Submitting novel Chapter 17

The answer is right in front of me.

The answer is right in front of me.

The answer is right in front of me.

I kept staring at the reflection in the mirror. A corpse with sunken red eyes and pale skin. Bones peeking out a little too prominently. A soul, equally dead. 

What could he mean? What did he mean? That somehow Liza is in front of me or did I know the answer already? Or was he the one who knew it. Ofcourse he did but then it would mean he didn't answer my question at all. Except explain a ridiculous paradox that somehow a cat can be both dead and alive at the same time which is not possible.

A cat, a radioactive substance, a radiation detector, a hammer, and poison. 

If the cat was Liza then I was the radiation? The radiation detector...Dimitri and the hammer and poison just tools? It made sense only partially.

I sighed and looked away from the mirror. The sight revolting me as I felt disgusted of the shell I was living in. I wasn't starved or anything. They made sure to feed me every meal except for the ones that I missed whenever I got knocked out. What made me look like that was the growing sickness inside me. An invisible parasite that clogged my head with a dull pain which got triggered everytime I thought about the million ways I failed and fell. 

I picked up the brush and pulled through the knots in my hair, relishing in the pain as it tugged on my hair. It made the soreness clinging all over my body feel less painful as well as the tiresome and compulsively necessary process of tidying myself up into a little bearable clump. 

Dimitri didn't think I would need much rest except for a days wait to start with the piano lessons. He wanted to waste no time in preparing me as an ideal student and perfecting me in the true light as a pianist which I always wanted. Those were not my words but his when he came in to the room yesterday and ate dinner with me on the couch. Ivan as always enjoying the first class view of the situation tried very hard to suppress a smile. The thought of some raucous exciting him yet again.

The thin dress shirt barely complemented the cold and pouring weather outside as it rained relentlessly. The socks and the dress shoes only thing keeping me warm as I walked down the stairs as slowly as possible no matter how loud the stairs squeaked beneath my feet in the empty stairway. 

It was a beautiful house. Liza would have liked it as well. 

I wasn't looking down like I usually do when I missed a step and lost my balance. My head spun hard when my shoulder slammed against the wooden wall which gave away a little too easily only to reveal another wall. Not planked but instead another wooden wall, not planked. Smooth, plain and attached to the wall. Almost like a door.

A hand grabbed my arm and turned me around. 

"What do you think you are doing?" Dimitri, closer than a breath away, looked at me with anger fuming all over him. His jaw clenched hard, his grip equally so.

"I-I fell." Tears brewed at the corner of my eyes as I expected him to snap again as I closed my eyes and braced myself for whatever was coming my way.