at the base of my skull throbbed in a heavy, nauseating rhythm against my spine, a constant reminder of the electronic parasite Sunha had buried beneath my flesh-a cold, metallic tick feeding on my nervous system.
My clothes were little more than rags-shabby, oversized garments scavenged from the lower quarters that hung like a loose shroud over my skeletal frame, completely out of step with the towering cruelty of the architecture. Heaven only knew how long I would be entombed within this anonymous kingdom.
"I'm sorry, Sunha... I'm so sorry..." I whimpered into the damp stone, my voice a scratchy, hollow rattle.
I dragged my weight forward by my fingernails, balancing my collapsed torso on one weak elbow while the other hand guided the soiled cloth. It was a display of absolute, irredeemable degradation. Yet, to scrape the residue of Sunha's rage from his floor, to earn even the cold draft of his attention, I would have gladly dissolved my own flesh into the bucket. My sanity had warped; his hatred was the only gravity keeping my scattered mind from floating away.
"Pathetic," a deep, detached voice cut through the damp air from above.
A shadow stretched over my hands as one of Sunha's older brothers glided past, his eyes sliding over my spine with the clinical indifference one might show to a dying rodent in a cellar.
"Scrape it until the marrow bleeds, vermin. If I find a single flake of skin or dust, I'll have the maids scrub the flagstones with your broken teeth," another voice chimed in, sharp, metallic, and heavy with casual malice.
Before I could pull my head down, the rigid toe of an expensive leather shoe-crafted from a flawless, dark hide that gleamed like dried blood-connected brutally with my ribs.
*THUD*
A ragged gasp tore from my lungs as my body flinched against the floor, the impact tearing open the fresh stitches in my side. Their synchronized, mocking laughter cascaded down the high walls of the corridor, sending a violent shiver straight through my central nervous system. Sunha did not belong to a family; he belonged to a syndicate of apex predators who wore human faces like tailored suits.
Yet, as I lay there wheezing, a dark, volatile warmth flooded my chest. To become one of them, to survive the wolves, I merely had to survive the initiation. If I could successfully capture their hatred, transform it into an obsession, Sunha would elevate me. He would build an empire on my bones.
"Y... yes, sirs," I whispered into the dirt, my fingers tightening around the wet fabric of the rag as their silhouettes retreated into the gloom.
"Don't call those bastards sir."
The sudden, gravelly vibration of Sunha's voice struck me like an electric current. My heart battered frantically against my ribs.
Directly in front of my face, the pristine, polished leather of his boots broke through the shadows.
It was him. My deity. My tormentor.
Sunha stood over me, his tall frame completely eclipsing the overhead lights, casting a massive, suffocating void over my trembling body. He looked down at me not as a person, nor even as a casual victim, but as a piece of private property that had dared to allow itself to be defiled by another man's shoe.
Slowly, deliberately, he dropped into a low crouch, bringing his sharp, beautiful face to my level. The acrid scent of tobacco smoke and bitter winter cologne rolled off his skin.
Before a plea could pass my torn lips, his large hand shot forward, his fingers clamping onto my jawline with a crushing pressure that forced my teeth against the raw interior of my cheek. He yanked my face upward, forcing my purple eyes to lock onto his hollow, bloodshot gaze.
"You are my property. Act like it," he hissed, his hot breath ghosting across my skin like a lethal poison.
The proximity was intoxicating; I wanted to melt into the dark luxury of his touch, to press my mouth against his skin, but his fingers dug deeper, twisting the bone until a sickening click echoed in my ears. A low groan of pure agony escaped my throat as my vision began to smear with white static.
"Yes... alright... Sunha..." I choked out, tears of pain leaking into his palm.
"Master. Call me Master."
"Y... yes... my Master..."
The moment the submission left my lips, his grip violently shifted. He released my jaw only to seize a handful of my long raven hair by the roots, pulling backward with such feral velocity that I felt the scalp tear from my skull. With a sickening downward thrust, he slammed my head into the floorboards, forcing my face directly against the toe of his boot.
The heavy leather tasted of dust and iron. I was pinned there, forced to kiss the instrument of my oppression like a sacred commandment.
"Don't forget who owns you in this house." he whispered against my ear, his tone dropping into a low register of pure dominance.
He ground the side of my face into the leather, using my hair as a cloth to buff the scuffs from his shoes before releasing his grip. As I collapsed limply onto the marble, he drew back his leg and drove the tip of his boot directly into the side of my head.
*CRACK*
The world instantly inverted. A new wound tore open near my temple, dark fluid immediately pooling in the crevices of the stone.
He turned on his heel and walked away, his coat billowing behind him like the wings of a vulture. And from the floor, through the warm smear of my own blood, I did not watch him with hatred. I did not look at him with anger. I looked at him with an intense, frantic admiration that bordered on religious worship. My pulse raced at terminal velocity; my hands locked around the wet rag so tightly the bones turned white, and a wide, unhinged smile carved its way across my bleeding lips.
That man... he truly drove me insane. His cruelty was too total to be anything less than absolute possession. He didn't want any other man to witness my submission; he wanted my degradation to be an exclusive sanctuary built solely for him.
"Alright, Sunha... my Master... I will make sure of it..." I muttered to the empty corridor, my gaze tracking the hypnotic, authoritative rhythm of his stride as his broad back faded into the dark. He carried himself like evil incarnate, a beautiful pathogen dragged straight from the deepest furnace of hell.
