《While Others Sleep》


 Chapter 1- Not My Bed

    Samuel Grady, known as Sam on account of his father being Samuel, woke up with a massive headache. He clenched his jaws tightly against the pain, but that only made the pain worse. So he started counting deep breaths and tried to relax his face. It felt like the time that Pater Wyatt''s eldest boy had convinced a few of the younger town kids to drink some of the sacramental wine from his dad''s church supplies. Sam had never received a walloping so bad in his life than when he was found drunk and asleep in the pig pen the next morning. The headache when he woke up felt like it was eating his eyes from the inside, just like this one did. The problem was, Sam couldn''t remember drinking the day before.


    When he was finally able to peel up one eyelid, all he could see was darkness. This helped assure him that his headache would not get worse thanks to light searing his overly sensitive retinas, so he pried the other eye open as well.


    Dark shapes stood out in the blackness,but he could not tell what they were. He was almost definitely sitting on a mattress, but it was so smooth. Like every feather was laying just right inside so that no pointy shafts stuck up and poked him in the back. He had only ever heard of a mattress so soft once before. A boy who worked in Master Douglas'' home said that all the beds were soft like this one. The boy ran away shortly after that. He was probably punished for lying and knew he wouldn''t be accepted as an apprentice anywhere when he made age, so thought he would have a better chance in another town. That happened sometimes, kids got in trouble and ran off to find somewhere better. Every now and then, they would be brought back to be punished, but that was happening less and less the last few years. Master Douglas didn''t seem to care so much about keeping bad seeds amongst the good grain anymore.


    Master Douglas. A memory tried to surface in Sam''s mind, but he couldn''t quite grasp it. It had something to do with the village head, but...Sam groaned and rubbed his forehead, letting it slip away for now.


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    A sound, muffled , caught his attention. He slowly sat up and looked around. A very faint line of light was near what he thought might be the ground a few feet away. Sam lowered himself off the bed and onto cold wooden floorboards. Carefully patting his hand out in front as he crawled, to make sure that he didn''t bump into anything, he inched closer to the light. His fingers traced the line, the gap letting light through, up and around as far as he could reach without rising off of his knees. His hand brushed against smooth metal just inside the vertical line he was following, a line rising up at almost a perfect corner from the ground. Even thought he couldn''t see anything, he still closed his eyes to concentrate. The metal stuck out from what felt like a wood surface, a smooth barrel flaring out into something shaped like a bread roll that moved just a little when touched firmly.


    "A knob," he thought to himself. "It''s a door." Once he thought the words he knew it was obviously a door, the line of faint light at the bottom couldn''t be anything other than that. He was never praised as the smartest kid in town, but even he couldn''t believe he hadn''t figured it out sooner. A room with a bed had to have a door, didn''t it?


    The strange sound came from just outside the door this time, and the light dimmed as though something were passing in front of the flame. Sam lowered his hands back down to the ground, and then laid his body flat against the wooden surface. He pushed his face closer so that his left eye would be right against the crack. The door was thick, and he could not see but a sliver just above the floor outside. Closer to the gap he could tell the sound was something like scraping, like pulling a hay bale across the barn floor when his scrawny arms couldn''t reach around it to pick it up. With that connection, he could tell that the dark shape was something being drug along the ground right outside his door. He watched until it passed out of his sight, leaving only dark floorboards to be seen.

 Chapter 2 - A Strange Boy

    When Sam woke up again, a dim light came through a curtained window near his bed. The window was a solid pane, and it seemed strange to have in a bedroom. A window that doesn''t open was not useful. It was just vanity, bragging about how much money a person had, to be able to build in decorative glass to see outside. A large green lawn stretched out towards gloomy looking trees, thick fog winding around everything within sight. Sam rubbed his head and looked away. Committing the sin of vanity for a window and there wasn''t even a good view.


    The headache was less pounding and more dull, but Sam''s mouth was even drier than it was when he last woke up. He could deal with a mouth that felt like he had not had a sip of water in days. He had done it before. The last time he ended up in the Contemplation Room, he was there for two days with no water or food. He did as he was supposed to, sitting in the bare room and thinking about how he had done wrong. Previous trips for lesser infractions taught him that even if he didn''t understand why asking what materials made up the ancestors buildings or why they couldn''t make more, was wrong, if he looked somber enough and admitted his wrongs he would be let go as long as he never brought it up again. There was no need to. It was just a question or two that popped out before he could consider whether he should let it. It wasn''t worth making his parents and the other adults angry, and anyway...


    The sound of metal turning in a lock drew Sam''s attention from his thoughts and to the heavy wooden door at the other end of the room. The door did not open, but a few moments later, he could hear footsteps walking along in front of his door. He stood up and walked to the door, turning the handle and stepping outside.


    Two women, one maybe as old as his mamam and the other only a few years older than his own 16 years, were walking quietly along, heading toward a staircase at the end of the dimly lit hall. Sam began to follow them, but he was distracted by an odd smell, which was making his nose itch and nearly collided with a tall boy exiting the room beside his.


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    "Hah there whoa," the boy exclaimed, back-peddling with a surprised expression. "I didn''t see you, sorry about that."


    Sam frowned as he looked the boy over. His words sounded weird, the accent on the vowels strange, and his face looked weirder. Everyone in town had mousy blonde hair and blue eyes, but this boy had eyes almost as black as his hair. What kind of punishment building was he in? He didn''t recognize the two women, either, now that he thought about it. And he knew everyone in town.


    "I wasn''t paying attention, I am sorry. Do you smell that?"


    The boy leaned in and tilted his head to see beneath the mop that was Sam''s hair. "Did I bump into you? I am ready sorry about that. My Mamah said I would run right off a cliff one day because I was staring at the stars. " He sniffed the air and scrunched up his nose. "It smells like cleaner. They probably don''t use sanibots here. Are you alright?"


    The boy waited expectantly, and Sam coughed to cover up his confusion. "No, I am fine. Are we supposed to go that way? I saw two women go toward those stairs... " He looked toward the stairwell, but the hallway ahead of then was empty.


    "I don''t know, I just got in last night, and I guess I fell asleep on the flight."


    Sam followed the boy as he started toward the staircase. "Flight?"


    "Unh. I caught the shuttle at the port in Eredin City. Where did you come from?"


    Sam''s headache resurged. The boy wasn''t making sense, and Sam wondered if he was blessed. Blessed kids didn''t make it to his age, usually, their brains didn''t work right, and they got into accidents easily. Sam thought it would be alright to be nice to the boy, so he answered the question. "I''m from Douglas Town."


    "I have never heard of that place. They must have put up verts all over Io for this job, I guess I am lucky they chose me! Or we are lucky they chose us," the boy looked back over his shoulder with a grin and started down the stairs. Sam looked around once more, trying not to breathe deeply, and then followed.

 Chapter 3 - Whats a Breaker?

    "You are a breaker!"


    Sam tried to calm his new friend before the Butler came to see why they were so loud. The punishment wasn''t bad the last time it happened, they were just sent to their rooms without finishing dinner, but it was Sam''s experience that if you have to be punished for the same thing twice then the punishments start to get worse. And he didn''t want to see what was next.


    Since meeting nearly seven mornings ago, the two boys spent what little free time they had together. The majority of each day was spent attending to their duties as assigned around the manor. After breakfast, Sam would head into the kitchen. Sometimes Sam wondered if his new friend could be right, that everyone accepted their jobs willingly. He couldn''t remember doing so, though. And he couldn''t imagine leaving his family behind unless there was a good reason, of which he had none.


