Under The Moon's Light
The moon slowly began to rise high to the sky as Sho got closer to the town, he could see the bright lights from afar, the lively town was as busy as it would be in the daytime. Once he finally arrived he could see people walking around with friends or family having a nice time together.
He passed by a sign that had something inscribed. "Welcome to Woodstolve" which was the town's name. As he passed by the sign, he continued to enter the town and was greeted by bright lights and busy people, due to the number of people that were passing by the town because of it's connection to the other main roads the nightlife here was closely similar to some sort of festival.
Now walking on a more formal and paved stone path, Sho saw food stalls surrounded with hungry customers, merchants riding on a horse carriage with all sorts of goods and expensive items. As he was marveling at the town's liveliness he accidentally bumped into someone, startled, the person he bumped into turned around.
Sho bumped into a tall man that wore something similar to a butcher's get-up. Sleeves rolled up above the elbow, an apron that had a few stains on it. The man looked like he was around his thirties, he had almost no hair, but his beard was quite long. He looked down at him and smiled, Sho gulped down air down is throat as a bead of sweat slid down his cheek and down his chin.
"Haha! Well if it isn't Sho! Good to see you, little man!" The man laughed, Sho sighed in relief scratched the back of his head.
"Good evening, mister Connard.." Sho said awkwardly, giving a wry smile.
"What brings you here so late at night? Are you here with your uncle to come and sell a new batch of fresh wheat? No thanks, we've already got our hands full you see.."
"No! No! You see erm.. I'm actually going to buy something from your bakery, Uncle Kenji said that you were selling something special this week?"
"Haha! I see, Kenji has a keen eye when it comes to my bakery's specials. Come with me, I'll take you there."
The moon slowly began to rise high to the sky as Sho got closer to the town, he could see the bright lights from afar, the lively town was as busy as it would be in the daytime. Once he finally arrived he could see people walking around with friends or family having a nice time together.
He passed by a sign that had something inscribed. "Welcome to Woodstolve" which was the town's name. As he passed by the sign, he continued to enter the town and was greeted by bright lights and busy people, due to the number of people that were passing by the town because of it's connection to the other main roads the nightlife here was closely similar to some sort of festival.
Now walking on a more formal and paved stone path, Sho saw food stalls surrounded with hungry customers, merchants riding on a horse carriage with all sorts of goods and expensive items. As he was marveling at the town's liveliness he accidentally bumped into someone, startled, the person he bumped into turned around.
Sho bumped into a tall man that wore something similar to a butcher's get-up. Sleeves rolled up above the elbow, an apron that had a few stains on it. The man looked like he was around his thirties, he had almost no hair, but his beard was quite long. He looked down at him and smiled, Sho gulped down air down is throat as a bead of sweat slid down his cheek and his chin.
"Haha! Well if it isn't Sho! Good to see you, little man!" The man laughed, Sho sighed in relief scratched the back of his head.
"Good evening, mister Connard.." Sho said awkwardly, giving a wry smile.
"What brings you here so late at night? Are you here with your uncle to come and sell a new batch of fresh wheat? No thanks, we've already got our hands full you see.."
"No! No! You see erm.. I'm actually going to buy something from your bakery, Uncle Kenji said that you were selling something special this week?"
"Haha! I see, Kenji has a keen eye when it comes to my bakery's specials. Come with me, I'll take you there."
"Haha! Well if it isn't Sho! Good to see you, little man!" The man laughed, Sho sighed in relief scratched the back of his head.
"Good evening, mister Connard.." Sho said awkwardly, giving a wry smile.
"What brings you here so late at night? Are you here with your uncle to come and sell a new batch of fresh wheat? No thanks, we've already got our hands full you see.."
"No! No! You see erm.. I'm actually going to buy something from your bakery, Uncle Kenji said that you were selling something special this week?"
"Haha! I see, Kenji has a keen eye when it comes to my bakery's specials. Come with me, I'll take you there."
Sho followed Connard through the town, as they continued to walk for a good while now he could hear cheers of joy from everyone around him, whether it was friends at a bar or a family buying clothes and toys. Sho couldn't help but feel warm inside from all this happiness in one place.
"This town is really something.." He said to himself.
"We're here!" Connard said as he stretched his arms high up in the air.
When they arrived at the bakery there were already a large number of people there, it wasn't your typical indoor bakery, Connard recently arranged renovations for the bakery and now it's become one of the first of its kind with this type of design.
What separated the customers from the people working inside the bakery were a newly designed type of rack that had glass in front of the baked goods so it's open for everyone to see, without giving anyone the idea of stealing.
The more large and special kinds of baked goods such as pies and pastries had separated placements, they were all grouped according to their respective types, the pastries were all on the left while the large pies and more were on the right. The rack's top also served as the counter for where customers would pay for the baked goods and receive them.
