"It is simple, Melvin. I just want you to give me something that you have. When I get it, I will let you and your people go and we will never meet again from then on."
"Something in my hand?" Melvin hissed. "If it's money, I am not worth all this trouble."
"Money?" The enemy laughed. "We have an abundance of that useless paper. What we want is something else."
Just get on with it, you fat bitch, I screamed inwardly. The man was annoyingly windy with how he spoke, and his voice was distastefully slow. I didn't know if he was fat, though—I just pictured the man that way.
"What we want is a book in your hand."
"A book?" I paused, stopping just before typing my final code into the laptop. "What kind of book?"
"It is a book you borrowed from your Orphanage Library in 2018, January 1st. You never returned that book to the library, and after 2020 december, you left your Orphanage in India and left for Japan. And now, after failing to become an animator in Japan, you are living in United States in a little known area, in some sort of small one bedroom apartment and making a living. You last called 3 months ago, 2024 January, to get help from the orphanage for a loan, and from then on, you haven't called. At least, that is what we learned from the records in your Orphanage."
It was spot on. Melvin had a habit of lying, but he didn't ever lie to Cecilia—his Orphanage Mother. And that idiot had written everything he said to her through their own secret contact into the orphanage files.
Like any responsible person would, he thought. She must have wanted to make sure he was always taken care of. If something happened to him in a foreign world and no one knew who he was, they would have trouble even taking him into a hospital.
But since Cecilia recorded him into the details of the orphanage, if something happened to him while he was in the US, they would be the first ones to get the call. He might be irresponsible—removing his data recklessly from all databases—but they were not.
And the book they want… it's probably that one.
He dug his hand into the drawers and pulled out a dusty book with a golden dragon logo embedded into its thick, dark cover. It was heavy enough that he needed both hands to put it on his table.
"It's been years," Melvin said to the phone. "I don't even remember a book that I borrowed six years ago anymore. I don't think anyone would remember."
The man's voice turned icy cold. "Then, according to protocol, we would just have to annihilate this orphanage before we leave. Now, I will ask again. Do you know where the book is?"
Melvin felt cold sweat drip down his forehead but at the same time, the code he was working on in his laptop had completed itself.
He licked his lips as the footage came through.
It was a cctv camera footage from the orphanage's building, but everything in the footage was dark. He gritted his teeth. These people were serious men—they had disabled all the cameras in the building. But he inwardly sighed in relief, they had disabled all the cameras… except for one.
"Wait, I don–." Melvin hissed.
"There is no waiting, Melvin. Tell me, do you know where the book is?"
"I have some ideas but I need some time to search for it." He added: "If it's just for a random book, you didn't have to go this far. I would have given it to you for money."
"We couldn't risk that. What if you learned how valuable that book is and decided to not give it? Or make its information public?" The man spoke calmly. "Now, you couldn't do that. Not when your only loved ones in this world are in our hands as hostage."
Indeed, that was true. If his family weren't in danger, he would have coveted a valuable treasure. He didn't really know what the real worth of this book was, but he had always known it was valuable. It had letters written in real gold starting from a certain page, after all. If someone demanded it, he would understand it was more valuable than some money and would surely escape with it.
With his family on the line though, he couldn't care less about the book.
"You guys are thorough," Melvin said. "Let me see if I have it."
"You have half an hour to check and tell us about the book—but know that I hate negative answers. And your family wouldn't like a negative answer from you either."
"…"
"And if I were you, I would never contact the police. If I didn't want to read about my family's corpses, that is."
The call was cut from the other side.
Melvin felt his body itself steam metaphorically.
30 minutes of time to plan before calling them again. That was more time than Melvin expected. He rubbed his nose and tapped into the only camera that was still active.
The terrorists had removed all the other cameras from the orphanage, but this one had remained safe. Obviously because they didn't know about it.
A footage opened up.
It was a silent bathroom with clean white tiles, a bathtub, a shower, and a bunch of feminine clothes strewn around.
This camera was one of his and Cecilia's secret, not even recorded in the orphanage books. Yes, he and Cecilia shared a lot of secrets together. Even though she had rejected him, he had seen her nude more than once.
Melvin briefly reminisced the past.
