Back in town, the parents were waiting at the school's gate anxiously. Their faces were imprinted with worried glances as Mrs. Hart, Rayne's mother, worsened to a critical state with her hands clutching against her chest. She had cold sweats trickling down her forehead and her eyes moving about in every direction for her daughter.
"Where is my daughter?!" screamed one of the parents, her tone trembling out of fear and desperation. This was the omen for a feeling of tension in the air, with waves of fear and frustration rippling through the crowd on their way to riot.
Inside the school compound, the teachers stood in disarray, scratching their heads at what to do to quell the rising unrest of the parents. Just in contrast to all, a teacher wore a grim look; finally, with a slow breathe, she drew off the iron mask that covered her mouth, showing a resolved and calm face belying the chaos around.
She turned her back toward another teacher, signing rapidly, "I will put them to rest for now. Tell Heathrine to return here ASAP."
The teacher caught onto her gesture and looked into her eyes, "Are you certain this would work, Qmilla?"
She didn't answer at once— "is it really necessary for her to use her powers upon the worried parents?", she would ask herself in the head. But that is what it would take to quell the chaos unfolding. He, noticing from the expression on her face that she has made her decision; Sighed and nodded. The other teachers nodded along, and their faces went pale with concern.
As she walked to the gate, where the parents stood, this teacher took a deep breath and then focused her energy, bending closer toward the crowd to speak one word out softly, barely audible in the whisper:
"Slumber..."
The unheeding coolness now washed over the parents, and their frantic shouting and cries slowly faded before succumbing to the spell. They began, one by one, to slump down onto the ground as their eyes shut—to sink into the deep peaceful sleep. Mrs. Hart's face relaxed from a strained expression, and soon she began to doze off too, forgetting her troubles. Now the schoolyard was eerily silent except when the breeze stirred leaves and created a rustling sound sometimes.
The teacher scanned her eyes through the now-silent mob. Very well, she knew it only bought time until Heathrine would come with the children.
...
On a bed of hay in the front yard of a barn, Kogel lay on his back, gazing unwaveringly up at the radiant moon. The silver light gave the scene tranquility, but his face was emotionless, perhaps a thousand miles away. He reached an arm up to see his watch; the ticking hands shone just as bright as the moonlight. His expression of serenity was interrupted for one brief moment by a flash of excitement.
Kogel reached down, drew a pistol from the holster at his side, and opened the six-chamber cylinder. His eyes skimmed those loaded rounds with an ease of practice. Satisfied, he snapped it shut—decisive. He was anchored to the familiar weight of the weapon in his hand, grounding his thoughts. He pushed himself up from the hay, a few stray strands dragging stubbornly at his clothing. Kogel sighed and shook what was leftover of the straw from his jacket in a weary sort of way. His hand reached across to where his hat was resting on a nearby crate and placed it on his head, tilting the brim with a slight nod.
Without one last look at the peaceful scene around him, Kogel started walking, boots crunching softly on the ground. His steps measured and purposeful, he went towards the distant fields.
...
In the tall, darkling fields, panic took a grip on the group of children. The direction that their journey until then had taken vanished before their eyes, as if fields had closed in and swallowed them up. A view that had seemed so familiar and comforting a moment before turned into an ominous labyrinth that embraced them tight, squeezing the life from them.
tall Grasses [https://i.postimg.cc/Hn8H45r6/91a54ad4-d0dd-4cce-af19-e0b99dd75bb8.jpg]
"I-I'm scared," said one of the children, his voice quivering as he tried to keep tears back.
This fear swimming in their eyes was mirrored, like a reflection, right into the dread that had gripped the whole group. Kassie went up to her eyebrows with the handkerchief, trying to stay cool as anxiety rose. She forced a reassuring smile and walked over to the frightened child, gently placing a hand on their shoulder.
"It'll be okay. We need to stick together," she said, her voice steady, though her heart was pounding in her chest.
Regna was not put off by the situation. She was as collected and sharp as ever her face showed, and inside, her mind had already started racing with thoughts.
"Guys, listen up. We need to split up in groups and move in different directions until one of us finds a way out," she declared confidently.
"Huh?!" Kassie yelled, her frustration just boiling over.
"Reggy, are you insane? Splitting up is the worst idea in a situation like this! Haven't you ever read any books or seen movies? It never ends well!"
She crossed her arms, quite unfazed by Kassie's outburst.
"Kassie, we're not going to find anything if we just stand around panicking. If we split up, then the ground is covered better. It's logical."
"Logical? Or suicidal? This isn't some game, Regna. We have no idea what's out there!" Kassie shot back, her tone laced with exasperation.
