***

HE WATCHED the moon wistfully as his silver hair gently swayed to the cold wind. Placing his folded trench coat down, he sat without the uncomfortable hardness of the clay tiles on his buttocks.

Two fingers held the rounded stick placed in between his lips. A thick trail of what looked like smoke came out when he puffed, but when he sucked, he coughed.

"Oh no," he groaned, holding his chest as he coughed loudly. "This sucks!" He threw the stick back in the pouch of powdered milk. The boredom got to him somewhere in the middle so he tried to mimic a cigarette using the powder and a plastic straw.

He sighed and once again tried checking beyond the walls using his binoculars. The night vision was automatically activated when he aligned the barrels and placed them near his eyes.

His mission as a JOATY was to protect the young Kornelius, but as a private citizen, he had other plans. The timing of the old man's request just happened to be advantageous.

"Aleck?" he called, pressing on the talkie. "Al? You there?" He has been constantly checking on her status but no response came for the last fifteen minutes. He wondered if she left the device somewhere or if she encountered an area that caused an interference. Or maybe she was simply ignoring him. "Al, I swear, Lyca will kill me if you get lost. Where you at?"

From the corner of his eyes, he spotted movement on the southern part of the field. Enhancing the scope, the green screen revealed two glowing silhouettes lingering behind the bushes close to the wall.

He placed the binoculars down for a moment and squinted to look at the intruders with his naked eyes, but it was too dark for his middle-aged eyesight.

"Aleck? Hello?"

There was only static on the other end of the line. He sighed and placed it down. Ephraim also shrugged away whatever he saw. Arnoldii's Camp place had guards for a reason. He should leave their job to them.

Rummaging through his stuff, Ephraim wore the earpiece that was included in the package and flicked the tiny switch. He connected it to the coordinates he encoded on his tablet. The high-frequency signal emitted a high-pitched sound that made him wince and pull the device away from his ear. When it subsided, he wore it back.

Then he turned it on. "Al?"

He waited for a bit, until he heard a familiar ping. "Boss?" Aleck finally answered in a whispery voice.

"You're alive!"

"Of course I am." He heard rustling on her end, as if she was close to a clump of leaves. "I couldn't reach you. I must be in a dead zone."

"Nah, the talkie's just old." Raising his binoculars, Ephraim once again scanned the west side where the woods were. "Where you at?"

"Uhm . . . I don't know. They have no road signs here."

"Did you find anything?"

"Hmm . . ." She pondered for a moment. "Yes, I think."

"What is it?"

***

Aleck walked over the tangled vines and watched the hoard of gigantic flowers placed in organized rows with ample space in between.

She kept her distance however, because even with the mask, the view itself ingrained a certain impression of what it actually smelled like, and it felt nauseous. Flies as big as her fists hovered around the flowers and landed on some. The slime emitting from the mouth and large petals trailed down to the vines on the ground.

The view in front of her was an image she could smell.

"Hey, what did you find?"

She stepped back and returned to where she originally was when Ephraim called — behind the bushes. "I'm not going any closer to that shit."

"To what?"

"Unhealthy dose of rafflesias. A rafflesia sanctuary." She made gagging sounds. "Shit, take me out of here."

Ephraim laughed out loud. "You ran there yourself! You're on your own!"

"Fine," she weakly answered with a groan.

"But seriously, you better get back. We'll discuss that in detail so just save that in your head, for later."

"Roger that." She ended the call.

Aleck stood up from where she hid, a few leaves clung to her messy hair. She once again gave herself a mental nagging for not bringing a device to capture photos as evidence.

Relying on naught but her memory, she turned away and simply ran in a straight line. She caught sight of the wall and turned left, following the trail the guards led her to before.

It didn't take long before she saw the hole in the wall. Running such a distance gave her no sweat at all, since her body was made to endure that much. She bent down and peeked at the hole. She only saw bushes. It seemed this area was hidden.

Aleck felt a presence close by and snapped her head to look behind her.

The headlights caught nothing but narrow gaps in between the trees. She was beginning to doubt her senses since the time she sought refuge in Commoner's Valley, and this moment was no exception.

Perhaps the invisible fumes of the rafflesia sanctuary were immune to the repelling materials of her mask and was now giving her hallucinations. The sounds she heard back then might've been just the wind too.

She heard rustling from somewhere and let out an exasperated breath. She directed her light to the part where she heard rustling. With squinted eyes, she waited for something . . .

"Medic!" a man shouted.

Aleck's focus broke. Without much thought, she turned off her headlight and finally crawled through the hole, smoothly sliding in with her hands on the ground.

On all fours, she peeked outside the bush to see where she was. She was at the southernmost part of the field. It was an open space that shows the side view of the building.

A commotion was happening somewhere in the field, which meant more chances of her getting discovered and framed for damaging private property. Can't have that.

Aleck crawled to the side until she reached the back of a storage shed. While crawling, she caught sight of a piece of paper dangling on a string that was tied to one of the loose wooden planks.

She flashed light over it and read the words.

Leave the stuff on —

Her brows narrowed, trying to see if she read it right. It was a really specific address outside the camp. If they were guards, shouldn't they retrieve it within — her mouth gaped.

"Shit, what did I get myself into?"

P.S. Use SPB

"What the fuck is that?" she hissed. What's SPB? Some kind of instant noodles?

P.P.S. Burn this paper. Or eat it. Just get rid.

She snatched the crumpled paper along with the string, stuffed them into her inner pocket along with the gun, and kept crawling.

