Loneliness

Satisfied, the bodyguard led me out of the room, passing a few soldiers on our way. Each of them nodded politely at the bodyguard, which reassured me a little that the person was more trustworthy despite how creepy he looked. The bodyguard told the soldier at the front door about Werly. The soldier reacted with anger rather than concern, so this might be a common occurrence.

I breathed a sigh of relief as we stepped out of the guard station. The bodyguard picked up a lantern by the door. The night was in full swing, so a portable light source was definitely necessary.

“What is your name anyway?” I asked. Calling him “the bodyguard” all the time would be kind of annoying.

“Did I forget to tell you? It is Zeroc.” He kept his serious face, carefully scanning the area.

The six moons in the sky barely gave enough light to reveal the contours of the cityscape. The scarce light from the miserly lantern reached out only a few meters. Lampposts didn’t help much either; they felt stronger back when the sunlight still had lingering dominion over the land, but now they could hardly defend their territory from the encroaching night.

I didn’t know whether I was hallucinating under this ominous atmosphere, but I could swear I saw movement in the darkness.

“Is this place dangerous?” I asked, unable to bear the eerie silence.

“Did you think it was dangerous at daytime?” Zeroc replied.

“I saw soldiers on patrol, which has definitely made the streets safer.”

“What about the alleyways you went in with Lady Lyla? You should know.”

“Lady?” Why did he refer to Lyla so politely? There was just no way that clumsy girl was someone important. She was too violent and hopelessly lacking in common sense. She… I caught myself drifting into unnecessary thoughts. This wasn’t the time for introspection.

“What do you think stops those people in the back alleys from coming out onto the main street? It’s the soldiers, and most of them rest at night, with far fewer night guards on patrol.” Zeroc’s voice pulled me out of my mental world.

I felt his sharp gaze on me, watching my reaction to his explanation. I was more concerned about his diverted attention from potential dangers than his intention in observing me.

“How did this city come to this? It’s falling apart.” I felt he would answer every question I had.

“Correct. Three-quarters of the population is unemployed. Only a tenth of the city is deemed safe; in other words, only the main street areas. You should know by now from the circulating rumors that money is leaking away in this city, and no one knows where it has gone. Once money vanishes, no one can buy anything, and the economy withers and dies. Businesses close, and the process repeats itself.”

“The governor has to do something. This can’t go on.”

“Everyone knows this. Except, the count in charge of the place, he ran away to the capital with his family. The royal family wanted to punish him for neglecting his duties, but the faction that the count belonged to was able to divert the blame onto the king’s incompetence.”

“Then, Mr. Topaz must be part of an investigation team sent by the royal family.” I tried to whisper, but the streets were too quiet to ensure my words only reached Zeroc.

The dissonant smile was back on Zeroc’s face. He stopped briefly to let out a laugh, as if to emphasize it to me. “What makes you think that?” He continued forward after asking.

“From what I heard, Mr. Topaz is a merchant with a sizable business, multiple stores in just this city. It makes no sense for the merchant to stay here and still hire new employees in a city that has a dying economy and is weeks away from total chaos, unless he has something to do here.”

“Why the royal family? Why not the count or his faction?”

“The explanation you gave me heavily favored the royal family. It painted the count as an irresponsible coward. Plus, it sounded like the royal family wants this issue solved more than the other faction does.”

“Maybe that was all my personal opinion. A bodyguard doesn’t need to have the same opinion as his employer.”

That statement came as a shock to me. It was like I never considered that Zeroc’s words did not represent Topaz, for reasons I couldn’t articulate. Now that he mentioned it, it seemed so self-evident and obvious.

I couldn’t think of a suitable response, so we wandered the streets in silence. Then, Zeroc signaled me to stop. He indicated the opening of the closest alley from where we were. I knew full well what he meant, but at this moment, pretending to be dumb was my best move.

“Why are we stopping here?” I tilted my head with the most clueless face I could produce.

