30-day Creative Writing Challenge Day One- "Smile"

The halls are padded with red velvet carpets, and the walls are painted a marble-like buttercream riddled with pictures of the many generations in almond-shaped picture frames. All the doors are clear-cut and oddly symmetrical, yet perfect in their own ways. The air in the manor is pleasantly polluted with tobacco smoked from cherry wooded pipes and blown from wealth-stained lips of the owners—owners who're rich enough to afford velvet carpet, symmetrically cut doors, cherry wooded pipes, and a maid.

The poor maid works for the rich family who welcomes her with endless hospitality and accommodations, but belittles her and refrains from forming any sort of real relationship, for they're always on the run. But they do leave behind their children to be tended to by the maid as if they can't be bothered to care for their own children; yea they insist that the love for their children is strong.

The parents leave every evening for Gatsby parties and return in the mornings at eleven sharp. Before they go, the maid is given the same, redundant list of chores to be completed by the time they get home, with "Take care of our babies" as the number one priority above and beyond cleaning the toilets and mopping the porch.

On this Sunday, the twenty-eighth of May, the routine remains the same. The children nap, the parents whip away, and the maid begins her tiring chores with an upbeat spirit, seeing the good in the situation in that she has work and food and a place to lie her head at night. She checks on the blonde-haired heads of the two children poking out of their warm, silk blankets that stream over the gold-lined bunk beds, then proceeds to the opposite wing of the house to sweep, mop, and dust the chores on the list away one-by-one. The doors and windows are wiped down, the furniture is vacuumed, the trash is taken out, and dinner is prepared.

Every day, the maid powers through her tasks left and right. She zips around the mansion, tidying every spot from top to bottom—except for Mr. Rich's study. The need to clean the office-library almost drives the maid to madness. Even more so, the mystery of what could be inside eats her alive. She battles to resist the urge to open the doors every day, and every day, she refrains; however, today is different. Walking past the story-high double doors for what must have been the twelfth time today alone, she sees a crack in the opening.

Uncertain of whether the nervousness came from excitement or fright, she tiptoes to the door and pulls it open. The tobacco puffs in her face, a sign of Mr. Rich winding down after a hard day of work and partying within the last few hours. She inches forward, heart beating out of her chest, searching for the light switch. When she gets closer to the desk, lights fill the room. She jumps, thinking that she's been discovered, and turns to the doors to see nobody there.

Cooling down, she marvels at the plethora of tomes lining the study.

"Sanctuary," she says aloud while looking on in awe.

The room has the same, semi-complex design as the rest of the house with royal blue velvet carpets instead of red. The wooden furniture is oak, not cherry wood. The walls are covered with bookshelves, not photos. The study matches the mansion while being its own, unique entity.

The maid walks around the desk and dares sit in the master's chair. It's comfy and soft enough to rest in but firm enough to be able to get work done. It fits her awkwardly, but she likes it.

Cluttered on the desk are Mr. Rich's laptop, a stack of lawyer papers, two ashtrays, caramel wrappers, and half broken, half powdered pills atop a scholastic of law with the corner of a Polaroid sticking out of it. She dusts off the powders and opens the book to look at the picture—a family portrait.

As soon as she sees the photo, she knows something isn't right. Scanning the picture, she sees an extra person—another child—sitting on the couch. He looks like the others, but there are only four members of this family. There are only two young boys that she cares for when their parents leave.

"Who are you?"

She gets up and paces the room, unable to put her finger on how there could possibly be another child in the family, especially since the photo is recent.

She walks out of the study and runs straight to the boys room to confirm that there are only two. The door opens on its own. She peers in to see who opened it for her, but the boys are still napping and snoring away. She looks around their room, scanning every inch for proof of a third boy. There is none.

Walking hurriedly to the door looking down at the mysterious face in the photo, she says, "Where are you?"

The sound of glass shattering projects through the empty spaces. The maid charges over to the study to find the frame of a picture of a woman blasted to pieces in its place on the shelf. She grabs a letter opener as her weapon and walks toward the shelf and gathers the courage to jump out to surprise whoever might be hiding in the corner. She exhales and holds the letter opener tight. She turns around the corner of the bookshelf and slices the air.

