Project: iaseki

Chapter 11: A Party of Two

Drowsiness caressed Lu in a black abyss. Each time he tries to take himself away from its grasp, it ends up a yawning failure.

"--e up!" a voice called out to him. He knows he heard it more than once. He has been hearing it for who knows how long, he was just too sleepy to notice it or understand what it's saying.

"Yo-- dn't sa--- ight?" he heard, and this time less hazy and more clearly.

He grasped his consciousness, yet he still couldn't open his dreary eyes.

"Please wake up!" He finally understood a whole sentence from the voice. He felt sorry not responding sooner, because he now knows who it's from.

Struggling to keep his eyes open even for the width of paper, he voiced out his thoughts the loudest he could, albeit the outcome was merely a soft whisper, "I'm back... Esther".

"Thank goodness! You have no idea how worried I was!" She scolded him, setting her hands on her waist like the grumpy little child she was.

"Gee, thanks..." Lu said, his voice and breath gradually returning to him. "You didn't have to... force yourself to stay awake... I know how badly you want to sleep...now", he said. He didn't just guess. There were dark bags under her eyelids which was the dead giveaway.

"Hmph! You bet!" she said, irritation hinted in her tone. She turned her back, yawned briefly, then disappeared.

Meanwhile, Lu was left confused and wanted to rub his eyes and yawn his drowsiness away, but when he tried to move his arms it only made him realize that they were tied behind him while he was bound to a chair. Lu tried to wriggle himself free but it was no use. For some reason his feathers were also disobedient at the moment as well. His animus does absolutely nothing so he dropped the idea of wasting a charge.

He scanned the surroundings when his vision became clearer and saw the darkness of the area. He was tied up to a chair inside a room with three stone brick walls and an iron bar front, where the light came in from.

"What the--" he complained as he continued his shaky battle against the ropes. He wondered what could have happened that led to him being treated like a convict for a second time since he came about in the world.

"I see that you're awake", Chrio walked through the door.

"Why am I like this?" Lu asked, still trying to break free.

She closed the iron bar door behind her and sat on a comfortable wooden stool to his left. "Indeed, why do you have golden feathers?"

"No, I didn't mean that, I meant why am I tied to a... Wait..." The boy stopped his shaking midway his speech.

A moment passed and the atmosphere tensed between them. Lu felt the pressure against his speeding heartbeat. He then remembered how the scythe meister turned against him despite saving its life. He feared Chrio might just feel the same and it wasn't too far off if Chrio would end him here and now.

"Tell me," he governess said. "How many, hmm?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about" Lu said. It was then when he felt bad because he's heard that line in movies and it was only said by suspicious people who turned out to be villains in hiding. He only knows now how the innocent ones have really felt.

The blonde lady hammered the side of her seat and Lu flinched in fear as she screamed her thoughts. "Don't play dumb, I am asking how many lives you have secretly claimed since you came!"

"If I wanted to kill anyone I would have let that titan rampage through the gates last night!" He said out of a last ditch effort to vouch for his own innocence.