As the argument grew hotter and hotter between Regna and Kassie, Rayne sat on the ground, her arms tightly wrapped around her knees. The cold had started to seep into her bones, but it wasn't that alone, the atmosphere thickened with the sense of dread that weighed heavily upon her.
There was a brooding presence lurking at the edges of her consciousness, waiting. To Rayne, it felt as though it watched them. And every single instinct in her body screamed for her to turn and run as hard and fast as possible to get away. Still, she stood rooted. Her friends were in danger, and the thought of leaving them behind; the guilt of evening thinking about it was unbearable to her. She wanted to warn them, to tell them that something was coming, but deep fear clamped her throat, and she remained speechless. How could she make them understand when even she wasn't able to find the words?
Regna, feeling the cooled face and shaking form of Rayne, smoothened her tone.
"Rayne, what do you think we should do?" she asked, trying to draw her out of the silent fear.
Rayne looked up at her friends, her eyes wide, full of unsaid pleading.
"I… I don't believe we ought to split," she at last whispered, hardly loud enough to hear.
"Something… something bad is coming. I can feel it."
Kassie kneeled beside Rayne, and all frustrations that were present a moment ago dissolved upon seeing the fear in her friend's eyes.
"Rayne, we're going to stick together, okay? We will find our way out, but we need to convince Reggy here to stay as a group."
Regna, upon hearing it looked around into the anxious faces of all the other children before she sighed and gave in.
"Fine. We stick together. But we can't just keep sitting around. We need to move back. Whatever's coming, we can't let it find us.", she whispered, her calm demeanor swaying away for a moment as her voice shook.
Bit by bit, the group's resolution began to harden in their nods. They moved forward across the black fields, more closely upholstered together now to draw strength from each other.
...
On the bus, most of the children had fallen asleep. Their faces appeared very relaxed on the soft plush seats, while the dim hum of the snores was the only thing breaking the silence of this place. But Mikhail was sitting nervously, watching the darkening fields through the bus windows. His heart pumped into concern; with each beat, it seemed to echo the anxiety growing in his mind.
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"I told them to come back before sundown. Where are they?" he said under his breath, as a droplet of sweat trickled down his temple.
His anxiety had become increasingly heavy with the hours dragging on and on—many times did he feel that leaving the security of the bus to search for the group seemed like what he ought to do, even at the risk of peril. what else could a kid like him do but wait and hope that some adult would find them?
He leaned back in his chair, releasing a deep sigh and closed his eyes to calm the whirlwind of worry inside his chest. He told himself, perhaps when the sun rises again, they will return home, and to that tenuous hope, he held tight.
-Knock Knock Knock-
A sudden rap on the window jerked him out of his reverie. His eyes flew open, his heart was in his mouth, and he turned toward the window to find a man standing just outside, gazing up at him with narrowed eyes.
But then Mikhail saw who it was, and he froze. He knew the man. It was the same man Miss Hearth had slapped across the face earlier that day. He flashed to the memory of everything that was said and felt the fear stiffen his very core. The man's expression told nothing, and he gestured nothing of emotion, but when their eyes met, he raised a hand and waved, a gesture that on any other occasion might have felt pretty friendly, but to Mikhail, it only sent shivers up his spine.
Paralyzed with fear, Mikhail sank further into the seat, hoping that if he was still enough, maybe the man would get bored and leave. But the man's voice pierced the silence, loud and clear.
"Hey, kid!" the voice called out, somewhat muffled by the glass.
"Hey!" he tried again, this time more insistently.
Mikhail's heart raced as he slowly sat back up. Curiosity warred with fear. He carefully peeked over the edge of the window, but now the man just stood there, scratching his head as if confused by the reaction Mikhail had shown. "What did he want? Why was he here?", the questions swirled in Mikhail's mind, and he knew he had to make a decision.
Girding up his loins, Mikhail softly opened the window just ajar and whispered, "What do you want?"
He blinked, the man hitching closer, his expression softening a bit.
"Name's Kogel and I'm not looking to give you any trouble, kid. Just noticed this was Miss Heathrine's bus. Thought I'd stop by and check in on her."
Mikhail wasn't quite sure how to respond. His mind's eye flicked back to what had happened earlier, and he remembered vividly that tension had remained between Heathrine and Kogel. Still, something in Kogel's demeanor suggested he was not as threatening anymore, rather, he looked almost concerned.
"She's… she's not here," Mikhail said at last, with a slight shake to his voice.
"She left a while ago. We don't know when she'll come back."
Kogel nodded, very slowly, his eyes straying toward the pitch-dark fields.
"Figures. That crazy's always got something going on.", he whispered to himself. He looked back at Mikhail, a mixture of frustration and resignation on his face.
"Well, er- thanks for letting me know, kid. You stay safe in there."