    Freetime was mostly meal times, but the interactions were welcome and looked forward to. Back home, Sam didn''t talk much with the other kids. They were too serious all the time, and Sam felt an itch that made him want to poke fun at things. Sometimes, he would converse with the pater''s boy. That didn''t always turn out well. Waking drunk in the pig pen was not the only trouble the two had gotten into.


    Mostly, the boy, Chiro was his name, tried to figure out what area of Io Sam came from. Sam''s head spun trying to understand all of the names and...well... everything the other boy spoke about. But as the days went on, he started to feel like maybe the other boy was not blessed. He might be telling the truth, at least about some things.


    His belief started when Chiro showed him a lump behind his ear and had him feel the bit of metal that was embedded under the skin. Chiro said it was a tracking and data chip that his parents had inserted the year before. Before they died in an explosion, and he was sent off to the orphanage, that is. He had tried to explain to Sam that none of his family could take him in even if they wanted to because of something to do with politics, and extortion, and a bunch of other words that Sam didn''t understand.


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    The orphanage was alright, he said, but they never got enough credits to feed all the mouths. They kicked out kids for the slightest infractions, as had happened to Chiro just last week. Sam couldn''t help the curiosity that was tickling his brain every time they talked. He asked what Chiro was kicked out for, which he had figured out meant he was expelled from the town. When the other boy said it was for making out with another kid after lights out, even though the kids were supposed to keep a distance from each other at all times, he said so bitterly. "I was the only one kicked out. The other boy was headmaster''s favorite, and I bet they were doing stuff together, too..."


    Sam had shifted uneasily in his seat. Kissing another boy wasn''t a sin, per say, but boys couldn''t make babies with other boys, so they couldn''t help to expand the town population. It was no wonder they were in trouble when they were caught. Selfishness was a sin. He told Chiro that and obliged when the boy asked to explain what that meant. Chiro got a weird look on his face, like he was thinking hard about something, but he let it drop.


    That lasted until the next day, when Chiro slapped his hand down on the table and exclaimed, "You are a breaker!". Sam got him settled down, and when the butler did not seem to have heard what was said and only gave them a cold scowl, they continued in whispers.


    "Hah oh, how did you get off your planet? I thought your people were not allowed to have any contact with the outside?"


    Sam furrowed his brow, confused. "What do you mean? What is a breaker?"


    "We don''t get taught much in schools about them. The confeds don''t want anyone else to get the idea of breaking off. A few hundred cycles back, a big group of people decided they didn''t want to pay taxes and protections anymore, so they went off and colonized a group of unmapped planets somewhere out in the dark. They wanted to build their own empire, but word has it that they couldn''t get it going, and they eventually regressed to no tech when their tech failed. The books say that contact fell about fifty cycles back when their comms broke and they didn''t have the materials to fix them, but everyone bets that at least one of the confed families are keeping track of them still. Did your planet make some kind of deal to get people jobs off planet? No one is going to believe me when I tell them back on Io that I met a ready truth real breaker!"


    Sam didn''t answer, because he didn''t have any answers to give. It all sounded like nonsense,but he kept thinking about the time he got punished for asking about the weird materials of Master Douglas'' house...

 Chapter 4 - The Scream in the Night

    The conversation with Chiro left Sam feeling the same as every conversation with Chiro did. Confused and uneasy. Too much of what he said didn''t make sense, but the stuff that did made him wonder. And he didn''t want to wonder. He wanted to enjoy his new life.


    Sam liked his new job. Helping the cook was not hard. He mostly just washed dishes and cleaned the kitchen, but sometimes, the cook would let him have a little extra bread left over from making the Lord''s meals. That stuff was better than anything Sam had ever tasted before. He just wished that cook didn''t look at him with those sad, pitying eyes all the time. He was the same with the girl who helped serve the dishes to the staff every meal, so Sam didn''t feel like he was a particularly pitiful person. Maybe he would treat every worker the same if they passed through the kitchen enough.


    The thing was, and he had decided to tell Chiro the next day, Sam had not applied to any job. Not in his town, or anywhere else. Certainly not on some moon far away where most people didn''t believe his home existed. He was starting to suspect that someone had applied, though. Snatches of memory were coming back to him, memories of his last day in his hometown. Nothing concrete, but he remembered that he had snuck out to meet Petra Douglas after his parents went to bed. Petra, with her sweet smile and long, shiny hair. Sam hadn''t thought she even knew he existed. He remembered getting the note asking him to come see her at midnight. He just couldn''t remember anything after climbing out his window.


    Sam finished scrubbing the last of the pots and hung up the scrub brush so that it would drip into the big sink and not all over the counter. The butler stood in the doorway, impatiently tapping his foot as he waited for Sam to finish so he could be escorted upstairs. Butler never spoke one more word than necessary. If an impatient glare and a tap of a foot could get someone to move faster, then that was all he did. Sam fought the urge to slow down. Maybe that was why he was always getting in trouble back home. He hated being told to hurry up or do things he didn''t want to do.


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    Butler walked with Sam to his door, making sure he was inside the room before shutting the door behind him. A few moments later, there was a loud click as the door locked, and Sam was trapped in his room for the night. He walked to the window and pulled back his curtains. The view was the same as it was every time he looked, darker at night, of course. The same trees swaying in the light wind, the same fog twisting and winding around the trunks and moving across the grass like something alive. He shuddered and pulled the curtains close.


    Without that little bit of light, he couldn''t see where the lamp was to turn it on,so he stripped out of his uniform and crawled under the sheets in just his underwear. It wasn''t like Papan was there to yell at him for not putting his pajamas on properly or for not folding his uniform nicely over the footboard of the bed. And Butler never came in to check his room. As soon as Sam was inside and the door was shut, his footsteps quickly retreated as he headed to his own room. Or at least that was what Sam assumed he was doing. He didn''t know much about anybody besides Chiro.


    Shortly after midnight, Sam sat up in bed with a start. His eyes darted around, making out the now familiar shapes of his little side table and dresser in the dark. He laid back down and closed his eyes, but a scream from somewhere outside the door had him upright again, his heart racing. His door shook in its frame as someone pounded on it from outside, and a voice called out to him in a language he did not understand.


    The light under the door brightened again, showing that whomever it was had left. He could hear the same thing happening to the door across the hall, but then she screamed again, and there were loud footsteps moving away toward the staircase. Sam stared at the door, terrified. He finally made himself get up to see if she needed help. The door did not budge, still locked for the night, and he lowered himself to the ground to look underneath. There was no other sound, and after laying on the cold ground for some time, Sam got up and crawled back under his sheets. He sat, clutching his sheet in his hand, until the room began to lighten with the morning.

 Chapter 5 - A Bad Feeling

    Sam''s eyelids felt like they had a handful of sand trapped beneath them. He tried not to rub, but he was so tired that he kept forgetting that he didn''t want to rub them. So he rubbed and then grimaced at the uncomfortable sensation, and then told himself to try and not do it again.


    His clothes were wrinkled from their stay on the floor overnight. There was nothing to do about it, and he pulled them on and hoped butler wouldn''t notice it. Likely, there was an iron somewhere in the manor, but Sam only had one uniform for clothing. He had nothing to wear down to iron his clothes. They would have to remain wrinkly.


