Mystery Hunt (Complete - Under Major Editing)

34. King Samuel

"Good morning beautiful!" Dylan hears James's voice the first in the morning. How lucky he feels!

He smiles a little and opens his eyes to see James looking at him with adoration. His hair was disheveled and he had no shirt. Wait! James's had no shirt on! Dylan pulls the blanket to himself.

James laughs a little looking at this and says, "We did nothing like your mind is telling you. I just felt hot inside the blanket so I took my shirt off. But....." He trails off and comes closer to his lips, "You were smiling. This means you were dreaming about something. What was it?" he smirks a little knowing that Dylan was staring at his lips.

He shook his head and pushes him to get off the bed.

"It wasn't much. Just me and you running together hand in hand, then falling and looking at a very beautiful scenery. That's it."

But James wouldn't let it go easily. He holds Dylan by his wrist, turning and pushing him closer and stares in his eyes, "Are you sure? Cause I can swear you are blushing right now." Dylan was about to say something when Clive opens the door without knocking again.

"Get a room, guys." Clive covers his eyes watching James bare-chested.

"Technically you are in our room." Dylan asserts. Both James and Clive lift their eyebrow and Dylan realizes, "I mean.....er...my room......"

"Well fair enough. We all are waiting for breakfast." He closes the door behind him.

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

"What are you talking about, Noah?" Dylan acts a little.

When they understood why Noah might have reminded him of the trauma, they decided to go with his plan so he wouldn't suspect them.

"You don't remember? The bar? The police?" Noah tests him to be completely sure. He knew Dylan has changed a lot when they came here.

"What bar? I remember the police coming here to take Logan. And then his dad." He acts innocent.

Noah takes a sigh of relief and pats his back. "No nothing. It's just; it feels empty here without Logan. His men came in the morning to take his luggage." He fakes a tear and Dylan just scoffs at him. Noah has always been such a good actor.

"Well, more the reason to search the castle which turned our innocent Logan into a thief, don't you think?" Dylan side hugs Noah.

"Yeah. But I still don't find any meaning here. And honestly, it is affecting all of our friendships and relationships. I mean look at us. What have we become?" Noah points at both of them. Dylan knows it is just acting so he plays along.

"That is why I want to continue searching. I want to know why all of this happening to us. And we just found some meaning. The cursed crown!"

"We may never find it. No one ever has." Noah says irritatingly and Dylan knows he was getting on his nerves. Especially when he mentions the crown.

"No one has searched the Castle before right?" he holds Noah by his shoulders and assures him, "Don't worry brother. I got this!"

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

"The police have searched thoroughly through Benjamin's room and they found nothing more. We should move onto the other rooms then." David says as he is walking in the opposite direction of that room. The end of the corridor has three rooms. They start with the middle door.

Strangely, that door was in perfect condition, unlike the other ones. The room was cleaner than the others but most importantly, a strange stench was lingering in their noses. William follows the stench that was coming from the cupboard while the others looked around the room. Noah knew whose room it was.

"King Samuel." Noah touches the portrait of himself sitting proudly on the throne, with the cursed crown on his head.

"Majestic, I would say." David goes on to touch the portrait himself but Noah swats his hand away.

"No one touches the king!" Noah screams at David in a tone no one has ever heard before. Dylan has been keeping an eye on him ever since the morning and he knows that Noah was changing. Now that they were in Samuel's room, he could feel it more.

"David, could you come here for a minute?" Dylan calls him to handle the situation. David just frowns once at Noah for his tone and goes to Dylan.

Noah was mesmerized by himself. The portrait was so elegant. But he scoffs as he knows in real life; King Samuel was much more majestic.

"Portraits never justified me anyways." Noah scoffs and goes downstairs. James was there to hear this and he could feel some really weird vibes from Noah. As if he wasn't himself.

"I know he seems weirder now that we have opened his room." Clive leans on the doorframe as James was looking at Noah with a questionable look on his face.

"Guys, I think you should see this," William calls them towards the cupboard. The stench was now stronger. They gather around the place and what they saw shook them to the core of their spine.

There laid a corpse that was almost devoid of skin and swarming with worms. The smell of the rotting meat had their stomachs heaving. Clive almost throws up at the sight of it.

"I think we have to call the forensics," David says covering his mouth.

The corpse wasn't in any condition to get recognized but it wore a purple and golden gown. With a crown on its head and a dagger in its hand.

"I think this is King Samuel." Dylan chokes on his own disgust.