*RINGGG*
A high-pitched, metallic frequency suddenly detonated inside my skull, a violent squeal that made my ears burn and my brain feel as though it were being compressed by iron clamps. The parasite was waking up, feeding on my terror.
"Pathetic. A common thief in the morning, a gutter servant by noon... is this what you've become, Min-ji?"
"Look at you. What a disgusting bitch. Wearing a dead girl's face just to stay alive."
"Idiot."
The phantom voices returned, thick and cloying, multiplying within the silence of the hall. My mind began to violently fracture.
When I lifted my head, searching for a maid, a guard, anyone to halt the noise, the corridor had decomposed. Standing in the shadows between every single monolithic stone pillar were rows of identical figures.
Long raven hair. Striking, deep purple eyes.
Min-seo.
Dozens of versions of my dead sister stood vigil along the walls, their expressions twisted into wide, lifeless arcs of pure derision, staring down at me as if I were a decaying carcass.
My fists clenched, the blood in my veins boiling with a frantic, defensive rage. My own psyche was actively trying to execute me.
Because I had spent so long wearing Min-seo's flesh, because her face had been surgically sculpted onto my own skull, my mind was rewriting itself. The boundary between Min-ji and Min-seo was liquefying.
"NO! STOP IT!" I screamed hysterically, the sound tearing from my parched throat as I dropped the rag and clamped my hands over my bleeding ears.
I tried to push my body upward, to flee the hall, but my legs were useless, unresponsive stalks of meat beneath the bandages. Every attempt to rise resulted in another brutal collapse against the marble. It felt as though my feet had been systematically severed; in this house, I was a creature meant only to crawl and shuffle through the dark. And yet, through the madness, a sick pride flared within my chest-even if I had to spend the rest of my life dragging my broken limbs across the stone, it kept me pinned to the base of Sunha's throne.
"No... No, please... help me..." I rasped, my vision splitting into black and white fragments as the house itself seemed to expand, swallowing my voice whole.
My torso went limp, collapsing entirely into the puddle of dirty water and fresh blood. My breath came in shallow, rattling gasps.
Through the hazy, decaying veil of my consciousness, I saw the stark black uniform of a house maid materialize several feet ahead. She stood perfectly still, watching me twitch on the stone before calmly raising a receiver to her ear.
"Yes... she has collapsed again. The specimen has fainted."
"I will wait here until the clean-up crew arrives."
Their syllables lost their structure, melting into background static as a heavy, suffocating void rushed into my mind. But in the final, bleeding seconds before the dark swallowed me completely, the hallucination shifted. The maid vanished, and right in front of my eyes stood a pair of pale, bare feet, completely drenched in thick, dripping crimson.
Min-seo's dead feet.
Simultaneously, my fractured brain forced open an ancient, locked cabinet of memories... but the gears were broken. The tape was spliced.
"What do you want, sweetheart?" a gentle, resonant voice asked from above.
I shifted my eyes upward. The golden sunlight was blinding, reflecting off the pristine, calm surface of a massive lake. Towering over me was my father, Min-jun, his face carrying that flawless, dignified smile I had trusted completely before the cheating ruined our house. He loved me. He always loved me.
"Candy," my sweet, tiny five-year-old voice chirped.
The breeze was soothing, rustling through the green leaves. My destiny was supposed to be beautiful. The nightmare hadn't started yet.
"Candy? Isn't that a bit too sweet? But Daddy's perfect girl always deserves the sweetest things," he murmured, his large, warm hand reaching down to gently pat my hair. The echo of my childhood laughter rang through the open air, light and untainted.
"Let's promise to stay together forever, Father," I whispered, holding his hand.
. . .
Liar...
The memory short-circuited. A violent surge of nausea tore through my subconscious.
I never said that.
"Sure, Min-seo," my father's voice replied in the dark, his eyes completely ignoring my form to look at the girl standing beside me.
LIAR!
The scene shuddered violently. The golden sunlight turned a sickening, chemical yellow, and the phantom perspective began to warp, physically dragging me backward into the freezing shadows. My five-year-old hands didn't exist. My grip on his fingers dissolved into thin air.
I wasn't the little girl standing in the warmth.
I was ten yards away, hidden in the suffocating darkness of the porch, crouching on the cold, splintered wood behind a rotting pillar. The small child laughing in the sunshine, the one receiving the gentle, loving pat on her head, had long raven hair and striking, deep purple eyes.
Min-seo.
It was Min-seo he was talking to. It was Min-seo he loved. The warmth on my scalp, the taste of the candy, the sound of the laughter-they weren't my memories. I had never experienced them. Out of pure, pathetic desperation, I had spent my entire childhood staring through that window from the freezing rain, watching them interact, violently projecting my own soul into her body until I genuinely believed I was the one he loved. My broken brain had manufactured a stolen life just to keep me from shattering.
I didn't want the candy. I didn't even want the promise.
I just wanted to be the girl my father looked at. I wanted to be Min-seo.
The dream shattered into jagged glass. My father had never known my name in that loveless house. He had only ever wanted his perfect, beautiful, tragic younger sister. And now, as the darkness swallowed me whole, I realized the ultimate, horrifying joke of my existence: Sunha hadn't just given me her face.
He had given me exactly what I had always craved.