    When the door was unlocked and he walked into the hallway, it looked as though nobody would say anything about his unkempt appearance. Each of the dozen or so faces that emerged from doors lining the hall were just as haggard as he felt. Red eyes and dark circles abounded, and he felt a little better for how he reacted the night before. There was whispering, and people he had never heard speak a word were exchanging frightened words and glances. Chiro fell into step beside Sam, and they shuffled down to breakfast.


    Cook came out himself to bring the bowls of oatmeal to all the staff around the worn rectangular table. He looked at them with his small, sad eyes. Then he walked back to the kitchen, returning with a pitcher of orange juice that he set in the middle. Everyone looked at the juice with surprise, but Cook was gone before anyone could ask why they received such a treat.


    Around the table, hands pushed spoons around in bowls. Very little was eaten. When Butler walked in to monitor them, Chiro spoke up before anyone else could.


    "What happened last night? Who was that in the hall? Where is the girl who serves meals?"


    For a moment, it seemed as though butler would not respond. But then, in a smooth voice, he answered. "Sometimes the desolation of the estate can make a person lose control of their reasoning. Occasionally, that person will hide their malady well until they have a small break. When we discover it, we, of course, take them away to get help. You will see many people come and go while you work here."


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    This was enough for most of the staff, who began to eat with more enthusiasm. Sam poured a glass of the juice but could not make himself attempt the solid foods. When Chiro turned toward him to talk, Sam kicked his foot underneath the table. Chiro was not very good at controlling his words or finding the best times to say things. Sam was worried that Chiro might say something he shouldn''t. Butler was watching them all, but he watched Chiro most intently. Sam had a bad feeling.


    Lunch was much the same, but by dinner, Butler did not seem to pay as much attention and even went out of the room twice to take care of some issue or another. Chiro, the usual wealth of gossip, had told Sam that sometimes Butler would make everyone leave the front hall while they were cleaning so that he could accept deliveries. The boys talked about it one meal. Sam, who was used to authority figures ordering everyone around without explaining, assumed butler had a good reason to not want anyone around when deliveries were made. As soon as he left the room. Sam leaned closer to his new friend and whispered, "I have a bad feeling. Don''t let Butler see you questioning what he said."


    "What do you mean? Why would he care if we are just talking?"


    "I don''t know, but I got in enough trouble back home that I can tell when someone is waiting for you to mess up-" Sam cut off when Butler came back in the room, and he started to ask questions about some sport activity that Chiro was talking about the day before. The two boys talked quietly about innocent things until Butler left again.


    "You think he is lying, but what happened? That scream sounded scared. Could someone break so ready sure and none of us saw any warnings?" Chiro casually looked around, but everyone else was busy with their own meals.


    "I don''t know. But she was at my door when she screamed. I think she had the room across from me and one door down. I heard her saying something, but I didn''t understand the words, like they were a different language." Sam nibbled at a piece of crusty bread as he spoke. "She was trying to get inside, but my door was locked. But she sounded so scared. And I think there was somebody out there with her."

 Chapter 6 - New Faces

    Sam was too scared to go to sleep readily, but eventually, his eyes grew too heavy, and he fell into an uneasy sleep. Twice he woke up from nightmares he could not remember. When his eyes opened and focused on an odd shape in front of the dresser, he was instantly awake. His heart racing, he pulled his legs to his chest and pressed into the corner where his bed met the wall. Light from the window began to brighten the room. It was just the washbowl and pitcher. They must have been put back in a weird position when he washed up the night before.


    The doors unlocked, as they did every morning. Sam was already dressed and ready, and he noticed that the light under the door didn''t change when the click echoed around the room. He opened the door, stepping out into the hall.


    The pale cream walls and dark wood floor boards reminded him of home. No adornments, just plain walls and plain wood. The plainly dressed people shuffling past fit right in. Chiro was waiting at his door, so Sam shut his and hurried over.


    "I was up when my door unlocked this morning. I don''t think there was anyone outside of it! Maybe the place is haunted..."


    A weak smile rose to Chiro''s lips. "They are electronic locks. I guess you breakers use the little metal bits to get your doors open and closed?"


    "Keys? Yes, how can...are they like that thing in your head? The metal thing?" Sam hated feeling so lost all the time. Once he accepted that Chiro wasn''t making things up, he began to see little signs all around him. The flames in the dining room sconces never flickered. The ice box made a weird humming noise if he put his ear to it. Cook had looked at him strangely when he caught Sam checking that one.


    "No, but I guess yeah, because it is technology that you never saw before, so it probably looks similar. It is closer to the windows. Ordinary house systems. "


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    "The windows unlock? But they are just one piece!"


    Chiro''s smile turned into a chuckle. "Those are screens, breaker. When rich people don''t like the area their homes are in, they use them instead of real windows. Like the terraforming didn''t take too well, and the trees got all gnarled or something. So they have the screen show a picture of something they like more."


    Sam fell quiet as he considered. Who would want to see that eerie image all the time? It was creepy the way the fog was always creeping.


    The two boys moved with the flow of the group into the dining room. They sat in their usual seats and watched two new faces standing off to the side. A young woman and a middle-aged man they had never seen before were waiting to see what seats would be open before sitting.


    "Where is the laundry man?" Chiro whispered to Sam, but butler walked in and stood against the bare wall of the servant''s dining area. His eyes roved across everyone present, but Sam was sure that he lingered on the two boys. The food was served quickly, though, and he chose to eat and not look at the stern man.


    During one of butler''s leaves, Chiro leaned in closer. "I heard something moving around last night again, but just footsteps. Had a hard time getting back to sleep."


    "Think it was the laundry man?" Chiro didn''t answer, and Sam finished his oatmeal.


    After Chiro went off to his job, scrubbing whatever it was he had to clean that day, Sam began to carry the used dishes into the kitchen. Butler spoke something in the new girl''s ear, and she picked up some bowls and followed. That was all the guidance Sam received the first day, as well. Go with the serving girl, cook will tell you your job. Only this time it was Follow the kitchen boy, he reckoned.


    Sure enough, cook explained to her that she would be responsible for serving their meals, cleaning up, and taking trays up to set outside the lord''s room. Sam''s ears perked up. Rarely was any breath given to mentioning the person who the manor belonged to.


    When the girl stepped back out to get plates, Sam tried to casually bring up the topic of the lord again.


    "Does the lord only eat in his room? What if he has guests?"


    Cook looked as though he was considering not answering. Finally, he patted Sam on his shoulder and said, "The Lord doesn''t have guests. Now, I want you to scrub those pots a little harder. I found a spot in one yesterday."


    Sam nodded and started washing dishes while the new girl finished bringing in the remains of their breakfast.

 Chapter 7 - Stay To Your Duties

    Over the next few days, things were quiet. The new people grew used to their positions quickly, and everyone returned to their routines like nothing had happened that night when the young serving girl disappeared. There was no concern shown at all when the other worker did not show up for breakfast the morning after. Maybe nothing did happen, Sam told himself. Butler said that sometimes people just couldn''t handle it and left. Everything he thought he heard and saw could have been his imagination. At least, that is what he told himself. The nights were long after he woke up from his nightmares, unable to get back to sleep. If he didn''t figure out a way to stop jumping at every odd noise, he was going to be so exhausted that he would hurt himself. He didn''t want to fall down the stairs because he fell asleep while walking down them.


    Chiro did not seem to be doing much better. The dark eyed youth had dark circles to match under his orbs, and his words seemed to come out even faster than usual when he was tired.


    "I peeked in the entranceway when butler was bringing in deliveries, I am gonna try and get his door code next time -"


    "Door code?" Sam interrupted, ruffling his dull blonde hair as he relieved an itch at the top of his head.


