Searching for Andromeda 98 The Den of Evil

From the horizon beyond the skies appeared what seemed to be a twinkle—a gleaming star that flashed brightly in Samuel's electric – blue eyes. It caused him to momentarily squint his eyes—but before Samuel could even take another step or two to get a better look, the star immediately vanished.

And then when it did,

"Argh!"

Samuel fell down to the floorboards with a thud. "Aw," he murmured. Sam's first thoughts were 'what the hell' but then it escalated into, "what . . . the . . . hell." 

A dark arrow had just scraped the side of his neck, which made it bleed immediately. Samuel immediately ran his hand to his neck to cover the bleeding. Samuel began to look around, to search for the one who shot that arrow, but there was no one in the vast seas—not a sail nor a boat. The sky was as clear and ridden with cotton-like clouds. Then is it the star he had seen on the horizon? What in the world is happening?

"I have to tell Ephraim and Borgh . . ." Samuel mumbled, turning back to the captain's cabin. But then . . .

"Huh?"

Samuel's electric-blue eyes gradually dimmed, like that of a light flickering to fade. His gaze turned blurry and disoriented. He felt as if he was back in Peru where the earthquake had recurred. His vision swayed and doubled as he tried to take multiple steps. And then the next thing he knew he was already kneeling to the floorboards with rasped breaths and dripping sweat.

"Ah, such a precious good a tad damaged," says a voice—a pubescent male's—which reverberated in Samuel's mind. "No worry. We will fix you back on the den."

Den . . . what den?

Samuel had no strength now. He collapsed to the ground, his body going number as the scratch on his neck throbbed. Footsteps of two people echoed in both his ears as he felt he was getting lifted.

"Hocrus, Omoi, bring him to the den unscathed. He's rare," the voice from earlier asserted. "Miko. Take off his overcoat. It's a risk if it carries a tracker. My hook sensed a bit of magic around it,"

"Certainly . . ." a girl's voice. "But . . . don't we have enough children? I don't think—"

"Miko, just shut up. Are you the Pirate Captain? No, you're not. So shut up," the boy chided. Samuel caught a quick glimpse of his appearance. Although blurry, Samuel could still make up his basic characteristics. Dead, fish-like dark eyes and a braided dark-colored hair. The boy, noticing this, smirked at Samuel.

"Can't do anything now, huh?" He mocked. "You're being captured with no one noticing anything."

Samuel's eyes widened. That's right. Why in the world is no one noticing anything? Shouldn't crews be looking at the sails, patrolling, and whatnots? He isn't that educated with ships, but he knew that the crew is in charge of these type of things—

Unless . . . there's some kind of an inside job?

"This will definitely drop a huge blow to that new dungeon conqueror," the boy laughed, "now then, since we don't want the numbing potion in those arrows to wear off, we have to send you unconscious."

"Goodnight, boy."

**

Samantha.

Samantha is going away.

Samuel sat by the grass, still looking at the same ladybug climbing the stems of the plants, and then falling again to the ground but still persevering to climb. It fascinated him to infinite bounds for a reason he couldn't quite put his finger to. The ladybug had a tint of his mother's lipstick and the color of his father's hair. Red and black. Perhaps it was why Samuel thought he was fond of ladybugs. 

Samantha was going away.

Those thoughts kept on bugging him. But just why? Why is Samantha going away? She's just here in their house—in their father's large villa. There's no way Samantha could go anywhere when she couldn't drive. 

But how in the world does Samuel know these things? He's five.

Samuel peered down below, expecting to see mud-covered chubby fingers. But instead, he was welcomed with a pair of a teen's hand. Instead of a boyish T-shirt and shorts, he had worn a lab coat and a pair of scholar-like black, leather shoes. This time, he wasn't Sammy-baby, or anything cute—he was Samuel Albrecht, a student researcher in an advanced program. 

The ladybug fell again.

Samuel stood up, looking around. Why is he in the villa?

'Samantha is going away'

Why does that bug his mind? Samantha . . . HOW is she going away? This was the vill

At that moment, Samuel remembered. 

"Samantha's in a coma . . ." He murmured. "And I'm going to pull her life support . . ."

The world is Samuel's mind shattered like a mirror breaking. His electric-blue eyes reflected into the darkness, but those electric-blue eyes weren't his'. They were Samantha's—15-year-old Samantha. She was looking at Samuel through a broken world; a broken mirror.

