The Second Story - Will You Dance With Me? (Part 2)
Jacqerina shut the door behind her silently. Tse Yee was already getting dress up in the white gown. "Long time in the toilet I see," "Haha... I'm getting nervous that my stomach's just having these butterflies, I thought being in the toilet might help, it's my first time to this kind of ball," "you're right, I was nervous when I first went to a ball, you never knew if you'll meet the right person for you there, but I did, I met Alston," Jacqerina stopped smiling, but she immediately faked a smile. "You should wear this red one, Jac," said Tse Yee as she held up the blood red night gown. "But that's yours, I have mine in the wardrobe..." but Tse Yee stopped her, "We're best friends aren't we? Everything that belongs to me, is yours. We share everything don't we?" Jacqerina smiled meekly as Tse Yee helped her to undress and getting inside the red dress. "It fits you, perfectly." Jacqerina looked at herself in the old mirror. She looked like a princess. "Thanks, Tse Yee." "It was my pleasure," and she walked over to a small table and poured a cup of black tea, handing it to Jacqerina, "here's a cup of black tea, its from China, it helps to relieve nervousness and it'll give you relief, try it." Jacqerina said a word of gratitude and took a sip, sweet, yet bitter in a way, without much thought, she gulped down the whole cup as Tse Yee smiled to herself.
"You're late, Alston," said Sir Fabian, "Sorry, papa," replied his son. "I expect the best of manners and treatment to our guests from you and your fiancee," said his father and Alston nodded in obedience. "Ahhh! Sir Bulgani and Lady Sandra, welcome, welcome!" and Sir Fabian left his son to tend at the new guests. Alston flashed a smile and walk to the other side of the ball room to look for guests that he could entertain when his thoughts were somewhere else. "Brother, the ball is starting very soon, where's Tse Yee and Jacqerina?" said Magdelene who followed closely behind Alston. "I don't know," and he left her absent minded, as if he never really realise Mag was there in the first place. Mag wanted to catch up and shout at her brother for ignoring her but the crowd was too much and the sight of Alston was soon lost in the crowd. "maybe I'll go find them myself," she said to herself. Magdelene dived in between the sea of people and wriggled her way out of the ballroom. The music began yet the crowd remained as unsettled as before.
Magdelene found her way into the Tse Yee's room. She opened the door, it was unlocked and entered it. It was empty, perhaps they left for the ball, she thought. She was about to leave the room when a shiny crystal vial in the corner of the room caught her wandering gaze. She walked to it and picked it up. It's empty. She opened the stopper and took a faint smell. Magdelene majored in medicine in the university and she knew well enough that the vial contained poison. She walked to the small table wear a set of Chinese teapot and teacup stood side by side. She held the cup and smelled, she was right, "someone must have drank a cup of poisoned tea, and it has to be either Jacqerina or Tse Yee, the one who didn't drank it, would be the person who poured the poison," sensing something going really wrong, Magdelene ran out of the room making her way to the ballroom. "If someone really did drank it, she would be dead really soon, unless she is given the antidote", she continued running but a thought kept bothering her, "who poured the poison? Why?'
The ball had begun and after a speech by Sir Fabian himself, the people began finding a partner, paired up and commenced a dance. Tse Yee and Alston were dancing as a pair. Soon a business partner came up to the pair and asked the Chinese beauty's hand for a dance and so Alston was left standing at the middle. He looked around and spotted Jacqerina in her red gown and walked towards her. He approached her and gave Jacqerina a smile. She looked pale, and as if something was bothering her, but she managed a smile, stuttering, she asked, "Will you dance with me now?" Alston held out his hand. Jacqerina took it with quivering hands. "You don't look well, are you okay?" "I'm fine, let's dance, I love this song," and they walked to the middle of the dance floor and danced. Neither of them noticed, blood dripping down her blood red gown, onto the white marble floor, as they continued dancing.
Magdelene finally reached the ballroom. She was frantically looking for Tse Yee and Jacqerina. She soon saw Tse Yee, dancing with an unknown gentlemen, "she seemed fine, the poison must have kicked in by now, that means... Jac..." She pushed the people standing on her way, to progress to the middle of the dance floor to search for Jacqerina. A scream, a shrilling scream sounded through the ballroom. Magdelene rushed to where it sounded, to find drops of blood on the floor, trailing, and she followed it till she reached a gathering circle of people. In the middle of the circle, was her brother, Alston, holding Jacqerina, in her blood red gown, lying in a pool of blood. It was far too late. Jacqerina had been poisoned to death, by a poison so cruel, it causes a person blood veins and arteries to burst making blood to flow out of the body in the fastest speed, resulting in death. Magdelene scanned through the faces of the crowd but none of them were Tse Yee's.
In her room, Tse Yee sat alone in a chair, smiling to herself. She looked proudly at her own reflection in the mirror. "Everything that belongs to me, is yours, Jac. We can share everything else in this world, but not him..." and she laughed by herself.
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