    "Like a ready troglodyte," Chiro sputtered. He rubbed his face with his slender hand and tried to calm down. "The doors don''t use your...keys? Right? The main door is controlled by a special little box that you enter numbers into open. You call the numbers the code."


    Sam nodded quickly. He understood things in practice now, even if he didn''t get the theory. "But why do we want this code?"


    "Do you really think that girl went unbalanced? Two people gone in two days. Something is wrong here, and I want to have an escape plan."


    Sam nodded and bowed his head over his bowl of soup. This was not the first time Chiro had talked of escaping. It wasn''t even the first time that day. He made an agreement when he accepted the job, and he couldn''t pay to break the agreement and leave. Sam knew it was mostly bluster, the talk of escaping, but talking about it gave them both a boost of courage that was needed before going up the narrow servant staircase and to their tiny rooms at night.


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    The next day, Chiro was not standing at his door as he usually was. Sam had to go in and wake the boy up. He shoved the tan, woven pants, and button-up shirt into the bony arms and went back to the hall to wait. As he stood there, nodding at the other servants who shuffled past, his eyes happened to land on a long line right above the wainscoting on the wall across from him. Dodging the new male from the laundry room, he stepped closer to get a better look. What looked like a narrow smudge was actually a furrow. It traveled between the two nearest doors, chipping the wood frame of the door across from Chiro''s room at its end.


    "What do you suppose that is," he asked Chiro when his friend came up beside him.


    "I don''t know, someone drug a crate along the wall?" A loud yawn demonstrated his lack of interest. "It is just a line. Let''s get breakfast."


    Sam spared it one last look before turning to leave. It was probably nothing, he told himself. Just a line.


    His brain did not accept his affirmation. All day long, that simple little gouge was a tenant in his head. It took two calls for attention while washing dishes before he realized that someone was speaking to him.


    "I am sorry. I didn''t hear you. Can I help you?"


    In the doorway leading out into the manner stood a man Sam had never seen before. Tall, with the clean and smooth skin that came from never laboring under the sun, and a black suit that seemed to absorb the light of the room. Straight hair, so blonde it might have been white, was pulled into a tail at the back of his neck and draped casually over one shoulder.


    "Where is cook?" His voice was cold and flowing, like the river near Sam''s homestead right before it froze over in the winter.


    "I am here, my Lord, I stepped out for just a moment. What can I do for you?" Cook hurried from the servant dining area, nervously wiping his hands on his apron.


    "I want to change the dinner menu for the night."


    "Of course, my lord. What would you like served tonight?"


    Sam watched as the normally steady man seemed to tremble in front of the man that Sam now knew was the lord of the manor.


    "Steak. Rare." Watery blue eyes bore into Sam. "I feel as though I could not eat enough of it right now."


    "Of course, my lord. It will be prepared just as you requested."


    The eyes languidly blinked, and then he was gone. The doorway sat empty once more.


    "That was the noble who owns this manor?" Sam asked more to be polite than to verify. With that mien, who else could it be?


    Cook sighed and leaned heavily against the counter. "You best stay to your duties, young Sam," he said, his shoulders slumped. "You have enough to occupy you without getting the Lord''s attention."

 Chapter 8 - That Pinchy Look

    All thoughts of the dark line were gone for the day. Seeing the lord of the manor was an exciting occasion, and Sam thought of nothing else for the rest of the afternoon. The fabric of his wide collared suit looked so decadent, unlike anything Sam had ever seen. He wondered if it was as soft as it looked. And the skin of his face, so smooth and pale, unlined by the ravages of the sun. Only Master Douglas had skin that approached how exquisite the lord''s was, and that was because he spent all of his time indoors and used a special cream that the town herbalist made just for him. He mentioned his thoughts about it to Chiro at dinner.


    "It depends on the family they come from. If his family''s money is based in banking, then he might never go outside and just sit at his screen all day." Chiro did not seem to be as excited by the appearance of their employer. Sam remembered belatedly that Chiro came from one of the big noble families. He probably wasn''t impressed by much. Sam''s face fell.


    Chiro noticed his friend''s falling expression and cleared his throat. "It must have been ready odd to see someone dressed up so much in such a desolate place. And he actually walked into the kitchen instead of sending butler with the message?" His voice was more energetic, and he could see Sam perk up again.


    "He did! He asked cook to make him rare steaks for dinner. It was all so weird. I have never seen cook nervous before. I guess he doesn''t see the lord too much, either." Sam knew that Chiro was just trying to cheer him up, but he reveled in the fact that he had seen something that the other boy hadn''t, and that Chiro had even said it was interesting. Sometimes, Chiro forgot that Sam didn''t know all the slang and common words that peppered common speech, and when Sam had to admit that when he didn''t know something, he felt barely an inch tall. For once, he had information that Chiro didn''t have, and it felt good. That lasted for a minute before he had more questions to show he knew nothing about the universe. "Is that normal for the rich people, though, eating raw meat? We ate meat too raw and we got sick..."


    "Not really normal, no. But the meat can be sterilized beforehand, uhm, killing off the bad stuff?" He smiled as Sam rolled his eyes. Clearly, he knew what that word meant. "I don''t get why anyone would want to eat beef rare, though. Different people like different things."


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    Sam waited for Chiro to say more, but nothing came. Chiro talked so much usually that when he was trying not to say something, his face would screw up, and his lips pinched as if to keep the words in. He had that pinchy look after he fell silent. His fork turned over his vegetables one by one before stabbing them and lifting the green things to his mouth. The slow movement of chewing, and then the lips were pressed together again.


    "What are you thinking about?" He asked when nothing was forthcoming.


    "I don''t know yet. Something is sitting in my brain, and I can''t ready remember it to know if it is important."


    This reminded Sam of his big news, the news he immediately forgot with the meeting of the lord in the afternoon. "I think I know how I got here! I slept a little last night, and I had a dream. I think Master Douglas sold me off to someone. I remember sneaking out and going to his house, but there were strange men there, and Master Douglas was with them, and -"


    "Shoosh," Chiro reached out and placed his hand over Sam''s mouth, then pulled it back quickly with an apologetic smile. "You can''t say stuff like that so loudly. I believe you, I had my thoughts on it, but slavery is illegal, so they won''t like it if you are announcing that you were bought and drug here.


    "I don''t know if I was," Sam said indignantly. "I think I would have fought them if I was sold off and would have remembered going into ready space." He rolled the slang around on his tongue. Chiro said it all the time, but it felt weird coming out.


    "Not if they drugged you." Chiro chuckled at Sam''s affronted expression. "That''s how they got me here without my seeing anything. It''s why I woke up with such a massive headache that first day."


    Sam relaxed his expression and nodded thoughtfully. He could still remember that horrible throb when he woke up. If he had been drugged, it would explain a lot...


    "Hey, Sam," Chiro turned to face him and gave him the most serious expression Sam had seen him wear. "Don''t tell anybody else what you think happened. Promise me."


    He nodded his shaggy blonde head quickly. "I promise. Why?"


    "I...I don''t know yet. I just need to think about things some more."


    And then dinner was over, and everyone was moving off to do their last tasks of the night, and Sam couldn''t ask anymore questions.

 Chapter 9: Tap Tap Scrape

    As if an alarm had been set, something woke Sam up just past midnight again. He listened with his eyes closed and his sheet pulled up to his chin. There were no screams, or running footsteps. Eyelids spread open a crack. The light under his door was unbroken. But something had woken him, and in the darkness of the room, his imagination began to run wild.


