Forest Secrets

It was later that evening and the four of us where lounging around in living room of the house, we were escorted back by one of the guards from the dinner hall. He had requested that we read the manuals before tomorrow; none of us still had no idea what was meant by the four tasks.

“I’m telling you guys!” Josh exclaimed flipping through his manual. “This place is super sketchy!”

“Did you see how the people looked at you when you picked up the ‘rare’ chip Jewel?” Andrea reflected thinking more into it.

“I’m not even sure what it means, maybe we should get out of here. Tonight.” I said hopping off the couch I was sitting on, and pacing in front of the window frame.

Suddenly a screen started sliding out of the ceiling slowly, we all glanced at each other in confusion as it lowered its way to the ground. Suddenly words started appearing on the screen in deep red letters; the message it left was terrifying and threatening.

‘We won’t let you leave, you know too much.’

“Huh?” Chris said reading the message over and over to himself in his mind.

The words disappeared and the screen once again rose to the ceiling and folded away inside of it. We all just started at each other trying to figure out what to do or say next.

“It’s getting late maybe we should get some sleep.” I said noticing it had already gotten rather dark outside and we were all very tired from the long day that was behind us.

I settled into the couch and Josh came up to me and handed me a fuzzy purple blanket, I smiled and took it from him but grew tired and he ended up tucking me in then taking a spot on the floor with more blankets.

“You can take the other side of the couch; I don’t kick in my sleep.” I laughed watching him try to get comfortable on the floor.

“Oh its fine, now get some rest who knows what could happen tomorrow.” He buried his face into the pillow and began to drift off into sleep. Andrea was already passed out on the couch across from me and Chris had taken one of the beds upstairs to sleep on. I tossed and turned for a while before falling into a restless slumber.

***

I awoke a few hours later, I wasn’t sure what time it was; I had seemed to have lost my phone somewhere in the couch. I saw a glowing light floating off into the distance and curiosity got the best of me and I decided to check it out despite of what could go wrong.

The air felt warm against my bear arms, the wind left a slight tingle when it brushed through my hair. A moment of peace came through me and I embarked on my way down the empty street to follow whatever light lie ahead.

I heard strange chanting as I grew closer to the light; it was of the same language of the men back in my dimension that had tortured Josh and I. I turned a corner and hid behind a wall as to not be seen by anyone in the area, I peeked my head around it and noticed a group of people with black wings sitting in a circle. They had a small fire lit and kept throwing pieces of paper that would change the fire different colours with each throw. Someone’s head went up mid chant and I ducked behind the wall again to make sure I would not be seen, my heart beat like a roaring Thunder inside my chest but I couldn’t move or make a sound.

“Paka Inne floker” One of the people had chanted standing up and perking his nose in my direction. I had no idea what the words he spoke meant but hearing the strain in his voice it seemed as if he could tell someone or something was watching them.

“The main Earth people, where do they dwell?” A deep voice asked tossing a shard of paper into the fire, which made it turn a bright green.

“Sir, the fire is green. You can’t go there.” A woman said hunched over the fire inspecting it, she had placed her hands directly inside the fire without any reactions to the heat.

“They want to escape, I can’t let that happen; none of you can.” He declared.

“Let them leave if they want, I’ll keep a close eye on them.”

“They know about the Disturbed Ones, if they open up that portal again they could come in here and take over. We don’t need a repeat of last month’s catastrophe; they were banished for a reason. The Four from Earth aren’t allowed to leave until the tasks which erase their memory are completed.”

I gulped at the thought of that, and then felt an annoying tingling inside of my throat. I tried to make it go away on its own but without any luck I coughed loudly making everyone standing around the fire turn their head to find out where the noise was coming from.

I turned and started to run as fast as I could away from there, I was terrified not knowing what they would do to me if they caught up. I looked up and saw a man fly over me and land directly in front of me.

“What did you hear?” He demanded at me, his eyes became bright green and shaped like a cats.

“Something about erasing our memories.” I confessed worried about what he would do knowing I had that knowledge.

He seemed angry at first but crossed his arms in front of him and smiled. I wondered what he had to be so happy about considering I just caught him talking about erasing mine and my friend’s memories.

“Fair enough, I won’t lie. That’s what we were discussing... BUT if you knew the reason why; you would understand why we have to do this.” His wings behind his back shrunk into his spine, I almost gagged at the sound of them withering up.

“I heard something about the “Disturbed ones” what does that mean.” I reached into my pocket and pulled out a small knife I had hidden in it and pointed it at him waiting for answers.

“Put down the knife and let me explain.” I heard a branch break from behind me and turned around to see Josh standing there looking intrigued.

“Look who came to join the party.” The man laughed watching Josh inch closer to me.

“What the hell is going on here?” Josh probed noticing the knife in my hand.

“Nothing out of the ordinary, carry on; go back home you both have a long day ahead of you tomorrow.” He told me with a snicker.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Josh prodded with anger in his voice, going into a threatening stance. A light grew from a tiny ball in front of us and shined so bright that we both had to shut our eyes to keep from going blind.

When the light dispersed everyone that was around the fire had disappeared, Josh and I both turned and glanced at each other; confused and in a daze about what had just happened. We needed to warn the others, and fast.

We had made our way back to the cabin to find that Chris and Andrea where no longer there. A man stood at the doorway of the kitchen watching in amusement as we looked around for our friends.

“Where are they?” Josh asked pointing one of the sharp knives from the kitchen at him.

“The same place that you’re going.” The man snickered and before Josh and I could react the man ran at us shoving a needle into both of our necks. Before we knew it everything around us had gone pitch black.

***

I had woken some time later, my memory fuzzy of what happened and feeling like vomiting. I couldn’t see in front of me but I could feel that my arms and legs were tied to something. I believe it was a pole or a chair; I couldn’t figure it out. I felt tape over my mouth so I couldn’t scream or cry out, I had no idea if I was alone or not either.

Suddenly I heard footsteps approaching me I leaned my head down and pretended to still be sleeping as they walked in; which didn’t last long as they turned on a bright light which made me squint a little bit. The man had Josh with him and he too had tape over his mouth, he glanced at me and tried to escape the man’s grasp to try and reach me.

“Enough!” The man shouted to him knocking him onto the ground.

‘It will be okay.’ I heard Joshes voice in the back of my mind whisper to me. I tried to smile back at him but with the tape over my mouth it was hard.

I watched as the man started slicing a cut into Joshes arm, he closed his eyes and dealt with the pain. I watched in horror as the blood dripped into a large bowl. The man took out a chip from a bag and placed it into the bowl which made the blood go a deep green color.

“Shall we begin?”