Tears of horror and despair streamed down my cheeks. I yelled in a hoarse voice, “I didn’t want to hurt you. I told you to stay away from me. Why didn’t you listen to me? You forced my hand!”
As soon as I finished shouting, he pulled out the blood-stained dagger from his chest and dropped it to the ground with a thud.
Unable to stop myself from shaking, I didn’t dare to meet my father’s eyes. My heart sank to my stomach, and chills started running all over my body.
After a few seconds, my father stopped moving but remained upright.
I looked up warily and saw him reach out his trembling hands as he walked toward me.
I wanted to run, but I had no strength left. My feet were rooted to the spot. In the end, I closed my eyes from the overwhelming fear.
But the next second, I felt a warm broad palm rest on my head. “Don’t be afraid, Alina.”
My eyes flew open and I looked at my father dazedly. Tears poured down my cheeks. My surroundings seemed to vanish completely, until I could only feel that warm hand on my head.
I still remembered getting lost in an amusement park when I was a child. When my father found me, the first thing he had done was pat my head affectionately and tell me to not be afraid.
I choked with sobs and my legs gave way. “Why don’t you scold me?”
“Because…” My father paused, gasping with pain. “Because my darling daughter didn’t do this on purpose.”
Alina’s POV
The man that stood in front of me knelt down on one knee shakily. It seemed that he could not hold on for much longer.
My tears blurred my vision but I managed to hold him up.
With a bitter tone in his voice, my father chuckled through his pained condition. “You still care about me, Alina.”
The sadness and pain was too overwhelming for me. I held back my words and bit my lips as hard as I could.
My father sighed in a defeated manner, then he mustered up the strength he had left to hold me in his arms. With his low voice, he said, “I’m so sorry, Alina. You have suffered through many things, yet I haven’t hugged you like a father should in all these years.”
My jaw clenched as I struggled to hold myself back from sobbing.
“It’s all my fault. I admit I was the one who neglected your feelings.”
My father did his best to endure the pain and he took in a deep breath. He spoke in a slow pace as he was experiencing difficulty in his body.
“I don’t want to interfere with your life anymore. I won’t force you to get married ever again. In the future, you must live out the life you want. As long as you’re happy, that’s enough for me.”
Those words broke me and I sobbed. I couldn’t keep it in any longer and my arms reached to hug him back.
My father’s chest was too broad for me to fully wrap my arms around him, so I was only able to tightly grasp the clothes on his back. With my entire body trembling, I snuggled more into the embrace that I have long needed.
Even in his condition, he still comforted me by patting me gently on the back.
At this moment, I looked back to my childhood. Those years, I snuggled in my father’s arms, when I was still stumbling over the words I tried to read.
My father was strict but he was also patient in correcting the mistakes I made.
Remembering this caused my sadness to take over once again and I cried out harder.
I was wrong, Dad.
I tried to part my lips to speak, but I couldn’t seem to get my voice out.
“Don’t cry, Alina. It will all be for the better.” I could hear my father’s breathing getting slower.
I managed to calm my sobbing and almost began to say a few words until his own sobbing voice began to speak again. “You must learn to rely on yourselves in the future, my children.”
The moment he finished his words, I felt him weakly fall back in my arms.
“No!” My scream of disbelief made its way out of my throat. I reached to grab my father back, but I too, had little strength in me. I was pulled down on the ground with his falling body.
Hurriedly, I got up only to see that the wound on his chest was bleeding profusely.
I frantically covered and put pressure on the wound with my hands. I cried out helplessly, “I’m sorry, Dad! I was wrong! What should I do now? Please, Dad. Don’t leave me again. I know I was wrong. I won’t dare to ever to that again.”
“Alina… Don’t… Don’t… cry…” he said through weak breaths. His pupils that were staring into my eyes began to lose focus.
It was not until my father closed his eyes and his breath became weaker and weaker that I remembered to call a doctor.
Stumbling to the door, I shouted for a doctor.
I had heard no one respond back to me from the outside. When I opened the door just a crack, light flooded in the room. It caused me to see clearly that my hands were covered in blood. I stood there stunned.
Finally, the voice of a few servants came from afar. In shock, I had slammed the door back shut.
I was overwhelmed with this heavy sense of uneasiness. I held onto the doorknob as I briefly lost my balance. My heart was beating so fast that it could very well jump out of my chest.
I knew what I was afraid of.
I did my best to calm myself down before I turned around. As I stared upon my father lying in his blood and my fiance’s cold body on the floor, I began to lose all control of my emotions once again.
It was too late for me to regret it now.
I leaned against the door and slowly slid down into a sitting position. I covered my mouth with my hands as I let all my tears burst out.
“Please forgive me, Dad. I promise I will pay you back in the next life…” I kept murmuring as I trembled violently.
Sylvia’s POV
Once Noreen disappeared, I began to look for a way out. I needed to find Rufus and I needed to ask the truth from him as soon as I could.
It seemed that I was in a very strange place. There was no door that could be seen, and the only object in the room was a scarecrow lying on the floor.
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