    When a distinct thud entered his ears, he was not entirely sure if he had actually heard anything. The light flickered just a little as he was staring at it, and he became sure he had not imagined it. Crawling across the floor, he put his eye to the gap, as he had done so many times since arriving at the manor. There was nobody there, and he was just pulling away when he realized that something looked off. His eye went back, and he could just make out that the door across the hall was slightly crooked. No, not crooked, but ajar. There was no light shining out of the room, and he strained his eyes to see something through the tiny opening. The door swung open suddenly, and Sam threw himself backward, scuttling across the floor until his back hit his dresser. His heart raced in his chest, and his breathing stopped entirely when the light under his door disappeared.


    Tap


    Tap


    A sound so quiet, yet it went straight into his ears and pounded behind his eyes. Whatever was blocking the light moved, and a sharp scraping sound led away from his door and down the hall, heading toward the stairs. Sam didn''t move the rest of the night. He hugged his knees tightly and stared at the little strip of light, trying not to blink in case he missed something.


    When the light from the windows brightened, signaling the coming of the morning, Sam let his eyes close. Knowing that the light was fake didn''t stop it from being comforting. Hunched on the bare floor, back against the unforgiving sides of the dresser, Sam fell asleep.


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    The sound of the door unlocking came what felt like seconds later. The room was much brighter, though, so Sam knew he had slept a little. He did not move until he heard the familiar shuffling of many feet outside. He groaned loudly. Staying in that position all night was a bad idea. His back was screaming.


    Sam was concentrating so hard on moving gingerly to ease the strain on his stiff muscles that he did not hear a lone set of footsteps stop outside his door. When a firm knock sounded, he jumped, and a squeal slipped out when his back seized.


    "Sam? Are you okay? I''m coming in!"


    He recognized Chiro''s voice and calmed down enough to walk the two steps to his bed and slowly lower himself down to the edge of the mattress.


    "Are you alright? What happened?" Chiro let himself in, his nose scrunched up. "That cleaner is so ready strong. Did you clean your door?"


    "I didn''t," Sam said with a groan. Sitting was not relieving the pain in his back. He explained how he ended up on the floor all night and the things he saw and heard. Chiro pinched his lips together and looked through Sam''s open door to the closed door across the hall.


    "I didn''t see Manus walk past while waiting for you."


    "Manus?" Even as he said the name, Sam knew it was the dour man who lived in that room. The only one who talked to him was Chiro, so that was the only name he knew. "Oh, him. I don''t know."


    Sam tried to rise, but didn''t get past leaning forward before giving up. He could hear Chiro step into the hall, but his eyes were focused on the floor, a scowl twisting his face and pain tightening the skin around his eyes.


    Chiro scurried back in, hissing, "Butler is coming," seconds before another voice spoke from the doorway.


    "Why are you both here and not at meal?"


    Chiro quickly explained that Sam had slept funny and hurt his back. Butler''s indifferent voice told him to leave, and Chiro argued but was sent on his way.


    Sam tried to answer the questions. No, he didn''t lift anything heavy while working the day before. Yes, it was just his lower back. No, he just had a nightmare and must have twisted himself or something. Butler left and came back a few minutes later with a fresh glass of water and two square-shaped white pills. He was not gentle as he helped Sam lay down on the mattress, but he was patient. The pills must have been for more than just pain because Sam was asleep before the door closed behind Butler.

 Chapter 10: I Think Things Are Bad

    Chiro was allowed to bring lunch and dinner up to Sam''s room so that he wouldn''t have to go down the stairs. As he sat on the floor against Sam''s dresser, he proudly described how he begged Butler to let him do it until the older man gave in just to make him be quiet. Sam smiled, but he wasn''t really listening. He waited until there was a break in the narrative and cut in.


    "Did you see Manus at lunch?"


    "No, and nobody else said anything. Maybe he quit, too."


    "Do you really believe that, Chiro?"


    Chiro pressed his thin lips together so tightly that they almost disappeared entirely. A sharp shake of his head was all that Sam got as an answer.


    "What is happening here?" Sam slowly rolled onto his side so that he could eat from the tray on the bed next to him without dribbling it all across his shirt. His eyes never left his friend''s face, and when it was obvious that Chiro was not going to respond, he sighed and set down his spoon. "You get so much joy from explaining every little thing, and yet now you won''t talk to me. What are you thinking?"


    "I¡ª" Chiro looked across Sam''s room and out the door, to the closed door across the way. His voice not much more than a whisper, he said, "I think things are bad, Sam."


    "The master of my town sold me off to people from somewhere we didn''t even have tall tales about, and I woke up in a weird-looking house surrounded by weird people that talk weirdly, and weird stuff is happening and-"


    A rough chuckle escaped Chiro''s lips. "Stop saying ''weird'' so much, Sam."


    "Well, what else would describe all this? Except, maybe, scary..." Sam dropped his eyes to the food in front of him. The strong smell of cleaners was wafting in from the hall, and combined with his unsettled mind, his stomach no longer wanted to finish what was on the plate. "I don''t think they quit, Chiro."


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    "I don''t think so, either. But why won''t they tell us what is going on? That woman screaming that night, is something making people sick? Like a brain worm or something? We are all eating the same things, though, and the three who have gone missing so far are from three different work groups..."


    "And what about those noises I heard last night?" Sam had to force the words out before he chickened out. "Someone was leaving that room. Was it a doctor they brought in? Is that why the cleaner smell is so strong, they are trying to kill off the sickness that might have been left behind?"


    They looked at each other, and then, as one, their eyes turned toward the closed door across the hall again. When Butler stepped into the frame created by the doorway in their vision, they both let out gasps of surprise. The grave man frowned at them both. "Meal time is over. Take his tray with you when you go downstairs."


    Chiro did not need his name mentioned to figure out who Butler was talking to, and he scrambled to his feet to do as told. After the boy scooted past, Butler looked to Sam once more before closing his bedroom door.


    Alone, Sam couldn''t stop his mind from going over the night before, over and over. If people were getting sick, then staying up at night was not going to change anything. It didn''t make the fear go away, of course, but when the room started to darken, Sam was able to fall asleep. He had nightmares of people falling to the floor, blood coming from their eyes as something ate away at them from inside. One dream bled into another, and if he woke up shaking from lingering fear, he at least woke up refreshed from a full night of sleep.


    His back was no longer aching as much. When the door unlocked, he stood up and got dressed before going out into the hall. The door across from his opened as he stepped out, and an older woman with broad shoulders stepped out in front of him.


    "Where do we go for breakfast?" Her words pulled out at the ends, her accent yet another that Sam had never heard before.


    "It''s right down these stairs," Sam responded politely. The gears in his head were turning, trying to decide if she was safe to stand near. The smell of cleaner was so strong in her room that it clung to her skin. She nodded at him and strode briskly toward the stairwell, her sensible brown shoes making little thumping noises as she went.

 Chapter 11: Conspicuous to Sam

    Chiro waited for Sam to approach and fell into step beside him. "They already have a new person in that room? We HAVE to be on Io somewhere, how else could they have a new person here so quickly after losing the last one?"


    "It could be nothing. Maybe they are always short of people, so it just happened that this one came in at this time," Sam offered. "Maybe we are still short because she is replacing one of the people last week."