Something thuds behind her and she circles around nervously. On the ground was a dove, injured and bloodied from the maids guerrilla attack. She covers her mouth in disgust, and tears fall down her cheeks.

She trembles as she kneels down to the dying bird. The bird lies there flapping its broken wings and breathing as best it can until it breathes no more.

The maid brushes the glass from around its wounds. The sunset shines and reflects on the glass, but something glimmers brighter in the doves mouth—a key.

She tears the key from its throat and studies it. The key is rose gold with a rat carved into it, and she wonders where the key leads to. Standing up and assessing the damages and what she'll have to explain to Mr. Rich, she catches a glimpse of the photo again. This time, there is a number written on the bottom—a combination of some sort.

She remembers Mrs. Rich during a drunken rage telling her about Mr. Rich hiding a safe in his office—a place where even she and the children weren't allowed to go... a place where the maid was now standing in the middle of. She roars through the study looking for any safes or lockers. She looked behind doors, behind pictures, under his desk, and anywhere in between. She even tried pulling books off the shelves just in case one of them led to a secret room. But no—there was nothing. She looked everywhere she could think of.

Dragging her feet across the carpet in defeat, she returns to the chair, sitting down after picking out the glass and stares at the hands on the brass clock. The time hasnt changed since she last looked at it. The clock has read half past six for well over an hour. The maids eyes follow the hands of the clock down to the drawers of the desk in front of her. She opens the drawer in search for answers. There is nothing there. It's empty.

She tears the drawers from their places, but one remains hinged, no matter how hard she pulls. Her knee bumps the bottom of the drawer, knocking the board from on top of a small chamber. Mr. Rich has had a hidden box in this desk, and she discovered it.

Pulling the board and the decorative paper off of the compartment, the maid gasps-- a small safe within the space. She immediately references the photo and grabs the dial, turning it carefully as to not miss a digit. The dial clicks in place.

She hesitates a bit then opens the safe—in it, a receipt. She holds it between her chubby fingers. Its a restaurant receipt. She scratches her head, confused at her new find. After peering toward the door to check for any witnesses, she studies the receipt. Theres nothing fascinating or extraordinary about it.

She flips it over—a map of the house is drawn on it. She's never known that there's a basement or an attic, but Mr. Rich has drawn the home additives along with the ground level. She gets up, taking the key, map, and photo with her, and follows the trace of the map.

Down the narrow hall, up the steep stairs, around the dark corner—she follows the map to a tee until she reaches a door at the end of a hallway she's never seen before. She jiggles the handle, and the door inches open. A bright light shines in her face, so she shields her eyes, and in that moment, a gush of pain flies through her abdomen, bringing her to her knees.

She throws the door open and looks around the room, but nothing is inside. The room is basically empty. All that's left behind is dust and torn curtains. The maid cries from frustration and anger after finding nothing even though the room was marked on the map. She crushes the paper in her hand, cutting herself—the blood soiling the corner of the receipt. She looks at the map again at where the blood falls—the basement.

She sprints through the halls. She goes past the childrens room, past the study, past the kitchen, and into the walk-in pantry. The map shows the basement in that spot, but the maid doesn't understand how. She feels the walls for an answer. A part of the floor creeks. The maid fetches a knife from the kitchen and cuts the carpet murderously.

Beneath a couple of boxes, the opening of the basement resides, waiting. The maid stands knife-in-hand and opens the basement door. She sees stairs that lead down deeper and deeper, and all she can hear is water dripping from the ceiling every seven seconds, and with every drop, her heartbeat quickens and fear settles and takes over her conscience.

She leans over the gaping hole in the floor. First, her hands start shaking, then her arms and legs and eventually, her whole body. Her eyes twitch and burn. Her shoulders tic and tighten. Her mind freezes.

Suddenly, the maid is pushed forward and forced down the stairs. She looks around for the hands that creeped behind her. Up the stairs at the opening of the basement, standing over her, was the silhouette of a child, but it had no eyes, no nose, nor lips.

"What are you?" the maid whispers softly as the fear suffocates her, the door to the cellar is lifted, and the shadows swallow her whole.