"Samuel," Samantha's voice. He hasn't heard of it for years. They didn't sound foreign to him for some reason. They sounded so real, so close, and so much soothing that he had the impulse to walk even closer. 

"Samuel. I'm not going away." She exclaimed in the gentlest voice possible. "But if you don't do something, I will."

"What do you mean, Sis . . . ?"

"Wake up," She murmured. "Wake up, Sam."

Samantha began to be fade farther away, and so Samuel naturally began to run to chase her. "Sis!" 

"Samantha! Big sis!"

"Oh,"

"Ah—"

Samuel blinked.

"He's awake, guys."

Samuel battled his eyes several times. 

"Children?"

Welcoming his fresh eyes were children in rags and tatters. Some standing, some sitting on the corners. Samuel sat slowly, feeling the aching pain in his neck now. And as he sat, he welcomed the whole spectacle. 

Cobbled floors ridden with puddles and dirt, rails of iron enclosing him with children amidst a secluded, dark room. That stench of cold and thin air. There's no mistaking it.

He's in a prison cell.

And it's not just him. Beyond the cell Samuel was in, there were other cells holding other children as well. 

"Ah," Samuel noticed he was only wearing his pants and the white and blouse. Even his leather belt being devoid of any weaponry. Samuel stood up. A clang of metal then followed. 

Samuel's electric-blue eyes widened. He looks down, seeing his one of his ankles chained. The chain was extending shortly to the cobblestone walls behind one of the children—a chain that was about a meter long.

Before Samuel could even react or banter his phrase, he stopped short when the children began to lump themselves behind him in fear. Footsteps from a distance echoed across the vast, and every footstep made the children let out silent wails and sent them flinching, cowering in fear behind him. All these children were smaller than he was. The footsteps got nearer as the spectator got nearer. The children on the other cells were already looking at him in fear. 

"Aahh, my prized good is now awake," It was a familiar voice Samuel was certain he had heard before. "'He who has shining, platinum-blond locks and eyes the color of the clear skies. He who is as beautiful as any robin, and could easily provide the greatest pleasure possible'—ah. Wouldn't that sell?"

Samuel gritted his teeth as the footsteps stopped; a silhouette shadowed over Samuel, making the children behind him shrink in terror. A man—no, a boy who was his age—wearing a tricorn that had a skull inside two triangles juxtaposing etched on its fabric—came to look down on them with eyes displaying no emotion yet had lips curved into a big smile. The boy was also covered in a flamboyant yet tattered crimson waistcoat hugging his lean body; he had a hook as a replacement for his other arm, particularly, his right. 

"I am the pirate captain, Jaxon Sparrows. It's nice to meet you, my captive; the new dungeon conqueror's companion," He said in a sing-song manner.

Samuel clenched his fist. That was right. He remembers now. He was shot with an arrow that was probably had its tip glazed with poison. He was taken so easily by this person. 

"I'm scared . . ." A small boy murmured, clutching the hem of Samuel's shirt. 

The boy, named Jaxon, smiled. "I just came to check on you. We wouldn't want the star of the show to end up dead. But I was worried over nothing, haha!" He laughed so childishly that Samuel saw him nothing more than a child. But when Jaxon's dark, fish-like eyes met his', Samuel was reminded that this was the same boy who was holding him and these children as his prisoners. "Miko's good with doses. She was able to balance what was deadly and what's only numbing. I doubted her for a second because I wanted you alive so badly," He said. 

Samuel thinned his lips.

"What are you, and where the hell am I?"

The boy smirked. "You have a sharp tongue, boy!"

"Why am I chained, and where the hell is this? What did you do to my companions?"

The boy chuckled.

"There's no need to get angry. And one question at the time. I haven't met the dungeon conqueror yet, so I do not know; while you—you're chained because I don't want my prized good to escape so suddenly because it'll be a waste. Unlike these weak children, you are probably much stronger given the fact you are the dungeon conqueror's companion,"

Jaxon laughed again. "But then again—you're still a child. What would a child like you do . . . when he's in the den of evil?"

"Den of evil . . ."

"That's right," Jaxon said. "Welcome to my ship, boy. Grovel at your feet before Sunken Pirate's den of evil!"

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Chapter end