3 III

Samty stared with confusion dancing in his eyes at the mystical jewelry resting against his hands. His pale complexion seems to glow under the black steel lace of the necklace and the deep red pendant dangling on it stares back at him eerily. The flash of light that blinded him for a fraction of time the previous second was not at all done by a stray, seeing the buildings on either side were tall and bulky and a fabric is thrown across the gap between the roof, but the light the pendant has inside. The tear-drop shape of it is bearing a smoke swirling like there's a hand playing on it. It was black—turned to bright white and ended with a bloody red color and evaporates. He watched the sequence with attentive eyes and stared more blindly after the smoke within vanishes, waiting with great interest if it will reappear again or do something different or glimmer like the last time. But nothing happened and the light that had been there never came back. Leaving him an old plain necklace on his hands.

What drills in his once again pulsing head is where it had come from? 

His veins pumping more blood through his body energetically but he didn't bother to mind this sudden change because, first, the thing he holds wasn't his. He will never had the chance to place his hand in this kind of expensive object, his status in life speaks volume for you. To add, he also isn't a pickpocket nor a robber nor any kind related to that so he definitely shouldn't have touched it. Someone must have been looking for it and if ever they caught him holding it between his small hands, things would go downhill. But come to think of it, it's inside their makeshift home. Sitting prettily like it truly belongs there and not to some wealthy man's neck. Yet it's also wasn't his father's, definitely not his. He never had once saw it adorning his neck or just have it in his hands. The necklace doesn't belonged to them.

Samty blinks as a start.

Breaking the somewhat eye contact he had with the eye-catching thing, feeling the piercing gaze directed to him.

It's the same eyes—he knew it was the same eyes, always the same one—that went between him and his supposed dinner last night. It once again weighs a ton on his shoulders and the skin on his nape abruptly burns and prickles for some unknown reason. Samty gritted his teeth to restrain his self from reaching out for his itching skin, not wanting to whoever this eyes belongs to saw how he responds to his chilling gaze. Instead, he enclosed the jewelry between his pale hands and snap his head up to his right. Dilating his eyes to scan the narrow view he have of the busy street to hopefully catch whoever it is. But numerous people already pass by at the same time and none of them spared even a curious glance at the shadowed alleyway.

His heart began to beat erratically.

"Who are you.."

He asked with an edge under his breath to no one as his eyes never failed to see every faces his eyes lands on to. He's meters away but he can clearly identity them who's always walking by on the street to either go for work or just merely walking around the area. It's none of them. No one seems to have notice him sitting on his knees on the rough pavement in front of a makeshift house even a child can build for playing purposes. He swallowed to dampen his a bit scratchy throat from the lack of water it gets and heaves out a shaky breath to calm his nerves.

Samty knows even he can't see him or her. He awfully knows there is someone watching him from a distance starting last year. It started after the Blood Day festival, the day he and his father celebrates the day he first came to the living. The first time it had happened was when a barrel full of liquor almost squished him into a pulp one time he had wondered far off the next third street from here. When he looked up to see what had cause the thing to fall that just about an inch to stole his life, he saw no fault but a departing billowing cloak. After that, just three days past, was when he almost got hit by a running car. When he had managed to pull his self out from the street unscratched just in time the car zooms fast, his unbelieving wide terrified eyes caught a glimpse of bright red dots glinting against the shadows far back the crowd that circles him. He thought it will be the last time he will see himself on such dangers and just only been a great big coincidence for what he sees afterwards but he had escaped death five more times following those and his eyes didn't falter and always sees a retreating back of the same build every damn time. Slowly, everything is clearing for him right now, right this moment, that this someone is very keen on ending his somber life.

' Don't. Move. '

The whirling thoughts in his mind cut short when a voice pushed itself in. His eyes zeroed on the pole standing on the opposite side with its paint being chipped down by a street dog and the burn on his nape subsided a little yet it spreads evenly against his shoulder blades. His heart also stops momentarily from functioning before it beats back again, but this time it's following a phase and calm.

Samty heard it, always, loud and clear.

