003.

Mingyu stirred awake when he felt a warm sensation tickling on his skin. He grunted into the pillows and curled on his side, trying to get as far as possible from the morning light because -- even if it didn't kill him, the nasty burn marks would stay there for a few days or so and it would mockingly served as a reminder how pathetic he was as a supposedly-undead creature.

It did not work though.

He groaned again and opened his eyes tiredly, black dull orbs scanned the room automatically. The room was dark, save for a few rays of sunlight that managed to phase through the gaps in velvet curtains. His range of vision fell to the clock on the wall.

5.14, it read.

It might be early, but he didn't think he could fall asleep anytime soon. There were too many things that still lingered on his mind and the fact that his stomach grumbled means that he was in a dire need to feed. Soon.

It was never a good thing. The hunger, and he learned that years ago. There were days when he was stubborn, refusing to feed on anything that related to blood and let his body suffered for weeks. That was on the first decade and to be honest, it was the hardest time of his life. He still remembered how he changed into a different person when the bloodlust took over, and of course, how completely powerless and stupid he felt at that time.

Then again, maybe it was a good thing because it had became his lessons and somehow had managed to slap him back to reality. A reality that he did not want to live in, but still stuck in it anyway.

With a heavy sigh, he got up slowly and winced when the bed creaked under him. This mansion was probably a century old and he honestly wouldn't get surprised if  he found holes in the floorboards, especially wooden floorboards; probably would've got eaten away by termites or something. But so far he found none. The mansion was impeccably flawless; no holes or broken windows or furniture anywhere he could land his eyes on.

He looked over at the bathroom kit, sitting nicely on the side table and grabbed it along with a set of fresh clothes that had been laid out somehow by the end of the bed. Mingyu gulped at the thought of anyone barged into his room last night when he was out like a light. Maybe it was Wonwoo. Yeah, maybe it was him because he was absolutely sure under any circumstances that there would be no way it was the wretched dolls' doing.

And somehow it reminded him again. The bathroom.

Ugh! Great, just great. Just what he needed. Another bathroom trip.

'Yeah, well here's the thing. You're a vampire and they're ing immobile dolls. What are they gonna do anyway? Choking you with their ribbons?' he grumbled in annoyance as twisted the door knob open. The creepy hallway was still dark, saved for a few rays of light and he narrowed his eyes when he spotted the dolls. Of course they were still there. ing creepy dolls that stared out into nothingness, just like how they supposed to be and it better stayed that way.

When he reached the bathroom, he put aside his toiletries and went for the shower. His tense muscles loosened as the hot water rushing down his body, allowing himself to relax even if its just for a moment. Damn this place. It wasn't even 24 hours of his stay, yet he felt like he's been trapped here forever and he wasn't sure if this was due to his hunger talking or his paranoid mind thinking. Or maybe both. He needed to find the butler. Right, he needed to find Wonwoo so that he could bombard him with truckload of questions.

Mingyu spent a good thirty long minutes in the shower and took his sweet time in the bathroom, mainly because he didn't feel like dealing with any of dolls outside. Thankfully, unlike last night, he did not found any dolls lurking around the bathroom this time and it somehow brightened his mood a bit.

Gathering his bathroom kit in one hand, he took a deep breath before scurried out of the bathroom in a speed of light. He didn't even bother glancing at the dolls as he bolted down the hallway. The hallway though he noticed, didn't look as dark as it was before. A few lights seeped through the crimson-coloured curtains-- which was good. At least the dolls wouldn't look as scary as it was at night.

He was welcomed by the sight of the clock when he entered his room. It was still early, far too early for the breakfast invitation so he dropped his bathroom kit on the side table before headed back down the hallway. Might as well use his time to explore the mansion inside out.

**

The mansion was really huge, now that he noticed, and extremely well-furnished too. It looked like one of those dream mansion that came straight out of a fairytale book. Tall, strong pillars adorned the main hall with its golden glory and the grand staircase unwinded right at the end of the hall, dividing the mansion into west wing and east wing. This place could easily house an entire town population, heck-- the mansion could even fit another hundred and it still didn't look as crowded.

