THUMP!

Samuel’s sole slammed hard at the building’s door, sadly, instead of budge the reinforced heavy wooden door sent a wave of pain down Samuel’s leg. Bounced off of the door, Samuel cursed the stubborn door, but before he could try again the castle’s servants came and stopped him. Samuel quickly tried his best to explained to them what he’d saw, but the servants were brushed it off as a servant in the building, because lord Urdin was resting in there, but when he described the appearance of the girl, an absolute terror took over one of the maid’s face.

Her body trembled uncontrollably, stuttered and teary eyes, almost had a mental breakdown, she spoke something in Bricatish about her little sister, tried lunged at the door before other servant stopped her and she sobbing nonstop in their hands. Apparently, the girl that Samuel allegedly saw matched that maid’s little sister, who had went missing a few days prior. Didn’t know what to do, thus the servants informed their master, the young lord Harduin.

Soon after informed, the young boy apologised to his honour guests and make haste to the west building and like every other servant, a mixture of mystified and consternation took over his face, after Samuel explained what he’d saw to him. Soon the boy turned to the door, knock after knock, call after call, minutes and minutes went by, and finally the latch started to clack behind the door, and an eye, sunken and with blood vessels zigzagged its sclera, made it almost look red. The eye peeked out of the cracked open door, darted around in wariness, it studied the faces on the other side of the door.

“What of it?” –A monotone rancour voice of a man, spoke in Bricatish answered the lord Harduin.

“Is my father in there?” Lord Harduin asked in Bricatish, “I’d been informed that, a missing person had been seen in this building…”

“Missing person…” –the man cut off Lord Harduin- “There no missing person here” –he turned away and tried to close the door.

Hand on the doorknob, Lord Harduin stopped the door from closing and just like that the man snapped.

“GET YOUR HAND OFF, DON’T BOTHER US!!!” -eyes widened to the point of them almost pop out of their sockets and with an unimaginable viciousness on his face, the man yelled at the young lord.

“Insolent! How dare you speak to the young lord like that!” –a servant scorned him.

“What with all this ruckus?” –A tired croaking voice came from the darkness of the building’s hallway- “Can this sickly old man have some rest?” –A middle-aged man with gauntly looking face, his eyes also sunken and veiny like the man before appeared at the door step.

“Father, I’d been told that a missing person had been spotted inside the building, do you know anything about that?” Lord Harduin spoke to his father

“Missing person?” –with a somewhat monotone voice, Lord Urdin answered- “Go back to the main hall, stop bother me with petty matte.” –the lord turned his back and heading back to his room.

“But father!” –Lord Harduin urged- “There already over three missing cases just this month along, such is no petty….” –but the young lord word was cut short by his father.

For some reason, Lord Urdin’s face twisted into and horrified viciousness, veins bulged on his forehead and eyes as wide as human can possibly open, as if his son’s word, somehow had brought him great offence. In a blink of the eyes, Lord Urdin turned to his son and glared him with great ire.

“I TOLD YOU TO GO BACK TO THE MAINHALL AND STOP BOTHERING US!!!” –Lord Urdin shouted and threatened the poor boy- “DO YOU WANT ME TO DISOWN YOU!!?”

And with a loud slam, enough to rattle the stain glass window in their frame, the wooden door swung shut and leaved everyone else stared at each other stupefied.

With his enough to get by Bricatish, Samuel watched the whole ordeal happened and only understand about fifty or maybe seventy of the words exchanged, but still enough for him to gasped what was going on. When the night drawn late, Samuel laying on his bed wide awake, everything about what had happened kept bothering him, stared at ceiling he wondered to himself about the idea of sneak out and investigated that building. Should he? Although, to his eyes, Lord Urdin clearly was hiding something, but with his situation right now, a hitchhiker who tagged along with a foreign emissary, such action would be caused a lot of troubles, questions and drawn unnecessary attention to Emma, the very thing she’d asked him not to do. But deep inside his mind, he felt if he just stood by and did nothing, that terrified face of the little girl might have joined the rank of those ghosts which used to haunt his night back in the days.