However, he doesn't want to obey. He wants to oppose this command, to stand up and ran away from everyone, and gives the owner of the voice a piece of his mind but every time it resounded in his head it's always giving the best choice to pick. So in the end he found his self rooted on the exact same position on his knees, staring past the moving bodies of the people in late noon. The sweat building up his temple felt cold under his still pale hot face. Inspite of the quickly losing debate inside his head, the eyes continued to stare. Pinning him down the wounding surface of the pavement and the words left in his mind echoed loudly, making the pulsing at the back of his head ten times more nastily painful.

Samty swallowed for the second time in his desert throat and craned his neck back to where his spare clothes sat. Hands still absentmindedly clutching the ownerless object protectively against the eyes. His breathing exceeds slower unexpectedly as he felt tiredness travelled up his system.

'But I managed to rest...'

Before the sounds of rushed footsteps reached his ears, a voice caught his attention first.

"There you are!"

' Stand up and run you—! '

"Police! He's here!"

Samty's head quickly snaps up as his eyes went wide as saucers to the figures entering the narrow way with difficulty. The alleyway is a tight fit for two bulky men walking side by side, his own thin frame is just so much thankful for this kind of situations. So without much of a thought as to why the owner of the eatery—he got a glimpse past the police of that balding head and wrinkled face matching with a very familiar frown on his thin lips—from the other street is calling police for him, he grabs his clothes and hastily stands to leapt the distance to the fence. Skillfully jumping over it to run back inside the safety of the forest's shadow.

~~~~~

Samty once again found himself leaning on a tree while desperately getting air in his lungs, sweat dribbling down in every inch of skin. His face and neck throbs from the short distance he had quickly sprints before entering the forest since the rays of the sun touches his exposed skin. His sleeved shirt also didn't do any good on covering his arms from the direct sunlight seeing countless holes were in it and the fabric was sickeningly thin. Leaving him nothing  but red patches to tend to and burning face to cool down.

He can stop for a moment and catch some air before going further deep in the forest. The town folks wouldn't know where he is inside considering the forest is big and its hard to find your way if you came in a rush. They indeed follow but quickly lost track of him so there's nothing much to fret about at the moment.

He sits atop a lone trunk laying beside the very large tree he had leaned on. His breathing didn't improved but at least his legs stopped begging of being used up to their limit. He choked on his own saliva as he breathe air through his slacking dry mouth. Carding both his hands to his now even more greasy hair, he grimaces and wracked his head for any crimes he had done to be chased away. And there's only one thing his mind can think of.

'That fucking necklace!'

Samty ruffled his hair achingly hard from so much irritation and anger, the strands being dangerously close to be tugged off from their roots. The necklace he doesn't even know how it had ended up sitting there quietly gave him a reason to hide away from the authorities, something he never had done before. Gripping his dirty locks hard to ease out some frustration in his system, he remembered that the ugly thing is with him the entire escapade. His jaw hardened from this and his eyes sparks with fury. With all these emotions dancing within him, he haphazardly looked for the necklace across his strewn clothes on the ground. His mind thoughtless of what he will do once he found it.

Though at last, saved by the luck, he didn't saw it—not a single end of it. He almost heaves out a sigh from relief of not ever seeing that thing again, probably lost it when he was running against all the bushes and branches, but it ceases as a pained hiss replaced it when he felt a light burn on his left upper arm.

"O-oww!..what..?"

Samty saw it. He saw with a wild beating of his heart and bulging eyes the built of the necklace' tear-shaped pendant under the thin fabric of his sleeved shirt. His eyes now stinging from the burning sensation he felt exactly where the jewelry lays. So without any second to beat, he pulled the sleeves up to his shoulder and watched with frightened eyes and painful cries as the object melts against his skin.

"A-aaahh!!"

The pendant sits at his inner elbow as the steel lace curved its way up to his shoulder and slowly, each passing seconds, his skin seems to swallow the whole thing from where they are positioned. The subdued pain earlier quickly became excruciatingly mad and immediately shoots up to his whole arm, left leg and whole back. The thing is unbearable so it's not surprisingly enough to see himself wallowing in self pity from the things happening to him on the soil ground. Clutching desperately to his left arm, wanting it to end in every possible way but the pain seems to increase tenfold and he was left screaming in agony. Jaws once again slacking from his body's so much shuddering and his eyes rolls back.

That is until a hand made its way to his opened mouth and the strong smell of iron bombarded his nose.

Samty's cries of pain suddenly stops.