The strong and pleasant aroma coming from the bakery attracted even more customers than the bakery was normally comfortable with. The new kilns that were built were connected to some sort of airway passage leading to the outside, causing all the aroma to spread around the area, though, it was intentional.
As the customers were all over the front of the bakery, Sho and Connard couldn't get near the entrance. Connard gave an awkward chuckle as they both watched the crowd, Sho sighed as he watched the customers move around like a school of anchovies in the ocean.
Connard patted him on the back and gave him a reassuring look,
"Don't worry, I'll make sure to make you a fresh batch of whatever you want myself." He said.
Sho sighed and let out a forced smile, "Thank you, mister Connard."
The moon was equal level to the level of height with the De Veue', and the dining room was as lively as ever, most of the kitchen staff tended to the guests at the dining room catering them with all kinds of exotic foods from many cities and towns. Everyone was wearing their best evening clothing, women wore extravagant and flashy evening gowns while the men wore their expensive clothing brands imported from different countries.
As usual, while everyone was conversing and socializing among their own social groups, Nelle was with the small girl in their own private room. The girl was drawing something with a pencil on a piece of paper, to Nelle, it looked like the girl didn't know what she was doing. Just mindlessly scribbling something on a blank piece of paper, but once the girl was done with it and showed her, she was actually quite surprised.
"Hey, it's not that bad actually." She said with amusement, Nelle half expected it to be bad but it turns out that the girl was actually quite good, what she drew was one of the birds that flew through the window when it was afternoon. Nelle thought to herself that the girl might have been thinking about them often. Thinking about flying, being free.
"No," She thought to herself. "No time to be sentimental." Nelle stood up and patted down her dress, she changed her formal work-like attire to a more elegant dark red evening gown.
The man in the yellow suit had told her to meet him at one of the tables in the dining room, and he was expecting her soon. Nelle left the room, but before she closed the door she looked at the girl.
"I promise, you'll be as free as the birds." She muttered under her breath, the girl thought she heard her say something, but she immediately closed the door and left.
At the dining room, Nelle arrived while everyone was busy socializing as they ate their meals, she looked around for the table where he was sitting at and noticed a man in a yellow suit along with two guards at the far right of the room, grabbing a plate of food from the catering.
She walks up to him and one of the bodyguards turned around to face Nelle, She looked at him, then the man in the yellow suit, signaling the bodyguard that she wanted to talk to him.
"Sir, she's here."
The man turned to face Nelle, he was holding a plate full of food. He quickly grabbed a small piece of meat and ate it. He pointed his hand to the direction of the table they were sitting at, "Come, let's talk." He said as he showed Nelle the way to their table.
Nelle followed from behind, they walked past a few tables before reaching their own. Nelle and the man sat down while the bodyguards remain standing, with the arms crossed.
"What happened earlier, I'll just pretend that never happened for your sake, miss Nelle. But please cooperate this time, we can't an opportunity like this be wasted."
A smile grew across his face as he picked up his glass full of wine on the table. Nelle crosser her legs under her table, her arms on the table, fingers intertwining with each other.
"Sir, the process would greatly put her at risk. Isn't there any way we could do it without doing it in such a dangerous way? She's just a child."
"Apologies miss Nelle, a high-risk high reward process is all we have right now."
She gritted her teeth, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath. There was no other option, she hoped that there wouldn't be any unnecessary conflict but there wasn't any other way.
"What if the project fails again? What will happen then?"
"Then we move to the next test subject. Simple."
She didn't expect such a cold, straightforward answer. But the project was their life's work, a chance for a new way of living for humanity. But the process wouldn't be easy. Nelle sighed and leaned forward, a look of determination on her face as a glint of light, enough to light a fire lit up inside her dark green eyes.
"Why don't we try a different subject? I'll give everything I have to find another suitable one."
"I'm sure I haven't told you this yet so I'll just tell you right now, but that girl has the highest potential out of all the others we've tried. That's not something you could easily find, I'm sure you know the numbers it took to get this far."
"But-"
"Lundmann. We're going through with this and that's final, there's no other way around it. So cooperate with me here please."
She lowered her head, nodding. She stood up from her chair and excused herself, "I'm going to the bathroom."
The man nodded as she walked off, walking to the far end exit of the dining room straight ahead. Once she left the area, the man took another sip of wine and laid back on his seat.
"Go after her, will you?" He ordered one of his bodyguards.
The bodyguarded followed after her and made his way through a hallway that connected the dining room to a viewing area, where the glass was thicker and bigger than the ordinary glass around the De' Veue.
