The Haunted Orphanage

Chapter 48

Mark's POV

Were they talking about Jack?

They mentioned a human that was locked up in prison about to be persecuted. Not only that, but by a king. Who was the King of the Underworld?

"...night."

"Yup, night!"

I heard a door open and close across the hallway before remembering that I was right in front of Anti's door. The door swung open and I barely dodged by diving away towards my air mattress. Anti walked into the room, saw me laying on the floor, and sent me a confused glance. "Why are you on the floor? Shouldn't you be asleep?"

I stayed silent for a second. How much was I truly able to trust Anti? This would be the test. I'd wait for him to explain to me what happened with Dark. If he explained the conversation that had gone down outside his room, he was trustworthy. "I just woke up and rolled off the air mattress. Must've had a bad dream or something."

"Do you remember anything about your dream?" Anti asked as he helped me off of the ground.

I shrugged. "Not really, though I'm sure it had something to do with Jack."

Anti froze. "You don't remember exactly what happened?"

I paused for a moment before continuing, "Nope, just that he was there."

Anti seemed to be considering telling me about his conversation with Dark but decided against it. "Why don't you go back to sleep? I have a feeling we'll find out about Jack tomorrow."

He actually didn't plan on telling me?

"Can I ask you a quick question?" I asked as I crawled under the covers on the air mattress.

"Sure."

"Is Dark a bad person?"

Anti looked at me. "What do you mean?"

"Everyone's been really careful to make sure Dark doesn't know that I'm here. You said that Dark would try to kill me if he saw me because I'm his alter ego, but you don't want to kill Jack. Not to mention that everyone else here just seems intrigued by their alter egos. According to you, the only person who wants to kill their alter ego is Dark, so is Dark a bad person?"

Anti thought for a moment. "I wouldn't necessarily call him a bad person, but–"

"If he's not a bad person, then why would he want to kill me? Wouldn't he want to help since I'm his alter ego? When I first got here, you and Dan told me that when the human version of a person dies, the Underworld version does too, and vice versa. Shouldn't Dark want to help keep me alive, instead of wanting to kill me?"

Anti was frozen, staring down at me in silence. After a few moments, he replied, "What are you really asking me?"

"Won't Dark want to help? Why is everyone trying so hard to keep me a secret, when we could just ask him to help us? Wouldn't he want to do it?"

"You want me to enlist Dark's help?"

"Why not? Why wouldn't he want to help us?"

Anti stared at me for a few seconds, before responding, "We can continue this conversation tomorrow."

"Dammit, Anti! Why are you keeping so many secrets from me?!" I yelled as hot tears swelled in my eyes. I blinked and held them back.