Standing in the middle of the looming hallway made him feel alarmingly small, which was one of the few rare occasions and he somehow felt a little odd. The mansion felt a little too big and intimidating, like those in horror movies he watched when he gets bored with his life, but only this time it was real. It existed.

He wasn't sure why the mansion has such an impression. Maybe it was because of the dolls? Well, one doll surely wouldn't hurt, but a thousand? He wasn't sure about that one. It felt like the dolls were condemned to this mansion, and the tension around suffocated him even more. The eyes were roaming everywhere; every corner, every paintings, every dolls were there, staring at him and he as much as he hated to admit, they terrified him.

Speaking of the devil, Mingyu stopped dead on his track when he spotted a child-size doll standing innocently by the side of the grand staircase. He remembered those eyes; the blue beads that stared back at him and that smile, that eternal smile that he hated so much was still there, somehow mocking him and he just simply could not understand how could Joshua enjoy their company.

'Now be a good little er and don't move.' he muttered silently as he picked up his pace, black orbs still eyeing the doll like a hawk, half expecting the doll would suddenly turned her head and gave a maniac laughter or something.

He walked pass the goddamned thing and nearly broke onto a full sprint, not sparing a single glance back at the doll. He could feel it though. The intense glare that bored deep onto the back of his head did not seem to subdued as he went further down the hallway. There were a few turns he took, a few to the left and a few to the right, and the warning that Joshua had gave him was long forgotten.

Mingyu decided to slow down his pace after a while. The distance should be good enough to gave himself a few seconds of headrun in case that doll decided to chase after him. He turned his head around a few times and found himself frowning.

Weird.

There were no dolls around. He was expecting to see another hallway with a hundred of doll, just like the one near his room but he couldn't spot one. Not a single doll.

The hallway too, he noticed, was different. It was darker than the one near his room and he figured it probably because of the lack of windows around this area. But then again, something was odd. There were no doors along the empty hallway. The rest of the rooms were supposed to be somewhere in this corridor, yet as he went further down, all he saw was nothing more that vast and empty hallway. No doors, no dolls. Nothing.

'There must be something here.' he mumbled to no one in particular and couldn't help but winced when his mumbling reverberated throughout the hallway. This wouldn't end up good. Joshua had mentioned about this section of the mansion that was 'off limits' but it seemed that his curiosity had won over his fear of getting caught.

Mingyu stopped abruptly when a familiar sweet smell lingered in the air. His eyed widened. It couldn't be!

Before he could even realise it, he was already stood in front of a double wooden door. The smell was getting stronger and it was a miracle that he still able to stand here instead of barged in and let his bloodlust took over. The door wasn't locked though, so he reached for the doorknob with his trembling hand and pushed the door open.

It was just another room and the lightings weren't any better than the ones in the hallway, yet the smell was so strong, so sweet and so alluring it made his walls slowly crumbling down. The vampire took a few stride carefully, his now crimson-coloured eyes scanned around the room for any sign of danger. Or dolls.

The room was cleared from any dolls and it somehow brought a sense of relief, but the smell was getting stronger and stronger as he went further down inside and his breath hitched when he saw a glass case. It wasn't like any typical glass case, by the looks of it, Mingyu was sure it was the very same bulletproof glass case where the dolls were in the hallway. Only, this time it was bigger than the ones in the hallway-- much bigger that it could fit a person inside.

Mingyu felt the dull throb on his head as he came closer to the glass case and his eyes widened in horror when a sliver ray of sunlight peeked through the velvet curtains and hit the glass case, revealing what was inside.

It wasn't a case.

It was a casket. A coffin. A glass coffin.

It felt almost surreal. He almost mistook her as a doll. A human-size one; with her smooth and pale complexion the sun never touched, long eyelashes, button nose and rosy lips that curved into an eternal smile; her closed eyes as if she was trapped to sleep for an eternity and the floral patterned Victorian dress that fit perfectly on her tiny body, Mingyu could really mistook her as one of those creepy dolls if it wasn't for the faint heartbeat that he heard.

