Betrayal. Trust is a feeble thing. Samuel knew that much. In his whole life he only trusted Berthold—and several manufacturing companies that provided him his basic needs. Of course, he had to trust that soap really will kill the bacteria present in his body.
But Samuel knew that trusting a person would be the same as laying out oneself open arms into a person"s gunpoint.
Or in this case,
Bow and arrow.
A bead of sweat dabbled across Samuel"s chin. His electric-blue eyes were focused on Arletha"s piercing ones. He knows he shouldn"t look at the end of the tip—the razor-sharp point of her arrow. Samuel knows that doing otherwise would make him think about moving away and do the impulsive. It would activate his defense mechanism. Irrational defense mechanism.
He doesn"t trust anyone else. Nothing changed even when he was a.s.signed to a task force. Not even the time he fought alongside them with his life on the line—no. Samuel did not trust anyone one bit. Especially the new group who had helped him. He doesn"t trust them.
Yet . . .
Why does he feel so betrayed?
Samuel fell to the floor as the arrow struck him. For a few minutes, he laid down to the floor, thinking about death finally took him, thinking about his older sister still on the hospital, bedridden and comatose. He thought about Berthold and the task force.
And then he stopped.
Samuel tried to sit straight—and then, he found out he couldn"t.
He couldn"t sit nor rise not because an arrow struck on his heart—
It was because an arrow was few centimeters away from his rib to the side of his cloth, pinning him down to the ground.
Samuel blinked several times at such revelation. How come he didn"t realize Arletha didn"t shoot him? Or more specifically, she didn"t aim for his vitals?
"Aw," Samuel exclaimed, trying to remove the arrow from his side.
"What the . . ." Samuel started to pull harder. "Why isn"t it budging?"
He doesn"t know what in the world was happening. Samuel tried to break the arrow—but to no avail, his palms only got sore from trying.
And then, Samuel facepalmed.
He removed the sweater he was wearing, revealing his long-sleeve shirt and vest as he moved away from the ground.
"Right," Samuel muttered.
There wasn"t a sign of Arletha anymore.
"What was I thinking?" Samuel mumbles. "Of course they were trying to get rid of me."
Samuel wanted to chuckle. How naïve was he? That look Hosea gave him—Pelmon and the others looking at him with their gazes darkening. Of course, he noticed. They were wary of him from the start. Even when they were talking to him so normally, he noticed their gazes especially when he asks about their purpose in coming to the dungeon. He noticed their sealed lips and narrowing eyes as if they were evaluating his questions and thinking about him being a threat due to his inquiries.
The group was suspicious of him.
And he knows why.
Samuel messed his platinum blond hair and then gritted his teeth. Frustration washed over him like hot water rushing from the showers to his unprepared skin.
"h.e.l.l! I DON"T EVEN WANT THAT whatchamacallit—WAHID"S VESSEL!" Samuel yells on the top of his lungs, "I DON"T WANT IT!!! I JUST WANT TO GET OUT OF HERE!"
Samuel felt a pent-up frustration rising. So this was how betrayal would feel like. THIS is how it feels to be wronged. How it feels to be convicted for something you didn"t and wouldn"t even dare to do.
Samuel yells one more, "I"M NOT COMPETING FOR THAT THING . . . I"m . . . not after . . . anything . . ."—Samuel"s voice grew lower as his shoulder slumped.
Trust.
That feeble feeling.
They didn"t trust him—to the point that they wanted him dead. They didn"t trust him, and they weren"t taking any chances.
Samuel sighed. He knew there wasn"t anything he could do alone, especially inside a dungeon. There was little to zero chance he would come out alive. He doesn��t even know the rules here in his whereabouts.
Rules. The foundation of science itself. Of course, even this place has its own set of commandments. And knowing that would be the fundamentals for survival. But now, without anyone in his side, there wasn"t a possibility to find these certain rules.
Or . . . there actually is a chance?
Samuel withdrew his leather journal from the pocket attached to his belt. He began to scribble whatever he could find. From the gravity to the speck of dust he could find—from the metals and the smell of oil and the atmosphere itself.
"Right," he mumbles to himself. "I"m a researcher. I can do this!"
As Samuel began to examine the place, the continuous a.n.a.lysis led him to different tunnels (he wrote the turns he took to his journal to avoid getting lost).
"For a clock tower, this one"s big," he utters.
Samuel did not really know whether he was getting deeper on the tower or going higher grounds. Several tunnels he took led to stairs going either downstairs or upstairs.
"Hmm." Samuel then wrote down the basics. It seems like the place was on the "normal" side of things.
Samuel continued walking while shuffling through his journal. Unbeknownst to him, a door opened in front of him, and without even noticing anything he ventured inside the unknown chambers that had lured him inside stealthily.
"Mama?"
Samuel stopped to his tracks, and then froze on the spot.
"Ma . . . ma. Is that . . . you?" It was a child"s voice, sweet and alluring - yet every word was monotone, and was spoken in a flat voice like that of a sad Vocaloid.
Samuel slowly lifted his gaze from his journal. His electric-blue eyes widened as he beheld a sight in his 17 years of existence, never did he dream to see.
In a large room with a candid motif, a human-sized doll was sitting in a large Victorian sofa and was weeping. The coffee table in front of the doll held tea and pastries; the walls were surrounded with clocks of different designs—irregular shapes, zigzag, cla.s.sics, round, and large pendulums.
And what was even more peculiar was that there were stuffed animals all facing Samuel"s direction, their eyes peering directly to his soul.
Slowly, the crying doll lifted its gaze. It had a curly brunette hair and big, blue eyes. It tilted its head. "Mama?"
"Uh . . ." Samuel took a step back. "I"m not your mother."
"Mama . . ." It says. "MmamMMaMaaa," it utters with its head twitching from side to side.
Samuel curses underneath his breath as the doll began to walk speedily with its limbs twitching and head swaying in a sinister manner.
"AAAHHHHHH!"