Zavier almost choked on his saliva as he waved the thick puff of dust around him with the rag in his hand. He got down from the ladder, coughing and patting himself on the chest with one hand and leaning on his left knee with the other. The elastic band holding his black hair up in a pigtail snapped
For probably reasons unrelated to Zavier's current state
. His shoulder-length hair fell to the sides of his face and some strands were caught in the stream of sweat that ran down his temples.
“Did Donald ever clean here at all?” He puzzled, recovering.
It was Zavier's shift. Before that, the so-called Donald had been the one in charge of cleaning the same room Zavier was currently standing in—The underground floor. Zavier previously handled the sprucing-up affairs of the gigantic clock tower's middle floors above. Now, he was left to take care of the negligence of another man.
The underground floor was, in order words, a storage room, for all sorts—map drawings, paintings, shelves, old grandfather clocks, and every other thing needed to be stored in the clock tower. No one really understood why the storage room had to be cleaned everyday, they just did the job anyway—except some people who neither see the use of dusting away at shelves and bells in a storage nor do it.
Zavier also harboured such thoughts, but he used to doing what he was told to. It was his fatherland after all. He wasn't doing it for free either.
He climbed the ladder again and resumed dusting the cabinets. After ridding the wooden shelves of at least ninety percent of the dirt, Zavier picked up the bucket of polish and began to work on them.
There was still a long way to go, he knew. Cleaning the large room would take the whole day. As Zavier tried to get off 6 foot ladder, he missed his footing and fell, crash-landing on the heavy floor boards. It however, didn't stop there. As soon as Zavier made contact with them, two of the boards flipped over, sending him tumbling down a flight of steps underneath.
What was happening?
Zavier couldn't process what was going on. He held quickly onto the rusty railings, stopping his header before he'd sustain a fatal injury.
He sniffled, looking back up at where he had fallen from as if to confirm if it was truly from there. The floorboards above were still flipped over, releasing a long stream of light down the steps. Zavier looked back down and walked further down, instinctively. How could he end up here and not want to find out what it was? Was it another room he was to clean or was something being hidden there?
While he descended the steps, his heart was thumping in his chest, unsure of what to expect. His bones ached from the fall he had. His hands ran down the railings alongside his legs. The reflection of light grew fainter and fainter the more he headed down.
“Ba-bump, ba-bump," sang his heart in his ears, increasing in pitch the lower he went.
It was when Zavier reached the landing he properly felt the pain in his left ankle. It was a sprain. That didn't stop him though.
There was a huge door to his right, disguised as a wall, but Zavier could clearly see it wasn't.
Black. Suspicious. Old.
Should I? Should I not? He quizzed, not knowing what he would meet on the other side. Zavier pushed the door with all his might, resting his weight on his right leg. The door budged, flipping over like the floorboards had done.
The space was darker now, but he could see a very faint light in the distance. He stepped in and observed where he was, holding up the door with both his hands. He had started sweating because he didn't know whether to just go back up or satisfy his inquisitiveness. What if he was never going to come back up?
Zavier was scared to let go of the door. What if he dropped it shut and he couldn't flip it from the other side again? Zavier changed his mind and tried to turn back, carefully holding the heavy door over his head. The ground failed him yet again, giving way for his legs to slip. He loses his hold on the door and falls down a few steps.
Another passageway? Zavier was probably going to end up breaking all his bones before everything ended. Luckily, he didn't slip too far. He got back on his feet and went went down the steps in the same manner he had earlier.
Guided by the faint light from somewhere down, he reached the landing. Of course Zavier looked to his right again, sure there was another door. There was a green glow creeping from different sides of the door. With a huge sigh of preparation, he pushed the door again.
Zavier's irises shone green from the light, he could see fairly well how the room looked. It was empty, save the green light on the wall. Zavier looked carefully at the floor, just in case there was something else waiting to drag him down. He slowly took his hands off the door and surprisingly, the door didn't drop. It was just hanging horizontally over his head.
If he knew, he would have just left the other door too.
“What is this place?” Zavier asked aloud and scanned every corner with his eyes as he walked slowly in. It was empty. His fear subsided a little. He looked back at the door, to be sure it was still hanging open. His adrenaline couldn't be put to rest just yet.
Moving closer, he could see that the source of the illumination was from a small cavity on the wall. Zavier instinctively put his hand over it, blocking its shine a little. Zavier couldn't tell exactly what it was, but it looked like a perfectly round emerald.
“Holy lights!” Zavier marvelled.
“Is this it?” He asked no one.
Zavier had heard stories, that about centuries ago, stolen jewels were hidden in different parts of the clock tower, but nobody ever found them. Zavier never believed such stories because if there were infact jewels hidden there, someone would have found at least one while cleaning or tending to the affairs of the tower.
He had just been proven wrong, there was one right in front of him. As Zavier leaned further to see, he heard a noise from outside and jumped, trotting back to the entrance to see if anyone was there. He turned back at the object, deciding he was going to pretend he didn't see anything.
