Loch cottage

At the duck, down the cliff of Loch cottage, Xhemin sat impatiently. She held tight on edge of the wood flooring where she sat while her two legs were submerged in the water. The water down the loch was cold, but there was nothing colder than the fact they just buried a friend.

​​

Xhemin looked down and saw her big belly, she's nearly seven months pregnant and few weeks from now she'll give birth to another Lagdameo heir. Problem was that, her baby's father was gone and until now, she had grown no feelings for the child inside her as if she was still in denial of the fact that she was pregnant. Xhemin knew her feelings toward the child was wrong, but she doesn't know anything about pregnancy and motherhood as she had never known a mother ever since. She grew up with no mother figure around to guide her and to show her what motherly love was.

Xhemin touched her belly and for the first time in the past few months, she talked to the child inside her. "I'm sorry" She whispered. "You came at the time that my life was a big mess, but this is not your fault. It was no one's fault. But no matter what, I'll take responsibility for you as I had always been,"

What she said was true, despite the fact that she didn't know how to treat the baby inside her, she had always made sure she was healthy and was eating enough for the child.

Xhemin was still caressing her belly when she noticed a motorboat approaching. It was Ziggy and he went to check the down the Loch to see whether Xhemin's suspicion was right. Reaching the duck, Xhemin ran to welcome him with a dry towel as he settled the motorboat at the edge.

"Was I right?" Xhemin asked and noticed that Ziggy's face cannot be painted. Right then she knew there was something he had found down there that had got him thinking through.

Ziggy sighed deep as he looked at Xhemin tremendously. Right then, a cold breeze disturbed both of them and Ziggy chilled as he was all wet down to the bottom. He immediately grabbed Xhemin's towel and covered himself with it.

"Ziggy?" Xhemin called for him because it seemed that he was too confused to spare her some attention. Annoyed and impatient, Xhemin raised a voice at him, her two hands at her waist. "Ziggorioh, tell me this instant what you had seen down there,"

"Its there! Its' there!" Ziggy exclaimed messing up his wet hair with his two fingers frustratedly. He had been wondering how and why the La Agartha was there, but nothing was coming to him. "All of it. The 75 pieces were all there!"

"It's there?" Xhemin was in awe, lines crossed at her head with such information. "So, I was right, whoever stole the La Agartha hid it down the loch,"

"That not all," Ziggy hollered, wiping the wetness from his face. "There's more than just having the La Agartha down there,"

Xhemin's got more curious, "What is it?"

"I don't know if all these is a good thing Xhem or not, but seriously these are not just giving me chills, its also blowing my mind out," Ziggy confessed looking distressed over the fact.

"Just tell me," Xhemin encouraged and went in front of the boy.

Ziggy swallowed a mouthful as if things were too much for him, "The 75 stolen pieces are not only there…they also stood on that same exact location where Huzey planned them to be…Huzey's underwater museum was already down below, half finished. The only thing that's missing was the other 25 pieces that hasn't been stolen yet…"

"What?" Xhemin gasped baffled with what Ziggy revealed, "How come? Do you mean somebody—"

"Somebody had been making Huzey's museum below, exactly as what he planned and wanted," Ziggy completed her words. Both Xhemin and him saw the blueprint Huzey made for the underwater museum he wanted and so they were very familiar on how it should look like when finished. They also knew all the details of where each of the hundred pieces of human size museum should stand as they planned them together with Huzey.

"Ziggy how could that be possible?" Xhemin thoughts was still recovering from bewilderment. "The blueprint is safe in Richmond Ranch and as far as I could remember only the three of us know how the underground museum should look like…. Or perhaps it was the foreign teacher who did it,"

'To foreign teacher never made it to the underwater site," Ziggy told her, "Huzey told me they retreated even before they could reach the site because the foreign teacher had an accident. Huzey did not show him any blueprint too so it was not possible that it was him,"

"If that's the case only three of us could have possibly done this," Xhemin concluded. "You, me or Huzey. Both of us did not made this for sure so the one whose left was Huzey,"

"Huzey's dead," Ziggy reminded him, "and that's why this blew me off. I could not comprehend how and why did someone made an underground museum exactly just how Huzey planned it and worst, we had stolen La Agartha pieces down there!"

"Was the last stolen piece right there?" Xhemin asked, trying to connect some dots.

"Yes. All seventy-five, including the new ones," Ziggy replied, this time he calmed down and his breathing became steady unlike previously.

"When did the last piece get stolen again?"

"Last night, a day after Huzey's funeral," Ziggy recalled, whose feeling complicated about their recent discovery. The pain they suffered from Huzey's death was still raw and the things they uncovered from down the Loch only made those feelings more difficult.

*

"Then that only means one thing Ziggy," Xhemin paused as she thinks through everything.

Ziggy looked at her, anticipating her next words that got her too emotional. Nevertheless, he understood her reaction as the thing they had down below was very precious to Huzey.

"What do you have in mind?" Ziggy asked for it.

"If it's not you and not me," Xhemin went for it, "Then its Huzey. There's a possibility he is still alive,"