It's been a bit over a week since I woke up in this world, and my mind constantly went back to my family. Mom, Dad, and that little gremlin bastard. I missed them. Taking a deep breath through my nose, my ears listened in on the conversations outside my door. I didn't know what they were saying, but several words kept on reappearing. Lorena I had long assumed to be my name, and was said an awful lot, but sometimes they would substitute it with other words.

  I could tell from the tone that none of the maids that visit me lately hadn't held me in particularly high regard. Why, I didn't know. Perhaps that demon ordered them to, perhaps it was because they didn't like children. Whatever the case, it didn't matter to me. They were an insignificant speck in the universe, and I could write calculations that would make their heads explode.

  The idea of that brought a smile to my thoughts. Speaking of, I found that my face was unnaturally tight. My eyes were always narrowed and glaring, while trying to smile was difficult, almost impossible. It felt like I was stretching my face beyond its limits. Maybe that's why the servants didn't like me.

  I closed my eyes as I began to think. Thinking was all I could do, all I needed to do, all I wanted to do. It kept me sane. This entire week had been utter hell, trapped in a prison that looked like bones as I was left inside a crib. Every night, now that I no longer had Fane to protect me in my sleep, I dreamt that the walls of the crib turned into a monster and pulled me down into the depths of hell, where that demon waited for me. It yelled and screamed and told me I wasn't her child and that they wanted it back. White hair draped over its face, covering their red eyes as it played with my body like a marionette on strings.

  Every time, I would wake back up, my heart racing with my chest feeling tight. I could never finish my count, despite how desperately I would attempt to.

  Looking out the side of my prison, my eyes were drawn to the open window as I heard the wind rustle the leaves of trees and the flipping of pages of a book exposed to the air. It brought the scent of flowers and paper to me and I took it with as much joy as I could muster.

  But something never changed: the desire to see the green-haired woman again. If anything, I knew she could make me feel somewhat safe from the demons grasp.

  Sitting up in my crib, I heard footsteps right outside my door. It was a bit earlier than when I was usually given a bottle of milk, but that didn't seem too unusual. Looking over to it, I heard a voice, and my entire body froze.

  "Lorena?" The demon came back... "Oh, Lorena." Their voice was laced with care and affection, but I saw past it. They knew I wasn't their daughter. As their feet got closer, I began to shake and stare down at the bedding in my crib. My body tensing as they picked me up, they held me close to their chest, letting me hear the drumbeat of their heart. My eyes spastically blitzed across the room, trying to find someone who would help me. And that's when I saw her.

  The green-haired woman who wore a smile as she looked at me. If it was anyone else, I would have thought it was creepy and would criminally charge them. I reached my hands out to them. So eagerly, in fact, that I fell out the Demons grip. In that split second before I began falling, I saw the fear written across the maids face as she dropped her body down and basically threw herself to catch me.

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  In that moment, when I was in her arms again, everything seemed to not matter anymore. The Demon wasn't a threat, the world seemed so small, and I was in the arms of someone who I believed would care for me. I could feel the need to cry well up inside me. But I held back.

  Looking up at the maid who caught me, staring into their their worried, panicked eyes, I saw them scanning over my body to make sure I was safe and sound. But I didn't care, as I lifted my hands up to touch their face.

  "Auuu... abu..." The world was no longer silent as the Demon let out a sigh and the other maids that had come with them leaned against the walls for support from their surprise.

  She spoke softly to me in the language the others had, but her words didn't hurt my ears. Grating and irksome, yes, but perhaps I was just clinging to straws and something else was making me like her voice, but I didn't know or care. Grinning to myself, she slowly stood back up.

  The green-haired maid cradled me with a tenderness I hadn’t felt since… since the Demon first brought me into this wretched place. Her arms were warm, and her voice hummed with a softness that calmed the incessant buzzing in my head. I clung to her, my tiny fingers gripping the fabric of her uniform as if my life depended on it. The scent of flowers that lingered on her was a sharp contrast to the foul perfume that clung to everything else in this place.

  The Demon’s presence, however, loomed over us like a dark shadow. Even though I refused to meet her eyes, I could feel her gaze piercing through me, as if she was trying to bore into my very soul. I knew she was speaking—her voice was the only thing I could hear clearly, cutting through the noise like a knife.

  I turned my face away, pressing it into the maid’s shoulder, seeking refuge from the Demon’s presence. I wanted to scream, to tell her to take me far away from here, but all that came out were pitiful whimpers. The Demon continued to speak, and I could sense the tension in the room, the way the other maids stood rigidly by the walls, their eyes downcast.

  Why didn’t they see it? Why didn’t they see how wrong this all was? The way the Demon moved, the way she spoke—it was all an act, a facade to hide her true nature. But they were blind to it, or worse, they were under her control. Everyone but the green-haired maid. She was the only one who seemed to care, the only one who wasn’t fooled by the Demon’s lies.

  The maid’s gentle voice broke through my thoughts, and I looked up at her. She whispered something, her tone soothing and comforting. She was the only thing keeping me anchored to reality, the only thing stopping me from slipping into the abyss.

  The Demon reached out, her hand hovering above me as if she was deciding whether to snatch me back. My body tensed, every muscle rigid with fear. I buried my face deeper into the maid’s shoulder, hoping that if I couldn’t see the Demon, she couldn’t see me even if I knew it was childish and irrational. But her presence was all-encompassing, filling the room with a suffocating pressure.

  Finally, the Demon withdrew her hand. I didn’t need to see it to know; I felt the shift in the air, the slight release of tension. She said something, her voice lower, almost resigned, before turning away. The other maids followed her out of the room, leaving me alone with the green-haired woman.

  As soon as the door closed, I let out a shaky breath, my tiny body relaxing slightly in the maid’s arms. The world was silent again, save for the soft rustling of leaves outside the window. I clung to the maid as she slowly sat down on the edge of the bed, gently patting my back.