Searching For Andromeda 58 Unlikely Partners

Samuel could not keep track of how long he had been running. From what he could tell—he was getting chased. And running with knees submerged in grimy waters had stalled him down. Physics could serve as an explanation for that. Samuel couldn't really do anything but run. He had his own set of reasons why he was running and not trying to fight back like a bada.s.s: 1) he wasn't Hiroaki, 2) he wasn't forced by anyone to fight, and 3) he was freaking out.

It was like he was in a horror movie, except everything was real. Sc.r.a.p the movie. This was what was considered genuine horror. He was running from a psychotic doll who kept on telling him he was her 'mama' when he, as clear as day, was male. He couldn't have possibly given birth. And a doll, at that? Samuel wanted to wake up—he had pinched himself along the way as he ran, but to no avail—he did not wake up, because apparently—it isn't a dream!

Samuel ran to hide to the back of the large closets halfway sunk to the waters. He leaned his back to its wood, panting fervently. He was scrambling for a whole while. His gaze darted towards the waters. It had ripples in it, repeatedly reverberating one after another. Even the cabinet he was leaning against was in vibration as the footsteps of the giant bunny stomp heavily to the water grounds.

Samuel had to think of something—but in this kind of situation, it would be hard to think of the most rational solution other than the word "survive."

The stomps were getting more blatant, signaling Samuel that the monsters were getting nearer. But along the path forward was nothing but shawl of darkness enshrouding the ensemble of the s.p.a.ce. Everything was still hollow without any path to a probable escape, yet Samuel was certain there is a way he could get out of here.

"S a m u e l ~" Says an eerily sweet call paired with one low voice, like that of a person speaking underneath the ground. Samuel sensed a shiver running down his spine. Dolls disturbed him, but TALKING dolls? They terrified the boots out of him. The whole place, in fact, had shaken him down to his core. For whatever purpose, the structure of the place and the setting were completely the way he won't want them to be. Everything he feared had just incorporated into one.

It was as if . . . the place was solely dedicated to scaring him.

And then, Samuel stopped.

The place was solely dedicated to scaring him?

He wasn't raising the bars, but it felt right for Sam. The doll had just told him earlier that fear was a strong emotion.

"Fear is something that powers the dead . . . and living creates that fear," Samuel utters to himself, repeating the doll's words.

"Where are you, S a m u e l?" The doll asks, spelling his word by syllable. "Where are you, my dear boy? Can't you help me search for my MmMamAMa?"

Samuel felt a shiver running down his spine. Even the way she talked held him frozen.

Everything around here was a manifestation of his fear.

He had watched fictional movies and books of various genres. Mystery novels engaged his mind and had kept him occupied for hours. Genres like those had recurring riddles accompanied by Chekhov's gun—a dramatic principle that states that every element in a story must be necessary.

If Chekhov's gun could be applied to fiction, then maybe it could be applied to real-life too. Especially in life-threatening situations. There must be a purpose why the doll said something about fear.

"Obviously that doll gave some sort of riddle," Samuel mumbles—keeping himself occupied to circ.u.mvent the terror by conversing to himself in the most outlandish manner. "Okay, so she told me fear is something that powers the dead. Does that mean I have to face her FEARLESSLY so she'll disappear?"

If only it were that simple.

"No, the risk is too high . . ." Samuel utters. "But I have no choice . . ."

"Where are you . . . S A MmMU E e L?"

Samuel held his other hand to stop it from trembling. He took a deep breath. Samuel turned to his side to face the doll head-on, but before he could even take another step forward, a sinister face of a figure tilting his head, with a wide smile etched on its face peered before the sides of the cabinet.

"FOUND YOU."

Samuel was frozen onto his spot—the doll was the manifestation of everything he found terrifying. He was immobilized with its abrupt entrance, and it had marveled him how it looked more ominous than before.

'Fear is something that powers the dead . . . and living creates that fear.'

Samuel stared back at the doll, trying to look more fearless—"n-now what do you want? I-I don't even know y-your mama,"

The doll looked at Samuel, its smile still unwavering.

"Wh-what, just l-let me go. I'm not fit to help. I—I can't help you!"

Slowly, the doll stretched its long arms to Samuel's left cheek, and then leaning forward, its porcelain nose and Samuel's human ones almost touching.

"You are scared, Samuel." It says, smiling wider and wider. "THAT GIVES ME MORE POWER. NOW I JUST HAVE TO KILL YOU."

