Someone was humming a song.
The voice was soft, the melody winding, like the whispers of a nightingale, or a hypnotic lullaby.
Theodore lifted his heavy eyelids. In the gradually clearing vision, he saw a slender figure. Platinum blond hair loosely tied at the back of the head, revealing a white neck. A thin taffeta nightgown shimmered faintly in the glaring light, its soft hem hanging at the knees, below which were bare calves and slightly pink ankles.
Theodore's senses were very dull.
It took him more than ten seconds to barely realize he was kneeling. Knees and toes pressed against the hard floor, bones aching painfully. He tried to speak, but the tip of his tongue, numbed, couldn't move—something spherical was stuffed in his mouth, making it impossible to close his lips or make any meaningful sound; he tried to move his limbs, but his head was fixed with some sort of chain, his hands tied to his ankles, no amount of struggling could change this humiliating posture.