    The musings died off as they took their seats at the dining table. Nobody said anything about Sam being gone the day before. He wondered if anyone besides Chiro and cook had noticed. His eyes traveled around the long, worn table passing over the brusque woman he met moments before in the hall and settling on an elderly gentleman sitting at the opposite end. He nudged Chiro and gestured with his eyes. Another new face, this one in the seat previously filled by the new serving girl. She, too, was conspicuously missing, or at least conspicuous to Sam. The look of confusion on Chiro''s face was obvious. He didn''t know what he was supposed to be looking for.  Sam saw the girl after every meal as she brought in dishes to be washed. Maybe nobody else had ever noticed her, with her mouse-like movements and matching brown hair. They all wore the same clothes, light brown slacks and matching button-up tops, some with aprons over them and some without. There wasn''t much to set them all apart at first glance.  A person could be easy to forget, but could they be easy to not remember in the first place?


    "The new serving girl is gone too," he whispered as he leaned closer so that only Chiro would hear. "That old man is in her place." They both looked down the length of the table to where the man was carefully shining his spoon with his unbleached linen napkin. Once it was so shiny that it seemed to catch the light glaring off of his bald head and bounced it onto the far wall, he dipped it methodically into the oatmeal.


    The look of confusion did not go away, but he could tell Chiro was trying to remember the girl he spoke of. "Wait... the one who just got here a few days ago?"


    "Yes." Sam sat back upright as Cook brought in the food. From the corner of his eye, he saw Butler step into the room and take up his usual post by the door leading further into the manor. They lowered their heads and concentrated on their food, but as soon as Butler walked out again, they continued their whispers. "Was she here yesterday?"


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    "I think so, yeah. Cook didn''t bring the food out or anything. It must have been ...what was her name again?"


    Sam shrugged. He had never asked. "She wasn''t even here a week, though, and I never saw her with anybody else. How could she have gotten sick and we haven''t?"


    "Sam..." Chiro looked directly at him and took a deep breath.


    Sam could tell that he was readying himself to say something serious, and he wondered if it had to do with whatever had been on Chiro''s mind the last few days.


    "Did your people have any tales of... I have  no idea how to describe it...did they know that there are other universes besides our own?"


    The blank look was answer enough, so Chiro chewed his lip and tried to explain. "Everything around us, planets, moons, stars, everywhere is all part of our universe. But there are other universes that run alongside ours, and if you could see into them, it might be like looking into a mirror or it might be vastly different. About a thousand cycles ago, there was a big war when things passed from a universe near ours INTO ours and caused all kinds of trouble. It''s been a long time since then, but I think -"


    Butler walked back in, and Chiro snapped his jaws together. Their conversation was over, for the moment. At the next two meals, Butler gifted all of his stern frowns to the two boys, and there was no chance to pick the conversation up again the rest of the day. The talk about other universes was odd, and Sam only understood part of it. Of course, he knew what the term universe meant. Just because his people had been told they were alone in the universe didn''t mean they were clueless to there being other stars and planets and whatnot. He had never heard any stories about universes beyond their own, though. Was Chiro thinking that something came from another universe to make people sick? Sam wandered through the hours, trying to remember the faces of the people that he had met who were no longer there. Five people, five in less than two weeks. That seemed like a lot, but if it was a sickness, like the flu that tore through town a couple of years back? There would be a lot more people in such close quarters. Maybe nobody was dead at all. Maybe they really had all quit. Maybe... maybe...

 Chapter 12: Throwing a Tantrum

    It was not a scream that woke Sam that night, nor a scrape, or a tap, or an odd footstep. Somewhere nearby, out in the hall but not in front of his door, someone was throwing a tantrum. There was the sound of pounding on wood. Hitting and, Sam guessed by the heavier sounds interspersed, kicking against something. This went on for several minutes, the sounds getting louder and more frantic. Then they stopped. Sam sat up against the headboard, his sheet pulled all the way to his chin, making a tent with the fabric pulled across his knees. Before he could finish counting to 60, it started again, three booms as something heavy rammed against what Sam knew had to be a door. There was nothing else large enough to hit that was made of wood out there. A scream ripped through the air. At least, Sam THOUGHT it was a scream. Maybe because it was being muffled by the door it sounded distorted, almost like a man yelling but with some other sound at the same time. Sam''s terrified brain thought of singalongs during service, all the voices layered on top of each other. But it didn''t sound like two people yelling, either.


    When silence fell again, it stayed. Sam watched the strip of light devotedly, but nobody passed in front of his door. Was that the sound of someone trying to get out of their room? He let the question circle around his mind for a while. If someone had gotten sick and lost their reason, were they trying to escape? Whomever it was, they had to be injured after all that. There was nothing in their rooms sturdy enough to ram against the door repeatedly without breaking. They must have been hitting and kicking the door, as he had previously thought. Maybe even throwing their body against it when it wouldn''t open. Hitting that hard, their body was more likely to break than the heavy doors.


    Dawn could not come quick enough. The air was unmoving. Even the manor seemed to be holding its breath. There was no way, Sam thought, that anyone could have slept through that...whatever it was that happened. Especially the scream. Bumps rose on his arms, his movements tremulous as he tried to rub them away. It almost sounded like a goat. But he had heard enough of those that he knew it was something different.


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    The door unlocked at the same time that it always did, but Sam did not move from his bed. Normally, he would hear other people shuffling along to breakfast soon after the doors could open, but this morning was different.


    It seemed to Sam that many people needed extra time just as he did to steel themself well enough to risk opening their doors. Apparently, none of them made it that far. Sam nearly fell out of his bed in fright when his door suddenly opened, and Butler''s voice called out, "If you don''t go to the dining area, you won''t get breakfast. Let''s do get going, people." The message was repeated several more times as he traveled the length of the hall, opening doors as he went. Sam rubbed his eyes and closed his door to just a crack so that he could get his clothes on in a hurry. When he stepped out of his room, he nearly ran into the new woman across from him. The brusque and able demeanor was gone, and she was visibly shaken.


    "What was that last night?" She asked Sam, reaching out to hold onto his arm. "I''ve never heard nothing that made that kind of sound before, and I''ve worked in all kinds of places." The drawn-out sounds at the ends of her words were so pronounced that Sam had to concentrate hard to tell what she was saying.


    "I don''t know," he answered truthfully. "There are weird sounds at night sometimes, butler says some people don''t do well with the isolation."


    She looked at him contemptuously, her words dismissive. "That was no human, boy."


    Sam watched her as she made her way to the stairwell much quicker than the day before, her head looking side to side and occasionally behind her as she went.

 Chapter 13: Dont Scream

    Unlike the other doors, Chiro''s was closed. Sam knew he might have already headed down, but they always walked together, so that seemed strange.


    "Chiro?" He called out quietly as he rapped at the door with his knuckles. There was the sound of something heavy being moved across the floor, and a moment later, the door opened a crack. It closed quickly and then more dragging noises before it opened all the way. Before Sam could ask what was going on, Chiro threw his arms around his friend and squeezed.


    "Hey, it is alright. It is morning." He said as he rubbed circles on the trembling back. "Someone must have gotten sick last night, but they only break while others are a sleep, so we should be fine, right?"


    Chiro did not speak, or maybe he couldn''t because he seemed to be fighting back tears when he pulled away. His eyes dropped to the floor as Butler came back from pulling everyone out of their rooms. Sam furrowed his brow and looked at Chiro''s door. His had been the only one still closed, and it would have been one of the first opened.


    "Come on," he said, nudging Chiro toward the stairs. "Butler said if we don''t get downstairs, then we don''t get meal."