It was an evening and he was in Cecilia's room, cleaning an old camera and taking photos of her paintings. She was a good artist. Then, it happened. From her attached bathroom, she walked out, barefeet wet, landing gently on the floor.
He turned and stared at her, then, he became enamored with her naked, surprised figure. Her hair, long, wet, and dark glistened in the sunlight that filtered in through the glass window. Her breasts, perky with pinkness standing proudly at the top, and her eyes, blue and filled with surprise.
Her overall, naked figure right out of the bathroom was glamour itself.
She truly made him blank out.
And in his enamored silence, he brought the camera up and clicked a photo. She was a good artist, but she was also the better art.
She blushed, but remained still. He took more photos of her naked self, smiled, and went closer to her, then he kissed her cheek, and with a giddy heart, got out of the room.
She muttered a curse, but didn't berate him.
Melvin smiled. His heart had beat like wild that day, even into the night, all he could think of was her naked, surprised figure.
Then he thought of another day.
When he was setting up the entire orphanage with cameras for security reasons, he entered her room with a security camera and she just stared at him with that same old blush.
He handled things like cameras in the orphanage due to being the overwhelming best person when it came to tech in the whole place, and she knew he would come to her room at least just to tease her.
He could set up a camera in her room after all!
Yes, he had gone to her to tease her by saying he would do that. Right infront of her, he set up the camera, not in her bedroom but in her bathroom. She blushed, her cute, caramel face red like a tomato. And unlike his expectations, she didn't even ask him to get rid of it. And thus, the camera ended up in that unexpected place. No one knew about it, and no one used the place except for Cecilia. And with her silent approval, he was allowed to watch when she bathed.
And he watched whenever he got the chance.
Cecilia was too cute.
She showed him much throughout the last few years that the camera was active. In fact, he didn't frequently call the orphanage because he listened to her speak to the camera once every few days.
Just yesterday, she had chastised him about not sending money to the orphanage while naked. She had grown used to it, and he always teased her for that when he really did call.
Melvin sighed.
In fact, he planned to visit the place in a year or two when he was rich enough, and take Cecilia away in style. She had rejected him but that was only in words.
She was not a nun and she was getting old enough to wed. She was 26 this year and Melvin was 22, they were both ready for each other.
Except the fly that had now landed in their perfect soup made Melvin panicked.
At least, due to their secret bathroom camera being a secret, it wasn't removed.
When the camera inside the bathroom came on, Melvin stared into the screen silently. The bathroom had changed slightly.
Through a small hole at the top of the door, he saw an horrifying sight inside the orphanage. Usually, the bathroom camera could not see outside the bathroom, but it was now possible.
The outside was reflected in a mirror that was placed perfectly.
That mirror hadn't been there before.
Cecil, my smart lady, Melvin calmed down inwardly.
She must have kept the mirror there because she knew it would help him see outside her room with the camera within her bathroom.
Looking more, the horrifying sight made Melvin clench his teeth in a bit of discomfort. A bloody corpse laid outside Cecilia's room.
It was not anyone he knew, but a muscular man in a metal mask. He seemed to have been ravaged by beasts with his arm and legs completely torn apart.
An internal conflict among those terrorists? He guessed.
It was a disgusting sight, and the fact that such things were happening in his orphanage made Melvin see red.
And through the reflection in the mirror, he saw someone sit inside Cecilia's the room, looking at her paintings, leaning against Melvin's own chair, with a telephone in his hand. Twirling its wire with a hand, it was a young, handsome male with the tattoo of an eastern dragon on his forehead.
As his heartbeat quickened, Melvin also noticed Cecilia and some of the sisters from the orphanage huddled up in the corner of the room. They had tear streaks on their faces when he closely examined them, but were otherwise largely unharmed. Cecilia seemed to be hiding her hand in a cloth, though, and that made Melvin a bit worried.
He moved his gaze reluctantly.
Another man, this one fat indeed, kept the women at bay by aiming a gun to their heads. It must be the one named Miguel.
Now that Melvin got a good sight of all of the important things, he once again moved his gaze to the women. He noticed a red spot near Cecilia's hand.
She was bleeding from her hand.
She had been hurt.
That must have been why she screamed.
I can't see if the orphanage kids are safe, Melvin sighed, suppressing the cold rage in his heart. I have to save them all.