Touch of Time

Chapter 15: Bad News

It's 4:00 in the morning and the world seems to be asleep.  Ersha is still wide awake for she wasn't able to sleep for the entire night.  There was someone going around the residence of Bandres at midnight.  Slow, careful steps were heard and it was not that quite inconspicuous so she attempted to peek through the tiny hole on the wall  but the complete darkness made it impossible to see someone.  So, she alerted herself and kept her eyes and ears open for there might going to happen.  Fortunately, the noise disappeared at nearly two o'clock in the morning.

Ersha started to feel drowsy, her tired eyes is slowly getting closed and then, in a few moments she is in complete slumber. She haven't heard that someone walked out of the house at an early time in the morning.  Andro, who woke up so early, left the house without informing anyone.  He brings with him a small sling bag and is in a hurry for he doesn't want his parents to know where he is going.

It's already 6:30 when Ersha got awaken by individuals talking outside.  So, she rise up and fixed herself before going outside the room.  As she looked into the window which she just half opened, two government guards were talking to Mr. Bandres.  As what she understood from the fragmented words she heard  from the conversation, they were asking if he had seen someone or heard something suspicious last night.  Mr. Bandres's reply came out negative and then the guards were asking for his cooperation if ever there's something he could report.  After a while, Mr. Bandres gets inside and looked so pale and nervous.

What was that Manko? asks Mrs. Dulce.

"The guards were asking if there's someone who went inside our territory last night for an important item got missing in the governor's office." replied Manko.

Do they have a clue of who was that person?

Not that much and they were still investigating on who has access in the governor's place.

"I hope Andro's group are not involved in it," said Mrs. Dulce who is a bit worried.

"I hope so, or else, it would be a great trouble not only for Andro but to the rest of us."

  Ersha comes out of her room and saw Mr. and Mrs. Bandres talking seriously in the living room. She already knows what they were discussing about so she approached them to greet a good morning and then shared what she noticed last night.

After hearing Ersha's story, Mrs. Dulce went into Andro's room to check if he's inside.  But to her surprise, he was not there so it alarmed every one on what may happen to him.  Andro's group were already monitored by the officials after someone tipped a jail guard about the plans of bombing the prison on which it turned out to be a failure.  The officials may not directly pinpoint Andro but through the descriptions given, it's quite close to him and his group. 

Andro's companions were mostly learned individuals and some were ordinary people who does simple errands and monitoring of government activities.  Everyday, he gets to meet them and usually comes home before dark.  But at this time, it's pass 7 in the evening already and not a single shadow of him arrived.  In a few minutes, someone's knocking on the door down stairs so Mrs. Dulce came to open.

Mario arrived and reported a bad news about Andro.  Instantly, everyone came running downstairs to listen on what he has  to say.  "Andro is in jail and were interrogated by the guards"  said Mario.