Searching For Andromeda 53 Midnight's Weapon

"What makes you . . . worthy?"

Samuel has thought of this many times over the years. Worth. He was a genius. How can someone ask him something like worth? Usually, he retorted with a sarcastic quip. Why would someone ask him such an absurd question, anyway? He was Samuel Albrecht; a boy with enhanced memory and a remarkable retention rate. The only enigma is the query of why he isn't more famous. He was a young man who had carried research to success. He was a pride of their generation, surely. That's what the professors told him. And that was what he had believed himself.

"Narcissist," says the necromorph—"you sociopathic narcissist."

"H-how in the world . . . are you talking . . . ?" Samuel exclaims. "V-vashti? No . . . Berthold . . . ?" Samuel couldn't believe what he was seeing. Vashti's sewn face to the necromorph slowly forms into that of Berthold. He couldn't avert his eyes off it, even for a second—

"Snap out of it," says Arletha, as her eyes slowly regained color. "It's tricking us."

"What?" Samuel then blinks and faces Arletha. Did he drift off to his thoughts while being confronted with a hideous monster? And by a hideous monster—Samuel glanced back at the necromorph, seeing the face was yet again Vashti's. Samuel narrowed his eyes. For a moment, he was certain he saw Berthold's face replacing its face. Was he hallucinating?

"It's using Vashti," says Arletha. "And it's all an illusion."

The necromorph whined and growled after hearing such sentiment. It crawled forward with its ma.s.sive claws striking to the floorboards repeatedly while it tries to close the distance between them.

"Watch out!" Samuel exclaims as the floorboard underneath started to collapse. Arletha barely eluded its talons, scarcely even how she landed to her feet beside Sam. The floor corroded with a snap—like that of a twig breaking—and then it quick escalated to a ma.s.sive corrosion; the whole enchilada seemed to be opened an aperture of a deeper, darker shawl of yet another chasm. But at this time what awaited Samuel wasn't the unknown abyss. Instead, underneath them was exactly what ginormous clock towers had.

Gears.

Gigantic, ginormous gears.

"Sam!" It was Arletha's voice—below them were the extensive gears, and a spiraling stair down below. Arletha soon grabbed Samuel's hand and without saying anything she hopped and jumped beneath.

**

Samuel woke up with the distinct sound of metal grinding against each other in a rhythmic, systematic pattern. He instantly opened his eyes and then stood upwards. He then noticed Arletha standing in front of him—continuously shooting her arrow to the necromorph slowly ambling towards them.

They were now inside the clocktower with only the enormous, moving gears and the fragrance of oil wafting against the air to enamor their senses. They were standing on a bridge. And judging from the trajectory of the large spoon-like chime - a bob - akin to those in pendulum grandfather clocks atop them, they weren't exactly in a good place to stand.

The two of them were slowly backing out while the necromorph still continued to approach them. The arrows in its body were now being pushed back like maggots being squished out of a phlegm-infested skin. The necromorph's flesh looked more gangrenous inside now, especially with all the arrows tearing out its epidermis.

The bridge had two, moving gears on each side. Arletha and Samuel continued to back away knowing this fact in their mind. It wouldn't be good to get closer to the dead end.

"Dammit," Arletha cursed under her breath. What should they do now?

"C-can't we just leap down again?" Samuel asks. "With that shoe of yours. I see there are the stairs down below,"

"I can't," Arletha mutters. "My mana is almost depleted."

And that was when Samuel noticed Arletha panting and sweating profusely. Her face was also pale, and her complexion took a hundred and eighty degrees turn. Her tan skin looked more livid. She seemed blue.

Samuel looked upwards, to think of something—to conjure an idea from his head. But now in times like this, it proves he was less of a genius than he originally thought.

And then he sees the giant, spherical weight from above.

"Arletha," Samuel says. "is it nearing midnight?"

Arletha panted whilst she shot the arrows. Through her ragged breath, she replies: "What? Why? B-but yeah, it's almost midnight!"

"I think I figured a way to kill the monster," Samuel says. "How long will it take until the clock strikes midnight?"

"any moment now!" Says Arletha. "But the time in the dungeon is completely unpredictable! You won't know when the clock will start to hit 12 o' clock!"

"So it's a game of chance then?" Samuel says as he glances upwards.

Clock pendulums are usually made of a weight or bob attached to the bottom end of a rod, with the top attached to a pivot so it can swing. They are usually made of a dense metal such as iron or bra.s.s. Lead is denser but is usually avoided because of its softness, which would result in the bob being dented during its inevitable collisions with the inside of the clock case when it moves.

In this case, the weight will hit both of the gears at each side of the bridge.

Samuel stares at the giant pendulum bob from above. At any moment now it can move and undoubtedly kill all of them. Regardless of this fact, they don't stand a chance to the necromorph. Arletha's mana is dropping at every second. Samuel didn't have to ask around every single thing—it was painstakingly obvious what mana is, after all.

Arletha dropped to her knees. She heaved; panting heavily as the sweat dripped across her forehead down to the floor.

"Arletha!" Samuel exclaims as he helps her back to her feet.

"Vashti . . ." she says. "Vashti is dead, isn't she?"

"No, Arletha," says Sam. "She isn't dead. You said it yourself. That monster created an illusion."

Arletha bit her lips and then breathed heavily. Samuel glances back to the monster who had whined and whimpered. It was coming closer towards them at a terrifying distance—closing the s.p.a.ce as the two meets their impending death.

And then the sound came in. The first bell.

A minute until midnight strikes in.

Luck—coincidence—or fate as it may have been, Samuel was relieved. Even momentary ease in the slight peek of hope would do him a favor. But that chime did not mean they were safe from midnight's weapon. The pendulum bob would most likely strike at any minute and will take them along with the monster.

"Arletha," says Samuel. "Can you still leap?"

"I can," says Arletha through her breathless gasps. "But I don't think . . . I'll . . . be conscious right . . . after."

"That's completely fine," Samuel says. "I'll carry you!"

"What?" Arletha frowned. "N-no, Youngling—save yourself—"

Samuel placed his hand around Arletha's shoulder.

"Do you trust me?" Samuel says.

Before Arletha could answer, Samuel's peripheral caught the rod of the pendulum bob coming towards them. He grabbed Arletha's wrist as quick as he could, and then he—out of instinct to protect—enveloped Arletha to his grasp. And in Samuel's electric blue eyes he saw.

He saw the midnight's weapon sweeping off the enemy with a repeated, heavy bang against the gear; the sound was now distorted and had messed rhythm because of the necromorph joining the pendulum bob.

The crimson-red liquid splattered all over that very bridge he and Arletha once stood to—and with the bob stopping shortly, its weight started to drip with wine-red, poison blood.

Samuel wished the horrors would stop only with that pendulum . . . with midnight's weapon.

CLANG.

But . . . it didn't.