As she reached the end of the shed, she peeked. A pair of brown oxfords welcomed her. She looked up and found Ephraim standing there, looking down at her with one brow raised.

"I've been looking for you, my dear ugly spoiled child." He checked the commotion happening from a distance. "Hurry and fix yourself now. Once they investigate, we're not gotta get out of this easily."

Aleck turned off her headlight and removed her mask.

"Turn around please," Ephraim instructed. As she straightened up the front of her blazer, Ephraim lightly flapped the back. "Where the heck did you roll? You're lucky I didn't choose the beige one! I knew you'd get it dirty anyway." With his hand, he smoothened the back of the blazer a few times then stepped back. "Turn here. Let me see."

Aleck faced him and raised her arms.

He nodded. "Okay. Looks good." He checked the commotion. Someone brought in a stretcher and tended to the person on the ground. "Let's go," he whispered.

They ran away from the shed as fast as they could, making sure no one saw them. If the guards found them suspicious and investigated by the shed, they're done for. No one can hide that hole. They were allowed entry for their mission, but unless they got into reception and paid for a room, they were no more than pardoned intruders. Every move they make counts.

Upon reaching the patio, the people who had gathered were already walking back inside. Ephraim sat on a folding chair and fanned himself with his fedora. Aleck also sat, facing him.

"So —"

The wide glass door was slid open, interrupting Aleck's words. They both turned to look and found the guy who tripped on his own feet in front of them earlier. The one who they assumed to be the young Kornelius, but in Ephraim's head, it's no more than a hunch.

They didn't move.

The young man stood there wearing his cotton robe, staring at them with his doe brown eyes. When they gave no reaction, he fidgeted.

"Uh . . . they locked the door while you were still outside so . . ." He pointed inside with his thumb. "You can come in now."

Aleck's eyes widened. Ephraim cleared his throat. "Ah, sorry, Mr.?"

"Oh! Trezdon is fine!" He beamed and scratched his dry curly hair. "I hope you hurry inside now. It's cold and I also gotta shower."

The side of Ephraim's lips twitched as he held back a smile. "Will do, Mr. Trezdon." He stood up and Aleck followed his lead.

"Trezdon is fine." He nodded his head once and turned away from them.

"Wait!" Ephraim called as he rushed inside.

"Yes?"

"Sorry, since we entered earlier, we haven't gone back to our room," he said, putting the fedora over his chest with a solemn expression. "It's my daughter's first time here and she excitedly rushed to the patio." Aleck, who was standing behind Ephraim, nodded. "We both have bad sense of direction so —"

"Oh! I get it, I get it." Trezdon locked the sliding glass door. "Hmm, did you try asking the reception's?"

"Ah, I'm too shy to do so. Plus I have the key so it's fine. We just really need directions to the sleeping chambers." He laughed silently in his head since the building only had the second floor for the bedrooms, so he knew they were meant to be within the same hallway.

Trezdon stared at them. "Hmm, okay then, let's go!" He smiled and walked, letting them follow close behind.

Ephraim secretly gave Aleck a thumbs up for following his lead. They caught sight of some guards whose eyes followed them cautiously, but Ephraim knew they couldn't do anything, because they were simply following their client's son, just as they were hired to do so as JOATYs.

He returned their stares as if to say, we're simply doing our job here, with the youngmaster's consent.

"You guys sure dressed up sharply for the occasion!" Trezdon praised them as they walked up the stairs.

"Ah, haha!" Ephraim let out a short laugh. "I guess we might've overdressed a little —"

"No, not at all!" He turned to them and smiled. "I mean it's rare for me to see. People take moments like this for granted often that you'll be touched at how special it is for others."

They reached the second floor in no time. Just when Aleck thought she couldn't be any more shocked at the culture of elites, she looked around and proved herself wrong. Unlike the bright expanse of white light and beige ornaments downstairs, the second floor had more enigma, with its dim lighting, ceiling and walls of sepia tones, complemented by the bronze highlights of fur carpets.

Fur? Aleck looked down on the material she was stepping on. Is this really fur?

"So, uhm, this is it." Trezdon shrugged. "You can just look for the room number that's stapled to your room key. Hallway is one-way." He pointed to the left. "From here." Then the right side. "To there. If you want, I can also go with you."

"Oh no, we shouldn't bother you anymore." Ephraim offered his hand for a handshake. "Thank you so much, Trezdon."

"No problem!" Trezdon accepted his hand with a mellow expression.

"I like that kid," Ephraim mumbled with an approving nod as Trezdon waved goodbye and walked to the left side of the hallway.

"You like anything with a net worth."

"Shut up, brat." He patted her head. "Don't worry, you're good too."

She smacked his hand away. "So, what do we do next?," she whispered. "We don't have a room."

"Who said we don't?"

Ephraim walked to the end of the east hallway as Aleck followed close behind, looking at each mahogany door they passed. Golden plaques engraved with room numbers were placed on the left of each.

From twelve to six, then one.

Ephraim stopped in front of the door. "And as I said, I have the key." He reached in his trouser pockets and pulled out a twisted stainless steel wire, and some paper clips and hairpins.

"In fact, I have lots of them."

***

Author's Note:

Hey hey hey! Finally we meet the Youngmaster Trezdon! He's cute, isn't he? I do think so (T__T)

You'll get to see more of him soon enough. Plus, I don't really do favorites but yes he's my favorite character. And I'm the author.

I'm a mother who loves my fictional kids but not equally.

What do you think of the characters so far? 3 chapters in and maybe you already have impressions of our beloved JOATYs?