128 (Operation Armageddon: Book 1)

Chapter Eight: The Traitor | Part 2

Megan didn't have any sudden reactions, although she wished she could protest violently. If only she wasn't dehydrated and drained of her energy. "Matthew... I swear..." she attempted to persuade him, still feeling lightheaded. "It's... it's not me...."

"It's not you? Then who else could it be?" he argued back. "It obviously isn't Daniel, and I know myself that it isn't me!"

"What if... what if Daniel..." she paused again. "Daniel is the traitor... and he..." she groaned. "He went to... get something to... kill us together?"

"What are you implying? I bet this is all an act! I can't believe I trusted you and befriended you, Megan. Five years... of lies!" he retaliated angrily before grabbing the last water bottle on the grass. It still retained some of the water, which didn't flow out. Matthew took the bottle and left Megan alone as a result.

"Matthew..." she gasped, holding up her hand towards the image of him dashing away just as Daniel did. "Don't... leave. I'm... innocent..." she begged before passing out.

As Matthew pursued Daniel, who had run away towards the eastern area of the manor complex, he hoped to be able to explain everything. He knew that he would pass by Emma's body on the ground, which they had wrapped with a cloth earlier in the day. Soon, he really did pass by the body. He tried to resist the urge to look at it, but he still turned to glance at it.

He thought the cloth looked a little flatter, but then again, the body could have shrunk over time. He got a closer look, curious, and noticed that the cloth wasn't just flatter. It was flattened.

He stepped closer, his hands shaking as he feared what he anticipated to see. Hesitating at first, he refused to do anything with the piece of fabric on the ground. Nonetheless, he eventually made up his mind to check Emma's body for himself. He reached down for the cloth, and on the count of three, he lifted it.

Only to see Emma's body gone.

He gasped in shock, wondering who would have wanted to do this to her resting place. He scrutinised the area. There were scratch marks on the ground. The creature must have taken away her body, he thought, until he made another realisation.

"What?" he shrieked aloud when he saw the creature's body on the ground nearby. In addition, the sledgehammer it carried around occasionally was missing. "What's going on?" he asked himself, quivering in both fear and confusion.

The place was messing with him, or as he thought. Matthew then walked into Emma's cabin to check on something. The door creaked open as he pushed it. Her cabin was colder than the rest since the heater wasn't working. He wondered how she could rest in such a cold temperature—while she was still alive, that is.

Nothing was unusual. Until he noticed a black cloth sticking out of the closet. He opened the closet door, revealing a dirtied black jacket, black pants, and black boots. Behind the closet was another door, which opened to a tunnel. Matthew stood utterly stunned when he realised that the tunnel was the same one the mole dressed in black used to escape in. He instantly knew what was going on.

Emma was far from dead; she was the mole.

He whipped out his walkie-talkie, quivering nervously as he desperately attempted to contact his friends. "Dan! Meg!" he spoke into it. "Emma's not dead! She's the mole!"

There was no response to his horror. Matthew desperately added, "Please respond! I'm at Emma's cab—" before getting cut off by a door creaking noise and multiple footsteps.

Then the figure behind him stopped as a syringe was held beside his arm. "I'm sorry, Matthew..." a feminine voice whispered from behind before the person stabbed the needle into him and sent him into a temporary coma...