“I better not get caught,” Samuel whispered to himself.

So lied still and ears wide open, Samuel listened to the breathing of everyone else that sharing the room with him. When he’d confident that no one would caught him out of bet, Samuel carefully slipped out of the bed and the room. Nested in dark corners, shied away from the lantern lights in the hallways, hasty he rushed pass window to window when the chance came, his military training had proved useful and helped his reached the courtyard without being detected.

Under the heavenly light above, Samuel’s shadow silently creeped along the wall of the buildings of the castle toward the west wall where that building lied, his progress slowed down significantly as he had to mind his shadow, and kept it away from the watchful eyes of the night patrols on the castle’s towers. Not only that, that weird pressure he felt since arrived here, was stronger before now that the alcohol had completely worn off. The back of his robe wetted with sweat, bead and bead of it rolled down his face with each step he took closer to the west building.

“Had it’s been this strong when I got here? Or is it got stronger somehow?” -Samuel wondered to himself, he couldn’t be sure if it was just his imagination or not, but that weird pressure somehow felt stronger, pulse after pulse, Samuel felt like he was hit repeatedly with some kind of invisible tsunami waves of… vibrating energy, “invisible vibrating energy” that was the only way Samuel could have comprehended and made sense of what he was feeling at the moment.

Eventually, the west building was in front of Samuel’s eyes, stood tall under the heaven light like a giant of stone and brick, with its many “eye-windows” stared down at Samuel tiny shadow below. The building gave Samuel a funny thought, somehow he felt like he was David and was about to go up against Goliath, or perhaps that knight-wannabe-guy who tried to fought a windmill that his sister once mentioned, which name had escaped him for now.

Sheltered under the shadow of the awning of another building near the west building, Samuel patiently wait for the night patrol on the castle’s battlement to passed. Then with haste he came to the west building door. Locked, of course, Samuel checked and found no keyhole on his, this mean the door was locked by latch and could only be open from the inside, with a sigh of frustration Samuel quickly went through all the windows of the ground floor. Such bad luck, all the windows were sturdily built into the building wall, there was no lock or crack that he could use the knives he brought with him to try to break in.

Pressed his ear to the window’s glass, Samuel tried if he could hear anything from inside the building, and with just a second or two his ears did catch something, something… perhaps sound, muffled sounds of something, but too muffled and too faint for him to make clear what those sounds could be, “voice? Something moved? Something pushed something? Clanging or clashing sound, perhaps?” Samuel wondered, tried to search his memory to find anything that could match what came from beyond the window’s glass, and then another sound came, this one clearer, way clearer and very easy for him to identify it, sounds of footstep. It got louder and louder by the second, but he quickly recoiled from the window and dived into some shrubs near the building, for he’d realized that sounds of footstep were not coming from inside the west building but from outside. Flattened his body to the grass behind the shrubs, Samuel’s heart drumming in his chest as the footstep got nearer and nearer, and soon a circle of lantern light slowly paced toward and then passed the building and eventually approaching where Samuel hid.

Unfortunately, the shrubs Samuel hid in were not very thick, and as the night patrol approaching Samuel’s position, his lantern cast light over the shrubs and with the heaven’s light above, the entirety of Samuel’s left arm could be seen clearly. Samuel lied as still as he could, and finally gave off a breath of relief when the night patrol passed and continue on his route, not since his combat service in the middle east that he ever felt such stress, it was sure brought back some memories. After the night patrol had far gone, Samuel slightly pried his body up just enough to look passed the shrubs, and after a few thoughts, with great disappointment to himself, Samuel decided to abandoned his quest, for he found the same style of sturdy windows were lined up the wall of the above floor, he just nearly got caught and thought better to not push his luck any further.