SHACKLES

By: Murasaki Dokugi

Mechamato belongs to Monsta

Little nightmare belongs to Tarsier Studio


The room's atmosfer were gloomy. Only the rays from one lamp illuminated it. At the center of the light beam stood a standard-sized rectangular table in cream white colour with two chairs which also has the same colour. Two figures were seen sitting face to face on both sides of the table. They're playing checkers.

"Your turn." One of them murmured. He's wearing a hat over his head. His yellow eye rolled towards his friend. His friend–who's also his checkers game opponent–let out a long sigh while sliding one of his checkers pawn to the upper right side, eating one of the yellow-eye's pawns.

"It's seems you are not too excited to play this time," murmured the yellow eyed one. "How about we continue play the game tomorrow?"

His friend smiled slightly. "It's okay. I'm just feel a bit tired. After all, we haven't played this game for a long time. Let's continue."

The yellow-eyed one looked at his friend with a curious look. "If you want to tell a story, don't hesitate. You can tell your story while we playing this checkers."

The friend chuckled. "You can read my mind, i guess. Okay, you win. I was thinking about something."

The yellow eyed one in the hat were silent. It's not unusual for his friend to be a little sensitive like this. He often looks relaxed. So if he decides to speak about his problem, it's very likely that the topic is a very serious thing.

"It's about Hilir Town, no?"

"More or less."

The yellow eyed one in the hat shifted one of his pawns to the front left, eating one of his opponent's pawns. "From the beginning I have known that you have such an interest in the town, but your reasons always sounds oblivious. Do you want to make it clear?"

His checkers opponent shifted one of his checker pieces forward. "Transmission tower," he said flatly.

"Ah." The yellow eyed in the hat were shocked for a moment. "I didn't expect you would talk to me about such things. It's about that 'boy', isn't he?"

"It could be him. But if you want to be more specific, this one had to do with the problem between me and The Mistress."

"Ah yes. The lady. She's an accomplice to one of the great enemies of the universe."

"Sometimes I thought my life wasn't so free. I'm free, but I'm not really free. I've a great power as long as there's technology around me, but I don't know... I'm kind of shackled."

"Like your 'friend of the same fate''? Mr. Thinma–"

"Silence, Tass."

"Ah– sorry, my bad."

His friend laughed bitterly. "Locked up, couldn't get out, no friends, got betrayed... It might seems that I'm free, not like my 'friend' who are like always resigned to his fate. I've escaped from the mistress and the shackles of the transmission tower she used on me and my home planet. But well... As I said earlier, I still feel shackled, not free."

Tass gave a look of sympathy to his friend. "I think with you changing some parts of your body into synthetics like mine, you're free. But it turns out that lady was still able to–"

"Well– You're right, Tass. If you want some kind of example, I have come out of prison, but the chain of that prison still shackles my hands and feet, even though I've come out from the prison."

"That's... terrible."

"Heh– you knew it."

Tass leaned his back against his chair. "So what are you planning to do next? Don't tell me you're planning to doing crimes like I do, such as stealing kid's paintings" he said with a laugh.

His friend smiles. "Soon I will make it clear when the time is right. For now, let's finish our checkers game first."

"Hah– typical."

The lights above them remained bright, enough to accompanying the two friends to playing their checkers board game in the middle of that dark room.


-END-