TEARDROP OF THE NIMBUS SUMMER

CHAPTER VI

"Where are we going, Officer?"

I inquired while having difficulty keeping up with his large steps. He merely looked at me, his face void of any emotion.

I roamed my sight of where we might be heading, certain he would not give a response and when I learned where it was. I halted. He probably sensed it that made him turn around to look at me, his face now asking.

"I am not allowed to enter that area, officer."

Then he sighed. He is always exhausted, I thought.

"Just follow me."

"I won't." I firmly replied.

Ever since I entered this establishment, I have been following its legislated rules. To obviate myself of yonder ramifications.

"Officer, I told you I am not allowed to go there. All of us, as a matter of fact." I reiterated when he remained staring.

"You are an officer, yet you are not aware" I kidded, he raised his right thick brow upon hearing what I said.

"What do you intend to say, Sir?" He fixed himself up contemplating whether to respond or to keep his silence.

"Was it controversial, highly private?" I saw his eyes move, they fixated on something behind me which made me turn around to look at what he was looking at.

Nothing. No one. It was a dull covered court and a garden filled with minimalistic plants.

"Report to me if you feel something is amiss" he finally said when I lifted my head to look at him, confused.

Then I remembered what transpired between me and Ash. Her strange and atypical behavior once she learned about it.

If it did not elicit such a reaction, I would not care at all. After all, I am used to being just a part of the pieces, thinking I am being played, inclined to be just that. To remain in the dark, to be ignorant, to follow what I have been told, to what they commanded, And he told me it was an order.

I made an attempt to ask yet he told me to stop. I agreed, but then he raised a proposition that I managed to accept. Regardless, there was no definite answer.

"Like me being transferred in a room?" I retorted. His eyes only blinked but I saw the veins on his neck protruded.

"That is only an order."

"Yes, of course, officer" I told him to ebb the tension away. I also smiled. Sincerely, a mechanism to conceal my apprehension.

"That is all, Officer?"

I saw him swallowed hard, as if conflicted.

"Expect me to be just around." I wanted to ask more, to inquire, to be out of the darkness, to realize but I refrained myself from doing that. So I nodded. I remained standing there looking at him, waiting for him to speak.

"That is all. Pwede ka ng bumalik" he said filled with authority.

I nodded again and started to walk away to ponder numerous untold things.

That is all? He brought me at the most corner of this establishment to just say those?

How strange.

As I walk along the corridor, never minding the horridness of it, I began to concatenate the fragments of the cogitations to construct a specific conclusion of the sophisticated events that happened beginning from that day when I was called of the same officer as I was responsible for the escape of the twelve prisoners. The day when suddenly I felt less restrictions. There are policemen guarding but they just observe, not inflicting physical pains. Unlike before.