    Sam kept a close eye on his friend as they negotiated the steep stairs. Even tired, the boy had this exhausting energy and didn''t stop talking. All that was gone. His thin arms were crossed tightly across his chest, shoulders pulled inward dramatically. The blood seemed to have left his face, leaving it pale and his eyes as dark as a moonless night in comparison. He sat down in his chair at the table when Sam pushed lightly on his shoulders. Getting him to eat a spoon of oatmeal took the same effort, a hand guided to the bowl.


    Sam looked up to check for Butler, but the man had not entered the dining room with him. "That noise was ready scary, wasn''t it?"


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    Chiro didn''t respond beyond setting his spoon down against the side of the bowl. His eyes darted around to all of the faces trying to hide in their breakfast. His 00lips pressed tightly together, and he did not touch his food again.


    At each meal, Sam tried to get the boy to eat something. A few times, it worked, and food made its way into his mouth to be chewed and swallowed. When Sam was not actively guiding him, Chiro sat limply and stared at nothing. This lasted through dinner when Chiro reached his hand out suddenly and wrapped it around Sam''s wrist. "I need to talk to you when you are done, don''t be scared if you see me." Then he darted out of the room and out of sight.


    Sam watched the doorway for a minute, his lips pursed, wondering if he should go after the boy. More than anyone else, he was horribly shaken by the previous night''s incident. After breakfast, the whispers around the table stopped. Everyone settled down and worked. The new serving woman was less confident in her movements, perhaps, but her shoulders were straight once more. The work was done efficiently, and after cleaning the dining room, she moved toward her room without obvious fear.


    Cook did not loiter when his work was done. Before leaving for the night, he slipped a small, round fruit into Sam''s hand and patted his shoulder. Sam stared at the little red fruit and felt a smile trying to worm its way out at the gesture. The smile died before it manifested. Alone, the room seemed too big. The strange hum from the ice chest, which Sam now knew was a motor that helped keep the chest cold without ice, startled him when it began abruptly. He moved as quickly as he could and finished his work faster than he ever had before.


    When he entered his bedroom, he was out of breath and panting hard. The door latch catching behind him helped his fear only a little, the feeling of safety brought by a closed door not what it once was.


    After a little while, his breathing was more even, and if his heart still raced, he thought it understandable. He quickly changed out of his uniform and sat on the bed until the lock clicked. Pulling the sheet up over his body, he laid down and tried to get his eyes to close. He wondered how Chiro was doing. He must have been thinking too intently about him because he heard Chiro''s voice from very nearby.


    "It''s me, Sam, don''t scream."

 Chapter 14: Dont Hit Me Either

    "It''s me, Sam, don''t scream."


    Sam sat up, sheet bunched and clenched in both hands. "Chiro?"


    His mattress shook ever so slightly. Sam bent toward the side and swallowed a screech when a dark head of hair popped out from beneath the bed. His body didn''t react fast enough to stop his land from lashing out.


    "Ow Sam!" Chiro hissed at him, rubbing his head as he wiggled out from beneath the bed. "Don''t hit me either!"


    "What are you doing under my bed? You are lucky I didn''t hit you harder!"


    Chiro finished pulling his legs out and climbed up to sit on Sam''s bed with him. "Don''t worry, nobody saw me come in here."


    "Why would I worry about that, Chiro? Also, WHY WERE YOU UNDER MY BED?" Sam flinched when his mouth was covered, but he sheepishly nodded when he realized he was getting older than a whisper. "Sorry," he continued in a much lower voice, after removing Chiro''s hand from his mouth.


    "It was my room last night."


    Sam stopped the words that were trying to come out and thought. He pursed his lips and looked at Chiro closely. "You were the one making the noises?"


    "No I was ready not! Last night I woke up when my door unlocked. It was way too early to be morning. A few minutes later, something tried to get into my room."


    "Come on, if your door was unlocked, then how did you keep them out? There was so much noise."


    Chiro grinned, but there was no humor in it. "I moved the dresser against it and then pushed the bed behind that. But when I got to my room I saw all the furniture has been secured in its original spot. So I snuck in here."


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    "Someone anchored your furniture? But why? What would be the point?"


    "The door was unlocked, Sam. And someone tried to get into my room in the middle of the night." Chiro spoke slowly, watching as understanding lit in the boy''s tired eyes. "It isn''t a sickness, and people aren''t running away, Sam. Something is killing people while others sleep, and it is being helped."


    The fair-haired boy closed his eyes and pulled his knees tight against his chest, wrapping his arms around them. "I can''t...Why would anyone do that, Chiro? It doesn''t make sense."


    "I don''t know for sure, Sam. But if you don''t believe me, then stay up and wait with me until after midnight. I bet that my door will be unlocked again, and whatever it is won''t be happy I am not there."


    Sam said he would do it, not because he didn''t believe Chiro, but because he felt like Chiro needed to prove it. His eyes drifted shut and he took a much-needed nap, waking up when Chiro shook him, knocking his head against the wall in the process. A cold hand clamped across his mouth.


    "It is there..."


    Sam strained his ears. Strange noises were indeed coming from the other side of the wall he shared with the other boy. Chiro crawled off of the bed. When he reached Sam''s door, he pressed his ear silently against the wood. Sam watched him, wringing his sheet between his hands. Eventually, Chiro came back, pushing Sam over on the bed so he could sit right next to him.


    "I heard the footsteps, they sounded angry. They went down the stairs. With all of the rest of the doors locked they probably think I am hiding down there somewhere. That is a lot of rooms, hopefully it will take them all night."


    "What if they figure it out and come back?"


    Chiro yawned and closed his eyes, resting his head on Sam''s shoulder. "No. I think the doors get unlocked, and then Butler locks himself up somewhere to be safe. Nobody will unlock this door until the morning. We can get some sleep, Sam."


    Sam was astonished when Chiro did just that, his breaths slowing almost immediately as he fell asleep. Sam had no idea what was going on, and he wanted to wake Chiro up and make him explain. But, with the steady breathing of the boy next to him, and despite the fear trying to glue his eyes open, Sam managed to fall asleep as well.

 15: Ill Meet You

    "How could you sleep in a situation like that?" Sam pushed Chiro off of the bed so that he could get up. The door had not yet unlocked, but that time was probably not too far away.


    "Oof." Chiro massaged his butt where it hit the hard wood floor. "You fell asleep too! And I told you they probably wouldn''t be able to unlock any other doors last night, that was the safest time to sleep!"


    Sam sighed and ignored Chiro as he buttoned up his uniform top. He couldn''t believe he had really fallen asleep. Once the bottom of the shirt was tucked into his pants, he turned to face the other boy. "So what do we do? You think they are letting something, what, kill people at night? Somebody would notice, wouldn''t they?"


    "Somebody might notice, but it isn''t likely. The people who took the job were probably people that wouldn''t be missed,  poor, homeless, orphans, that kind. There might be others like you here, too. If the breaker planets are selling off troublemakers in exchange for things they can''t produce themselves? Nobody on your planet would think to look for you here. I doubt even your...whatever your leader''s title was knows exactly where you went." Chiro touched his ear, then dropped his hand down onto his lap. "I sent out a distress signal using the emergency option in my chip. Most of it was deactivated when my parents died, but that function can''t be shut off. Someone from the family will be coming here looking for me. Even if we are another of the terra''d moons, they will be here by today. We just have to get out that main door when they arrive. I have the code, but butler has been watching me so closely I don''t think I can get out."