Mikhail watched as Kogel spun around and started walking away; he yelled at the man, "Hey! My- my friends went into the fields and they haven't returned. Please! Find them!" as he walked towards the fields.
Kogel stopped walking for a moment, then let out a sigh before holding up a thumbs-up, then completely disappearing into the fields. He slammed the window shut, slunk back into his chair, and raced in his mind. That had been an encounter raising more questions than answers, and now, sitting again in the chair, feeling uneasy, bit harder than it ever had before.
...
Coming farther down this trail, across sun-deprived fields, the group had crept on in eerie silence. Wheat stalks murmured over one another in the breeze, but then there was a different sound—a rather definite shuffling, as if something large was moving through the fields at an accelerated pace. It sliced the quiet, their blood running cold. Their senses were all heightened by the growing dread.
Rayne's knees buckled, and she fell to her knees with a short, panicked gasp. This overwhelming presence, present before, was now closer than ever, pressing in on her from all directions. Tears flowed down her face while the terror gripped her heart with its cold vice.
Kassie set eyes on Regna, her wide eyes a picture of fear she felt but didn't want to show. Regna looked back at her, their usual confidence and bravado shaken. For the first time, these two were thrown off guard by doubt about what next to do. Regna swallowed hard before her eyes fell to Rayne, now trembling on the ground. She took a deeper breath and moved to sit at the Rayne's side.
"Hey, Rayne," she began with a soft voice, very uncharacteristic of her.
"I- I'm sorry. I really shouldn't have brought you here with me," she apologized, guilt weighing very heavily on the words.
Rayne wiped at her tears with the back of her hand, digging deep to find calm.
"It's okay," she answered, pushing a terribly fake smile onto her face.
Kassie sighed, her own fear momentarily giving way to resolve; "What's done is done," she said, her voice firm despite the circumstances.
"But we can't stop now. We have to keep going. If we walk long enough, we'll find somewhere safe," she whispered in an attempt to ignite some hope in the group.
Regna helped Rayne to her feet, and the touch was light and full of assurance. The two steeled themselves and soon moved on, although terror wrenched at them.
But before they could do that, another sound cleaved the night—a croaking, but not the kind one expects from a frog or any recognizable creature. It was guttural, a choking sound resembling the death rattle of a human being, dragged from the depths of despair. The noise hammered back at them, a resounding echo to their ears, locking them in their tracks just a hitch of a second before falling to the chill backwaters below.
The blood from Rayne's veins grew cold as the croaking resumed, only this time louder and closer, while every breathy rasp in betwixt was filled with the very melee of malice that dripped from it. The noise the thing was making was inhuman, grotesque, like it fought to breathe.
Kassie's eyes grew wide with horror.
"Run!" she screamed as the word was forcibly ripped from her throat in blind panic.
The group splintered, fear driving them in different directions. Most of the children followed Kassie, for their feet thundering on the earth, pounded through the fields. Regna grabbed Rayne's hand, pulling her opposite away from that terrifying sound.
The croaking grew more intense, forming into a guttural roar, which felt like it shook the ground right beneath them. The shuffling in the grass turned into a frenzy; the terrible velocity the creature was coming for them was somewhat visible, closing the distance from them with every second.
Kassie and her group raced with such speed that the fields around them became nothing but a streak of sight woven within blues. The darkness seemed to stretch on forever, then they stumbled into a small clearing—a patch of ground a few yards wide. They pulled up with a skid, stopping, breath coming in ragged gasps. The creature would not relent. It burst from off the tall grass with a mighty leap before landing in the clearing with a thud that sent shockwaves through the ground. The children froze, their beady eyes full of terror, as they now beheld the one thing that had hunted them all this while.
The moonlight revealed the beast in all its horrific glory.
Field beast [https://i.postimg.cc/rpsXcxqQ/A-manga-sketch-of-an-intimidating-4-legged-beast-with-extremely-dark-fur-tentacles-coming-ou.png]
It was black as deep darkness, something horribly unnatural about its darkness, as though it absorbed whatever light shone upon it rather than reflecting it, two sharp horns protruded from its head. An almost beast-like form, burly grotesque, was the massive twisted shape of this creature. And dominating its proportional face was a huge slavering mouth, big enough to swallow one of them whole, with two wriggling appendages hanging out of it, twitching and tasting the air. But then it was those eyes, two big, glistening white orbs, just filling into the deepest fathom of dread inside the children. They gleamed in that dark, going deep into the expanse of souls daring enough for.
Its very existence was an overwhelming nightmare made flesh. The children stood stock-still; their minds raced in trying to assimilate this horror that appeared before them. For one moment, the glade was filled with nothing but the sound of the beast's labored breathing; now the croaking was like a sinister undercurrent.
Then, with a roar that shook the heavens, the creature charged.