I tore through the trees, bashing the branches aside as I scrambled wildly. In the corner of my eyes, I started to catch glimpses of more of the orbs of light shining through the trees.
"Aaron!" my cry drowned out the "giggling", rain and wind.
I heard what sounded like a muffled voice coming from my right, like someone was trying to talk but couldn't... Aaron! Jared and I nodded at each other, then dashed as fast as our legs could carry us to the source of the voice.
"Aar-" his name died partway in my mouth.
We came to another clearing, this one larger than the last. In the middle of the tall overgrown patch of grass was... one of the balls of light.
A humming noise was coming from it, similar to the tone of Aaron's voice, but it was wordless, just a nonsensical noise. The light flashed, and as it did it "giggled" with the slight cadence of Aaron's laugh, though distorted and warped to the point where it wasn't recognizable.
A loud bang shook the air as Jared fired the shotgun at the light, but it blinked out and vanished, reappearing a few feet away, cackling harshly as it did so.
...Where was Aaron?! And what the hell were these things?
I shuddered as a soft glow began to emanate from between the trees behind the individual orb, growing brighter and brighter. I heard what sounded like a struggle going on from where the light was.
"This way!" I shouted to Jared, and the two of us sprinted past the ball, which let out its horrific distorted giggling as we went by.
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Like a charging rhino, I plowed through the branches to the source of the glow. The light around me was so dazzling, I had to blink and squint rapidly before I could properly see.
Aaron was there... suspended in the air by a large ball of light, bigger than him. All around me, there were dozens of lights, dancing and spinning like it was some fairy tale out of hell.
"Aar-" again my scream died in my throat as I noticed that the balls of light cast shadows of things... like a shadow puppet show, the misshapen shadows of the things danced around gleefully.
Their shadows appeared to be humanoid in shape, though of course they were much smaller than a human could possibly be. Their bodies seemed shaped more like small mannequins rather than humans, with long and incredibly thin limbs akin to spindly dead tree branches or the squirming legs of an insect. Their forms all looked distorted and bent at impossible and wrong angles as they danced, like all of their bones were broken. It looked like they didn't have any hands or feet. Attached to their backs were a pair of tiny wings, like those of a butterfly. Their forms faded and flickered as the light rose and fell in intensity.
My body shook with dread as I noticed that all along the ground and in the trees were dozens more of the sets of clothes. Had these things spirited away the people who had worn them? With another shudder, I realized that all of the clothing seemed like it would fit children... would they make Aaron vanish, too?
As my eyes darted to the large orb of light surrounding Aaron, I saw in the shadow that a larger one of the things was holding onto him. Though I couldn't clearly see it through the light around it, I could make out its shape through its shadow. It looked about the size of an adult man, its torso was less thin than the smaller ones. At first I thought it wore a cape, but no, its flesh was stretched so that flaps of loose flesh came down its back like a cape. Behind Aaron, in the light, I could barely make out a pale mask-like face, whose only features were two deep, boring holes in place of eyes. Though the sockets were empty, it felt like it was staring at me with some deep-seated malice and cruel mockery. Atop its head, its skin twisted and contorted into the shape of a crown, making it seem like some demented king.