    "If the only time nobody is watching is at night," Sam swallowed hard, the fear he was trying to ignore stuck in his throat. "If there is nobody watching at night, then that is when we have to go. I bet my door will be unlocked tonight, too."


    "I didn''t... I am sorry, Sam. I didn''t think about how hiding here would put you in danger..."


    Sam smiled at him sadly. "If you are right, then I am in danger anyway. We all are, even if we didn''t know it."


    "Yeah, I guess." Two sets of eyes wandered around the room, looking for anything that could help them. A quick push showed that everything was attached to the ground. "I guess they did it to all the rooms, to make sure nobody could do what I did."


    "Okay, Chiro. You said it was a few minutes after the door unlocked before whatever it was tried to get in. That might be our only chance to run. We get ourselves ready, and as soon as the door unlocks, we run straight for the front door." Sam tried to sound confident, like he was sure that this was the best plan. He could see the doubt in Chiro''s eyes, but the other boy nodded his agreement. "Now, do we go and do our normal jobs? I feel like we should eat something, but do we just pretend like nothing is happening?"


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    Chiro shrugged. " I don''t know what to do. I don''t think they will let us stay up here all day, though, and nothing has happened in the daytime so far, so I guess we should go and eat and stay where others can see us all day."


    Surprisingly, to both of the boys as they went about their normal routines, nothing happened all day. Butler followed Chiro, but he did not say anything, and his face was no more or less grim than it usually was. There were no opportunities to talk during meals, the stern man''s eyes boring into them while they ate.


    When dinner time came around, Sam was half convinced that the drama of the previous night had not even happened. A wild dream brought on by too much lost sleep. As everyone was getting up to finish their day, Chiro stumbled and knocked his glass over, spilling his water across the table and off the edge of it. It dribbled onto Sam''s lap, who jumped up and grabbed for a napkin. Chiro reached across to hand him one, whispering so low that Sam had to strain to hear, "If I''m forced into my room, run when the door unlocks, I''ll meet you at the entrance."


    Then Butler was there, gesturing for Chiro to move on and for Sam to get back to work. Sam rushed through his evening cleaning, not really caring if things were spotless. Even if his door didn''t unlock this night, it would open some night. He wanted to convince himself that  nothing would happen, but when he walked to his room he saw butler standing at the top of the stairs, making sure that nobody went off to hide somewhere for the night. Sam understood then that it was not all Chiro''s wild imagination, as much as he wanted it to be.


    Sam checked under his bed when he got into his room, just to be sure, but he was alone. The door locked, but he didn''t change out of his uniform as he normally would. He kept his warmer clothes on, and his shoes stayed laced up and on his feet. There was no point in trying to force himself to get any sleep.


    The last few hours until midnight Sam sat on the edge of his bed, his eyes focused on the thin strip of light. He thought of his parents, wondering if they had been sad when he disappeared, or if Master Douglas had told them some sort of tale to cover up the fact that he was gone and not coming back. Did they think about him every night, as he did them?


    When the door unlocked just after midnight, Sam was moving and opening the door before his brain considered what he should do. He pulled open the heavy wooden door far enough to slip out, and immediately turned toward Chiro''s room and the stairs, breaking into a run when he saw the dark haired boy rush out into the hall. He didn''t register the look of horror on his friend''s face. He didn''t hear Chiro screaming his name. There was pain as something crashed into him from behind. He was so cold, and as he fell forward to the ground, he wondered why Chiro was screaming.

 16: A Long, Long Way Away From Home

    Chiro watched in horror as something leapt on Sam from behind, driving him into the floor. He screamed at all the red splattering across the hallway walls, painting terrifying images on their light surface. There was no point in trying to save his friend. It was too late for anyone to save him, so Chiro began to run. Skipping several stairs at a time, he made it to the bottom and ducked into the first room he saw, quietly shutting the door behind him. It was a study, he knew. Chiro had been forced to clean it once after one of the other cleaners went missing. He knew that there was a door at the other end that would lead him directly to the front entrance way, and he took off across the room, dodging and weaving around furniture in the dark. He closed the door behind him quietly, and right before the latch clicked, he heard the door open on the other end.


    There was no response from his cranial unit. All incoming message capabilities had been shut off by the family when he was disowned. They wouldn''t ignore the distress signal. They couldn''t take the chance that something would happen to any person who once shared the family name. It was bad for business. A day and a half was more than enough time to get anywhere in the solar system with current engine capabilities. He just had to get outside to be picked up.


    There was no time to worry about anyone else in the manor. Once he was rescued, then he could tell everyone what happened and the enforcement agencies could have a quick fight over who would come and save everyone that was left, and punish the people who set the whole thing up. He needed to get outside.


    His feet moved as quickly as they could without making more noise than necessary. Chiro tried not to think about what had happened up in the servant''s quarters. It was clearly a man, but it moved wrong, limbs jerking spasmodically as they...


    Chiro swallowed back a sob. Sam was a good guy. He never made fun of Chiro for talking so much, or got angry at needing to have things explained to him. Chiro had wanted to get Sam home safe almost as much as he wanted to get out safe himself. But Chiro had failed the innocent breaker boy. He hadn''t thought that the man, the creature, would be waiting in the hall by Sam''s door to catch them both as they ran. His cockiness combined with his fear made him focus so hard on the getting away that he didn''t think about what could go wrong.


    If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.


    Turning a corner, he spotted the front door, and he sprinted for it. The small plaque next to it was quickly twisted to the side, revealing a numerical keypad. Chiro pressed the code in that he had seen butler enter, and the door opened with a click and a hiss. He ducked inside, skidding to a halt in the brightly lit little room.


    Everything was stark white. Floor, ceiling, walls. A narrow bench ran along the side, leading to a door at the other end. No, not a door. A hatch. Chiro felt tears begin to gather at the corner of his eyes. His stomach dropped out, and he forced his feet to move closer to the ''door''. One foot, then the other, repeating until his face was pressed against the round window set into the center of the hatch''s surface.


    Chiro rubbed his eyes, dashing away the tears that were now falling steadily. It was so dark outside. But it wasn''t so dark that he couldn''t see the sparkling rings of the cobalt planet floating against a background of nothing. They weren''t in a manor on the other side of Io. They weren''t on one of the other moons or even one of the other planets in the origin system. He had never seen the planet before him in person before. The family that built their habitats to orbit it was not the family his parents were expelled from. He was a long, long way away from home. Nobody was going to come and save him. There wasn''t enough time to even get close.


    "Where are you running to, young master Chiro?" A voice like something rising from the abyss tore Chiro''s eyes away from the beautiful planet that loomed outside the airlock hatch, indifferent to his despair. He turned slowly and stopped trying to wipe his tears from his face. Standing just inside the manor entrance, everything behind him painted in inky shadows, was the Master of the estate.


    Or maybe it was him no longer. His white blonde hair was loose, the front strands sticking in the red liquid that covered his mouth and face, the same liquid that dripped from his long, slender fingers. His eyes were black without a trace of white. As he tilted his head to the side, Chiro thought it looked as though two heads were moving at once, a subtle blurring of motion. In that moment, Chiro understood everything. They never stood a chance.


    The nobleman stepped inside the airlock, flexing his fingers lazily at his sides. And he smiled.


    *End*


    Thank you for taking the time to look through this little window into Sam and Chiro''s universe with me. There was no happy ending this time,  we can''t always control what we will see when we look through a window. Maybe the next time will end better...