He closed his eyes and leaned his head back on the rim of the porcelain tub. The hot water eased his aching joints and the chain around his ankle. He moved his hands in the water, creating ripples that sprawled out endlessly. Taking a bath was his least favorite thing to do during his daily routine. It just meant that he was about to go through an experience he deemed as only but a dream.

     Within a second, alarms began to blare wickedly- snatching his breath away. He glanced around the misty bathroom and saw black smoke billowing into the room from below the floorboards. His body shakes, his breathing picks up, his mind cries, but quickly catches himself

     “It’s alright…” he calmed himself down, feeling his heart fleeting from his body.

Desperate hands begin to pound on his door;

     "Open the door!" the voice of a man quivered, "Please I beg of you- open this door immediately!!"

     "Young master please!" an older woman begged.

     "You have to save us!" they speak in unison.

     “Don’t listen to them.” he muttered to himself, clutching his hands in tight balls, “They're nothing but a dream...Nothing but a dream...”

     He's had multiple dreams about the mansion burning down to the ground with everyone inside. Within this dream, he is in the downstairs bathroom, doing what he's doing now. 

     Sometimes, he is reading a book on his bed. Until the alarms begin to holler and two folks; what he believes are House Servants, come to the door. They hit the door, several times and ask him to open it. They ask him to save them and to think about how this will affect him forever. 

     He never does open the door and those voices die in the fire and he transforms into a colorful bird that fades through the walls and escapes the forsaken mansion. But it’s just a dream.

     He submerged his body under water, thinking that maybe today that dream becomes a reality and that he will transform into a bird of paradise that escapes. 

     As the air from his lungs escapes, his mind comes back to reality. He will never free no matter how much he craves it. Freedom didn’t exist in his world and sometimes those dangerous thoughts enter inside his mind. That death could be the only way out of his hell.

     Maria visits. The fire happens. The singing from a songbird is heard. Blood is split. The monster arrives. How long will he have to live this cycle?

     “Iesa.” He heard his mother’s voice and rose out of the water, gasping for air. He shot a glance at the door to see Mother, standing there staring at him.

     “What is she doing here?!” he questioned, “She never visits me during the day. Only in the morning…Could she have heard my thoughts?!”

     But that was impossible. There are no such things as Celestials being able to read thoughts. Or that’s what the books he read told him. Celestials were never magical in books. Humans were.

     “We need to speak with you.” She demanded and he gulped.