Zavier flipped the door back down and headed up the stairs, repeating the same for the second door. He climbed back into the storage room and flipped the floorboards back to their position.
“Are you well?” Came a voice startling Zavier. He turned and saw Donald peeking his head through the door.
“Ah! Yes!” Zavier responded, getting quickly to his feet.
“I see you've not been doing a fine job down here,” he added, trying not to sound awkward or suspicious.
Donald shrugged and shut the door, leaving Zavier to recover
****
“I am…I am fine. Hmm…,” Diana struggled, fighting the pain that surged through her veins. Her face was pale and her pretty amber eyes were sunken with illness. Her lower eyelids bore the weight of fatigue, resting on the dark circles beneath them. Her skin shrunk continually everyday, revealing the green veins underneath—mostly on the back of her hands.
Diana's sickness had reared its head six months before, for the first time in her thirty years. It had been so terrible that they had to sell everything they had to fund her treatment. Diane recovered a month after her treatment, only for the unwanted visitor to return again. They followed cheap measures to take care of her health from then on, because there was just no money anymore.
She would take herbal concoctions whenever she was sick, enjoy the relief she felt afterwards, and hope the sickness won't return. But this night, Diane was struck down to her sick bed harder than before.
Tears rolled down the corner of her eyes into her ears, as she tried to hear the suffering. Altho her vision was blurred, she could see her crying husband pounding the herbs relentlessly in the bowl. He was suffering too, because how could he not?
Zavier raised his face from the bowl locking eyes with his wife. His eyes were red and swollen from crying, and his heart churned for the sake of the love they shared. She was looking at him, but he knew she could barely see him. He cried again and pounded harder with frustration.
“Zavier? Are you crying?”
Zavier swallowed his tears, sniffling back his running nose ever so silently.
“No, I'm not," he lied.
“Liar," Diana whimpered.
“That's enough. Save the little strength you have for your medicine. I'm almost done preparing it,” he told her, draining the herbal juice with a sieve.
Zavier lifted his wife's head, using his thighs as cushion. He brought the cup to her mouth and fed her the medicine. She groaned a little before sipping the medicine slowly. Diane coughed heavily and splattered the contents in her mouth. Zavier held a napkin over her mouth, securing her cough. When he took the napkin from her mouth, he saw that she had coughed up blood.
Zavier couldn't hold back anymore, he burst out, weeping like a child. Although, she didn't know she was coughing up blood, hearing Zavier's sobs, her pain doubled.
“I'm fine,” she told him again.
“You're obviously not!" He sobbed, wiping her tears.
“I'll get you treated by any means. You just hold out till the day breaks,” he added, even though he was unsure of how that would happen.
“If I say I have hope, I'll be the biggest liar. There's hardly enough to eat, so I know I can't promise myself any proper treatment. Like always, I'll get better after getting proper sleep. Please stop worrying.”
Zavier said nothing. The memory from earlier at the clock tower crept back into his head.
The emerald! Yes, that was it! The hope!
After putting Diana to sleep that midnight, Zavier left the house with only one place in mind—that room. He brisk walked a while and ran the rest of the journey. When he stood right on front of the three hundred feet building, his heart drummed fast and hard. Whether it was because he had ran all the way there or because of what he was about to do, Zavier wasn't sure.
He was familiar with how the security guards did their patrol every night, so it was easy to pass under their noses. In no time he was in the underground room. Zavier took out his torch from his pocket and surveyed the room, trying to remember which of the floorboards it was. He stomped on them gently, not wanting make a noise. But it was no use.
“I have to do this once and for all,” he told himself, turning around. There it was, the ladder. He moved it to the large shelf by the corner and climbed right to the top of it without any hindering thoughts. He heaved a sigh and jumped down, sending the floorboards flipping down the stairway. He didn't fall too far this time, but his ankle hurt much more than earlier.
Zavier didn't smile when he saw the emerald sitting in its place. There was no time to smile. He took out the small bag he had with him and held the torch with the same hand. Zavier didn't flinch when he pulled on the object. It was hard at first, but it came off after a few more tries. Now that it was in his hand, it was a lot heavier than it looked.
It didn't really resemble an emerald now that he held it. How would he know anyway? He hadn't seen one before. He stuffed it in his bag and headed quickly out.
Soon, he was on the road to his house, running as fast as he could. Cold sweat broke out of his skin and his head pounded. Although, Zavier felt a heavy burden on his chest after leaving the tower, he ignored it, convincing himself that he had only stolen an already stolen object to save his dying wife.
Zavier's legs grew weary with every contact with the ground, his sprain was becoming more and more unbearable. His leg soon failed him, sending him crashing heavily to the ground. Zavier stood up quickly and endured till he got home.
Diana was there, sleeping peacefully. He knew she wasn't dead yet because he could hear her breathing. A smile crept to his lips as he took the bag off his shoulder. But his smile soon faded like vapour from a kettle of boiling water.
The bag was empty!