A few people were sitting down while some were standing up and looking down from the glass, though Nelle was nowhere in sight. He started looking around for any sign of her, but there wasn't any luck.
He left the room and went through another hallway, it seemed darker than the usual hallways he passed through around the De' Veue. He continued walking further, the hallway continues to grow darker and darker.
Before he could continue any further, he felt a hard object hitting him in the head. Caught off guard, he falls on the floor as his vision began to blur, the last thing he could see before he lost consciousness was a woman wearing a dark red gown. The woman was saying something to her, he could make out the words 'Sorry about that' before he finally lost consciousness.
It was Nelle Lundmann, holding a broken pipe she found inside one of the maintenance rooms near the viewing room's left window. She dragged the unconscious bodyguard into the maintenance room and left him there. Before she left, she turned the light switches back on which was inside the maintenance room.
She quickly ran through a few hallways and past several rooms, making her way back to the private rooms. Once she made her way back, she quickly looked for the room where the girl was in.
Nelle quickly opened the door and entered inside, the girl wasn't there. She checked behind the door, and she wasn't there either. The bed was all messy, and there were papers scattered on the floor, and the pencil she used was crushed in half, and her drawing was all crumpled.
These were visible signs of struggle, Nelle's body started to shake in worry.
"Damn it... I'm too late.."
She quickly closed the door and left, running back to the dining room to see if they were still there. Unsurprisingly, they were gone. She groaned in frustration, she made her way to the table where they sat down talked, hoping the people sitting nearby had seen where they went.
Nelle walked up to a young girl wearing a silver glittering gown sitting down on one of the dining table's chairs with which was presumably her parents. The two of the parents looked exceptionally good looking, the mother, wore a dark violet gown while the father, wore a brown suit, with a flower inside the chest pocket.
"Excuse me," She said to the family. "Have you seen a man in a yellow suit leave the table over there by any chance?" She pointed to the table where he was.
"I believe he and another person came from your direction, with a small girl," He turned to the left and pointed to the direction of the hallway at the other side of the room. "Then went over there."
When she heard it from him, that he took the girl, she knew she had to hurry. "Thank you." She said before she dashed in the direction of the hallway.
She continued to run down the hallway, she could feel her brain pulsing from the stress like a heart. Sweat started pouring down her face as she continued to run, reaching the end of the hallway, there were two directions, left and right.
Turning to see which side had some sort of clue to help her identify which direction they went, she started looking at every little tiny detail in the area. She couldn't find anything.
In a hurry, she decided to take a breather. It was a 50/50 chance. There wasn't any sign or intention of harming the child when he talked to Nelle, and the likelihood of him inflicting any harm on the girl was unlikely.
The two hallways remained empty, no one passed by at all since she came. The only thing she could hear was the noise coming from behind, which was just the people in the dining room talking.
"I'll just take the right then." She said to herself.
Running at a slow pace, she made her way down the hallway. She had arrived at some stairs leading down towards the lower part of the De Veue' where the workers were located.
There was no sound, the silence deafening her ears. With a shaky breath, heart pounding, she made her way down the stairs. The metal stairs made a clanking sound each step she took. Once she got off the stairs, she looked around the room.
It was a maze of hallways, she decided to walk into the one straight ahead, but before she could go any further she heard a shout for help. "Miss Nelle! Anyone! Please help me!" A familiar voice cried out from the left hallway.
Her eyes widened, she quickly dashed to the left hallway towards her voice. She shouted once more, louder and closer than earlier.
"Let go of me! Someone! Please!"
Nelle started running faster. The shouts continue to sound closer and closer, before she could continue further something from the corner of her eye emerges. A large man, one of the man's bodyguards.
Too fast to stop herself, she ran headfirst into him. He was holding something in his hands. It looked like some sort of black sack.
The man caught her in his arms, Nelle tries to break free but the man was too strong to budge. Then, the man covered her head with the sack he was holding. She tried to scream, but it was muffled by the sack around her head.
"A pleasant surprise, Lundmann. Fancy seeing you here." A voice in front of Nelle said. It was none other than the man in the yellow suit.
"I don't think you're supposed to be here, this is a worker only area you see. But it just so happens that no one is around."
"Did you really think that I would let you run off away with her? I'm not that stupid." He laughed. Under the sack, Nelle roared in anger, as she tried to escape the bodyguard's arms.
"Take her to the storage room, make sure she's nowhere near the girl." He said as he walked away, heading back up the stairs.
Before he disappeared into the distance, he turned to look at Nelle, sighing.
"If only you followed orders, it didn't have turn out like this." He said, starting to walk away again.
"I'll get you for this!" Nelle screamed but was too muffled for him to hear. She could feel a hard force hit the back of her head. She instantly went unconscious shortly after, then the bodyguard carried her away.