After she fought against the memory of her world falling apart, she decided to cast away that scene from her thoughts. She couldn’t afford to be defenseless in a room where she didn’t know what would happen next.

Now, she wiped her tears away.

Clenching her fingers over her knees, she lifted her eyes to watch her kidnapper read some random book.

Why he was so calm like nothing happened? Why he wasn’t doing anything to her? Why not just get it over with?

Perhaps he was sadistic. Perhaps he liked that little game and fed on the despair of others.

Only the worst hypotheses went through the girl's head, and she only added more fuel to the fire of her anguish, until - at last - she thought it couldn't get any worse than that.

At that moment, she took a risk.

"S-Sorry..." hesitant with the speech, she tried to confront her kidnapper. "W-What are you going to do... to me?"

It was already agonizing to have to interrupt the host again in his beloved reading, but the silence that came from that question was even worse.

He didn't respond, and he didn't even react. He continued reading normally with the book in hand, and his mind focused on the theory of the work.

A great pressure fell on her as if the ignorance of the journey was even worse than the destination to be reached. She needed to know, somehow, what was going to happen, so that she could better prepare herself to swallow everything that would happen.

After all, she wanted to get it over with. She wanted to leave already.

"I-I..." gathering another piece of courage, the girl continued. "C-Can I leave?"

And nothing came from Druko's mouth. No reaction. Just another new page turned.

Chills ran through the paralyzed girl's body, even more nervous with any lack of response.

Without guidance, she felt helpless, and consequently, restless. Her head was already plotting even more risky attitudes, and she assumed that nothing would happen to stop her.

It was then that, when she closed her eyes in an instinctive urge, she quickly rose from the sofa in a leap of faith with her attitude. She already expected that she would be lectured for this and that she would be commanded to return to the starting position.

To her surprise, when she opened her eyes, the four-horned verozean remained the same: focused on the book and without showing any interest in her.

Only at that moment did she realize that she was on her feet, barely believing that she could overcome her own demons and silence her own heavy conscience.

"Congratulations," finally, Druko said something, without removing his attention from the book at hand. "You managed to beat your captors."