Zeroc forced a small leather pouch into my palm, despite my resistance. A soft clanking sound as it met my hand; those uneven ridges pressed against my skin. Why was he doing this? He must have had an idea of how dangerous this was.

“Ha Ha… Put away the prop, please. PLEASE.” I winked and shook my head, and exhausted all the body language I could to plead for him to take back the pouch.

He declared with no discretion, “What do you mean? This is a coin pouch. Oh, don’t get me wrong. It isn’t anything cheap, like silver coins. It is filled with GOLD coins. Yes, enough to-”

I couldn’t help but gasp and plunged my free hand against his mouth. “Are you insane? Do you want to get us killed? This is Mr. Topaz’s money, right? Why are you giving it to me so haphazardly?” That was a mistake, because I was sure the entire street could hear what I said, even when I tried to lower my voice as much as possible.

Zeroc pushed away my hand. “If you go straight through here,” he pointed right at the straight line of lit lanterns that looked like dandelion seed-heads, “you could see the store right away.”

I strained my eyes with my utmost effort, still deluding myself that Zeroc’s words had a secret and more sensible implication that I just had not yet grasped. There did seem to be an exit on the other side of the dark path, but its distance from where I stood wasn’t anywhere near my acceptable range of one meter.

“Can you PLEASE accompany me?” I put on my most sincere smile.

Zeroc chuckled, obviously amused by my dramatic expressions, not considering that my exaggerated emoting was a last-ditch cry for help. “I have other responsibilities,” he said with an excessively formal tone.

“It would only take a few minutes.”

“Then this should be a simple trip for you.”

“You can’t do this to a ten-year-old kid! That’s child abuse!”

“Are you still pretending to be a ten-year-old?”

I could feel cold sweat building up on my back. It wasn’t like I deliberately hid my mental age, but hearing him directly expose me in such a matter-of-fact way made me want to escape.

I glanced at the long stretch of despair again. The sinister corridor got darker the longer I kept my eyes on it, until I realized it wasn’t my imagination, because the lantern that Zeroc was holding no longer provided extra light. Not just the lantern, even Zeroc was gone.

I was left alone, more specifically, alone with unknown night dwellers lurking in the dark spots that were beyond the lampposts’ reach.

It took me a moment to register my predicament. I almost screamed out loud in panic, but held myself back right before I could make the blunder of attracting more attention to me. My hands were shaking so much that I was tempted to use this as an excuse to drop the pouch and run; at least the gold coins inside could distract any potential assailants for a while.

Lyla… save me! I cried out silently in my heart, profusely apologizing for criticizing her the whole time. Amidst the quiet, a deep humming grew more prominent in my aural awareness, interspersed with rustling and light footsteps that grew closer. This might be a hallucination under stress, but I couldn’t afford to take any chances. So, I made a run for it.

Crossing the long stretch of the darkened pathway, the lanterns passing over my head had almost a hypnotic quality to them; even though not religious, I prayed to all the deities that I knew of. 

Regardless of my sincere appeal, there were no signs from any higher powers; fear still gripped my heart and squeezed it until it was about to pop. My short legs performed worse than I thought. The stress prompted me to use the stature in my past life to predict how fast I could run.

A tall and bulky figure slipped in front of me and blocked my path. Before I could get a better look at the person, a sharp pain in my chest shocked my curiosity away, and I fell backwards onto the tough ground.

Lying helplessly with my vision directed upwards, I could see three other figures gathering around my fallen body. Under the dim lighting, I could not discern their faces clearly; they were unknown threats to my mind, no different from the boogeyman feared by children.

For reasons I couldn’t verbalize, I tightened my hold around the coin pouch, even though I was forced to take on this responsibility. There were limits to my strength, and so the pouch was plucked from my grasp. I reached for the pouch, a reckless effort to swipe it back. A boot stepped on my forehead, slamming my skull back onto the rigid land.