That fact slapped him harder than it should be. She is alive! She is a human. But what was she doing in place like this?

Mingyu frowned at the thought. Was this one of those 101 secrets that Joshua hides from him? But what did he need the girl for? The girl could be his girlfriend, or his sister, he honestly didn't care but what had managed to brought a shiver on his skin was the fact that this girl was alive and she was put inside a coffin. Now that's not normal. Nobody sleeps in the coffin unless they were dead. Not even vampires sleep in the coffin. Well, not him anyway--

"What are you doing?"

Mingyu spunned around and saw a figure, Wonwoo, he realised, glared at him from the distance. He was looking pale as usual but his eyes were somehow ten shades darker than their first encounter. Mingyu gulped nervously, trying to find a reason. "Um.. I-I was---"

"Do you realise that this is the off-limit area? Didn't the young master had specifically mention this particular rule to you yesterday?!"

"Whoa, whoa! Chill out dude!" Mingyu defended, raised both hand in surrender. "Didn't mean to sneak in. I just got lost and couldn't find my way back to my room."

"You could've ask one of the staffs!" the butler's glare deepened and Mingyu tried so hard not to stare at those pretty orbs.

"What staff? I see no staff in this goddamned hallway!"

"Well then don't sneak around!" Wonwoo snapped at the taller as he grabbed the latter's wrist and forcefully dragged him out of the room. MIngyu couldn't help but notice how cold Wonwoo's hands were, almost as cold as his and he wondered if Wonwoo were not a human like him.

"These rules are there for a reason, Sir and trust me, young master would not be happy if he found out that y--  are you even listening?!"

Mingyu snapped out of his reverie when Wonwoo stopped all of the sudden. "Um...yeah! of course I was listening!"

"Then how did you end up in that chamber, may I ask?" Wonwoo asked impatiently, frown still adorned his flawless face.

Mingyu rolled his eyes, "I told you I was lost, didn't I? Beside who is that girl?"

Once again, Mingyu saw how the other's eyes turned dark at the mention of the girl and he couldn't help to think that there was something fishy going on in this mansion.

"No one. She's no one." Wonwoo answered curtly as he tightened his grip on Mingyu's wrist and started to drag him along the hallway.

Mingyu yelped slightly when the butler made a sudden turn. "What is wrong with you? she can't be no one!"

"Stop putting your nose in other people's business, will you?"

"I was just asking! Besides, why is she in a coffin?" Mingyu asked.

"Stop asking so much questions."

"I'm not stopping until you answer mine!" Mingyu hollered back as he yanked his wrist free from the pale boy's death grip. He was so not in the mood to argue. He was hungry and this place freak him out more as each second passed.

He heard Wonwoo breathed a tired sigh as he turned around and faced him. "I'm going to say this once and you better listen. There are three rules in this mansion. First, do what you're told to. Second, Don't ask any questions because pretty much no one is allowed to answer any of them, so you're just wasting your time asking."

Mingyu frowned at the stupid rules. "And what is the third one?"

Wonwoo paused for a moment.

"Stay away from that room."

To be continued . . . 

***

Aila's note I : Hi again, you lovely people <3 It's been more than a week since the last time I update this story and I apologise for that. It's just I've been busy with being an intern and it was really, like really tiring. I barely found anytime to write, but thankfully I managed to get this chapter done somehow :D I've read all the comments and lord, you guys are sooo nice <33333 Thank you so much for spending  time commenting, upvoting and subscribing on my story. it really boost my motivation /hugsyouall Sorry I haven't been able to reply to your comments, but I'll try to get back to you once my schedules loosen up for a bit /bows 

Aila's note II : I haven't got a chance to proofread this story, so i deeply apologise for any grammar mistakes and typos that could be found anywhere in this story /bows

Aila's note III: Last but not least, Happy reading <333 Any comments, subsribe and upvote will be forever cheered and loved ^^