Samuel wasn't able to take it anymore. He stormed away from the doll at full speed and had now driven himself to another pitch-black seclusion. But it was better to see nothing rather than see his own fears materializing to kill him. He could still hear the heavy stomps following him—in fact, they were getting faster and faster now. It seems the doll really wanted to murder him.

Amidst the gloom and hollowness of the place, and the cold splash of water to his numb feet—Samuel's ears caught yet another familiar sound of a music box playing faintly someplace far away. It was a soothing sound; a rhythm he had heard before. But wasn't sure where he heard it.

"Sammy."

Samuel slipped, his face directly landing onto the ghastly waters, his knees trembling like wanton against the vibrating grounds—

'Sammy'?

"Big sis . . .?" Samuel frowned. That voice. He couldn't have imagined it.

"Samuel,"

"Sis?!" Samuel knelt, rising from the waters as he began looking everywhere for the source of the voice. But there was nothing but gloom. Oblivion.

"Are you scared, Sammy?" Says the voice. "Maybe this will help you sleep."

Samuel's eyes constricted.

Of course.

That music box . . . was his sister's. How did he forget?

But he was a child. No older than two back then.

"When you're scared, Sam," says the voice. "Always play the music box like this. And listen to it until you fall asleep, okay?"

"SsAMmMuel!"

Samuel gritted his teeth and stood up. He began to race to the direction he hears the music box—north, the sound was getting fainter and fainter. East—it completely disappeared.

And so he went westwards—and that is where his ears could hear the melody getting stronger. Soon he could see light—like sunshine by the end of a dark tunnel.

Hope rose like a spark of fire in a long-dead candle. Finally, he could escape!

Samuel reached for that light—

But then, he realized he wasn't able to.

Samuel's electric-blue eyes widened as he slowly turned around, glancing back to whatever force was stopping him.

Holding his feet was a long, slender arm of a porcelain doll. If the waters were cold, the hands digging to his feet were arctic. The nails were long and so they began to pierce Samuel's skin. He felt fear rising once more as he meets the doll's sinister gaze, and was incapable to move for an entire minute.

"My name is Lottie," says the doll. "I want to play more,"

Samuel gasped as the doll hauled him back to the darkness, his whole body submerging to the waters as the doll drags him back by his leg to the abyss once more.

But then—

"SAMUEL!"

A tight grip on Samuel's arm pulled him out of the pool—and at that moment, Samuel was convinced he could have gone either into a hopeless case of hallucination, or he had just lost it completely. Yet the pull on his arm was so strong, telling him this was real - HE was real. The pull sent Samuel back forward, leaving the doll completely enraged.

"Wha—how did you—" Samuel didn't know what to say. "How in the w-world did you find me—Ephraim Hughes!"

Ephraim smiled to Samuel when he gave him a quick glance. "I'll explain later, but we have to get out of here quick!"

Samuel and Ephraim began to run back to the light, but the enraged doll began to crawl like a spider, getting more speed. Soon it caught up to them and landed just before the two, covering the light.

"You're not taking him away from me!" The doll exclaimed. "He's MINE!"

Ephraim smiled, "he's not yours."

In the blink of an eye, Ephraim had jumped and slashed through the doll. He landed behind it as he knelt to the ground. The doll's face was then split into two—similar to that of a gla.s.s being broken into the middle. Soon the body of the doll corroded and floated atop the dark waters.

"You have a SWORD?!" Samuel exclaimed, glancing over what Ephraim used to slash the doll. "Wait, how—why—when—HOW did you get here?"

Ephraim smiles, "I'll explain later. But we have to go now!"

Both Samuel and Ephraim stopped as they see the waters creating multiple ripples. The ground vibrates as the thuds from the heavy footsteps encompa.s.sed the entirety of the boundless abyss. Samuel and Ephraim turned back to the tunnel leading to the light, but then a large, sinister-looking bunny towering over them had just landed right affront; splashes hurling to both Samuel and Ephraim. The bunny had hindered them from making their escape.

"If you think you killed me," says the doll, who was sitting into the bunny's shoulder, completely unscathed. "Then you fully underestimated Lottie, intruder!"

The bunny began to stomp its feet to Ephraim and Sam, who barely averted its attacks by jumping away from it, thereby going back to the abyss, and getting further and further away to the light. At this rate, they won't be able to escape!

"Sam!" Ephraim exclaimed, "in order completely annihilate them, you have to do your part!"

"WHAT PART?!" Samuel screamed back while running and dodging the stomping bunny.

"You have to face your fears!" Ephraim exclaimed. "If you can't, we'll both die with the illusions you created!"

"WHAT?!"