Chapter 15 Pain

• The following day, morning sunlight pierced through the window and landed on Gillian Wesley’s fair, delicate cheeks. She gradually cracked her groggy eyes open only to find that she was alone on the bed, pajamas in-tact and the ropes binding her limbs gone.
• Could everything about the prior night just be a nightmare? But why did she feel like her body was falling apart?
• Every cell that belonged to her was screaming pain. Gillian felt like she was taken apart and resembled right after.
• Then, she remembered something. She rolled over to get on her feet, staring intently at the snowy white sheets. Apart from the creases she left from sleeping, she found no trace of anything else left behind, let alone the red spot she was expecting to find.
• What happened last night?
• Gillian churned the juice of her brains but could not recall a thing. She headed out the bedroom with an aggravated frown, pondering how she should investigate the matters.
• Before she could realize it, she was at the entrance of the study. Through the door gap, she caught a glimpse of Henry Porter, sitting on the wheelchair and rubbing on the Braille bumps on the page with his fair, slender fingers.
• Gillian patted Henry on the shoulder softly, and he took off his earphones, then wheeled around to face her.
• “What are you doing?” Asked Gillian tenderly.
• “Reading.”
• Henry smiled placidly, scoring a few points of charm on his already-stunning look.
• Gillian froze for a moment. Her heart skipped a beat, although she was getting used to this feeling.
• Upon a glance at the Braille book sitting on his lap, it occurred to Gillian that the blind and crippled Henry Porter was the only man in the villa.
• On the contrary, the silver-masked man of her nightmare was an ordinary man. He boasted a pair of strong legs and muscular curves. Thus, the masked man must’ve had a sturdy figure.
• Suspicions grew in Gillian’s head. Apart from the two of them, Madam Franklin was the only one left in the villa. Did that mean that it was a monster?”
• “Who exactly is that man?” Gillian whispered in soliloquy.
• “Gillian, what did you say?”
• “Oh, nothing.” Gillian switched topics abruptly, “The villa only has a few of us. We should install security surveillance cameras so that we have something to refer to in trace of a burglary.”
• “We’ve always had surveillance installed.” Henry responded calmly and emotionlessly.
• “Great! Can you run me through how I can extract the surveillance footage? So that I can help you when Madam Franklin isn’t around.”
• Henry wheeled himself to his desk and opened the first drawer on his left, pointing at it, saying, “There’s a user manual of the surveillance software in there. Turn on the computer on the desk and follow the instructions.”
• Gillian took out a booklet from the drawer, read the first few pages in detail, then reached out to switch on the computer.
• “Can you follow the manual?”
• “Yeap.”
• Gillian knew that Henry couldn’t see anything. She brought up the footage of her bedroom door and keyed in the time when she entered the room.
• Then, she put the footage on fast forward only to find out that nobody had entered the room throughout the night.
• There was no surveillance camera installed in her bedroom due to privacy, so she couldn’t check what happened inside.
• However, there was no other way into the room, making it impossible for anyone else to enter otherwise.
• It was unbelievable!
• Could everything just be an illusion?
• Gillian scrunched her forehead in deep thought, then ultimately decided to put the thought away, treating it as just a peculiar nightmare!