Quarantine

Baden had heard about the girl who freaked out in Adalynn’s class. Baden was tempted to go over to her parents’ house to ask Addie about it, but Baden knew what her parents would say about that. They had Addie sheltered and didn’t even like the mention of an hallucination or a meltdown in the middle of class to scare the youngest Sanders girl.

Baden figured that there was nothing that they could do about hiding that from the youngest one who had watched it happen. The whole town was starting to wild. She saw the looks of fear and anxiety on nearly all of the people’s face as she walked towards the center of the town where the famous four trees stood. She didn’t know what to make of all of this. She was scared that whatever it was would start to happen to her as well. Then she would have the same frightened looks that everyone else had.

She slowed her pace as she saw the trees. They were tall and still holding on to the bright green leaves as the others were starting to turn yellow and red. That was part of the myth for the trees.

These four trees were supposedly four angels meant to protect the town. Who the angels were believed to be had gotten lost through the years. When provoked, they came to life and protect the town. They hold onto the green leaves much longer because they are have more life and can survive for harsher weather because of the magical powers that live in the trees.

There were at least two handfuls of versions of that story. There’s even one where they are the demons, but this one is rare and more connected to the ghost stories related to these trees. People had claimed to see figures of large bodies in armor and a skinny figure that looked more like a skeleton than a person. Those were the two most common figures seen, but a few have seen a dark figure that looked almost robbed and another that looked like a king. All the figures are always spotted at a specific tree.

Baden looked at the tree and saw that the colors of them were a little off. The first one was starting to a little white. The second had turned to a dull red-brown. The third was getting darker, and the last one had a greyish hue to it. It wasn’t drastic, but Baden could see the differences in each of the trees. They were all in an oddly shaped circle as the town called it. To Baden they were in an oval that was hard to notice unless seen on a map of the town.

She looked around to see a few other people sitting around in the park. There were a couple of people sitting around either watching the children at the small playground or sitting on the grass with earphones blasting music. Baden looked down at her phone and looked at the time. She didn’t really want to go home, and that was the reason for coming here. She was trying to waste time by taking the very long way back to Uncle Thomas’s house. She slightly hoped that it would take a while.

She wasn’t avoiding her uncle it was just that she knew that if she stayed home. She would just get bored. He had to work late tonight, and she would be alone for a while. He probably wouldn’t be home until she was in bed. She looked up to the red-brown tree and saw a figure standing there. It was her height and had what appeared to be armor. She had never seen anything like this before.

Shivers flew down Baden’s back in a hurry. The figure didn’t have any features just an outline of the face, and it didn’t really feel right. It gave off a very bad, a very evil, vibe, but yet at the same time she knew it wouldn’t harm her. It reached out its arm and touched her arm sending a bolt of energy into her, and the figure faded away as fast as it appeared.

Baden took a few steps back. She had never seen any of the figures. She just thought that they were rumors to scare the kids when they were getting annoying. This made her get nervous, yet at the same time it was exciting. The rumors of the spirits were true. She didn’t know who that it was that had touched her. What if it was one of the founders of the town? She didn’t even know why she was getting so excited about this. A part of her thinks that she was just trying to keep herself from completely melting down.

She looked around and felt a surge of relief when she realized that no one was paying attention to her. They were too far into their own worlds to worry about what she was doing. She slowly walked out of the park and towards the only pizza place that this town had. She decided that she might as well get her own supper. The guy behind the counter was Jeremy Richmond who was in Baden’s first and second classes. She knew that he had a crush on her, but she had never really acknowledged him unless she had to. She hated that felt like she was hurting his feelings, but she didn’t really see him as anything other than a friend if she could consider him a friend.

She order a pepperoni pizza and a litter soda. He was more than eager to give her what she wanted. He didn’t make her wait for very long, and before she knew it, she was walking towards her home. She had a little trouble carrying it, but it wasn’t that bad. Her mind was on other things as she walked in. She wanted to know more about the figure, but she didn’t even know where to begin to look. She set the pizza down on the coffee table and went to get a cup for the soda. She was going to find out who that figure was if it killed her.