Leo also made sure to check if the water had some fish swimming nearby. It didn't take long until they had built something that resembled an abode. Leo also hunted down a few fishes with the self-made spear he created with a long stick, his wire, and a knife.
Unsurprisingly even the fish was harder to kill as Leo had to put considerably effort into his strikes to fully pierce the fish. Filleting, Boning the fish was also more difficult but he was happy to have some variation in his meals.
It wasn't as filling as the meat from the boar, but Leo wouldn't complain with a food source. They also took a bottle and water from the ocean and let it filter under the sun by evaporation. They couldn't have enough water they decided, and Leo volunteered to get some tree sap from the trees at the border of the forest.
Slowly but surely the day was coming to its end, which made them cuddle up in the shack while one of them took up the night duty. They only had the ocean to observe and even though they wouldn't know what lurks inside of it, it would be a lie to say that they weren't more relaxed with the moon giving them sufficient light so see the near surroundings.
No tree blocking their view that surrounded them completely. Just a forest above them out of sight and the wide-open ocean in front of them. At one point, Leo came out to take a walk when he was off duty.
He decided to go to the stone platform as he had a feeling that it might reveal something to him now in the night. He walked leisurely in the night with the forest to his right side and the ocean to the other side.
It didn't take long for him to reach it and he quickly climbed the tree to find the carvings faintly glowing slightly blueish in the moonlight.
He thought that the carvings were glistering due to the moonlight because of the material it probably was used to be carved with, but after careful observation he knew that they glowed from themselves.
They were their own light source. A grin started to form on his face, "That's what I am talking about some real supernatural shit.". He muttered as he looked around the stone platform for more clues.
It wasn't hard for him to notice a key difference from the other glowing symbols. The open triangle with the handprint in the middle. The triangle didn't glow entirely. The point at which the two lines met wasn't glowing. It looked like it was a loading bar that wasn't filled yet.
The handprint itself wasn't glowing either, which let Leo to come to a quick conclusion. Maybe if the triangle were fully charged, they could activate whatever this platform was supposed to do.
Leo thought about their next course of actions as activating it meant activating an unknown magical formation with no clue to what it does.
That's how demons are being summoned that slaughtered all the characters in all the uncountable horror movies. The movies always had their characters activate some magic for no reason by pulling whatever lever was nearby or reading a passage in a creepy looking book that screamed demonic.
He made his way back to their little shack and swapped duty with Laura, who just yawned and made her way inside. She was too tired to ask if he found something and it would be unnecessary if he had to explain it more than once.
So, he did explain it to the group the next morning with some fish for breakfast. They voiced out that they would rather explore the coast for now than activate a platform that screamed magical. Of course, Leo was for activating it, but he might just find a civilization to ask about the platform than to figure it out on his own the hard way. Still, he said that they should prepare to activate it.
Sarah was most apprehensive about it, but Leo added that until now it was the only thing that resembled to be made by human hands or at least an intelligent species. This all was still a test, Leo figured and reaching and activating it seemed to be their goal.
Although, it could be that their test was to kill the monster that made the screams sound out in the forest and considering this it made dealing with whatever situation the activated platform triggered much more acceptable.
Currently, Sarah was set on never stepping into that creepy forest again. She was sure that it would be a source for her nightmares for the foreseeable future. The others agreed with that assessment and would rather fight a demon from hell.
After breakfast they started walking at the coastline for several hours with one break before continuing. They walked for a total of 5 hours until they came across a stone platform just like the other platform where they had built their shack nearby.
They quickly approached it and it looked identical to the other platform.
"L-Leo, is-isn't that our shack?" Sarah said as she shakily pointed at a shack under the drop of the forest.
"I- Yes that looks like ours." Leo said unsurely. 'Is it an island and they had walked around it already? No, we had traversed the forest for several days. It's impossible for us to have walked around it even if it was an island. We made sure that we walked in a straight line.' The others obviously thought something similar as they paled a bit.
They approached the shack and searched it for the bottles that they had hidden inside it. Leo pulled out their water bottle out of the hidden compartment, "At least, it doesn't look like it has aged for several years-"
He was swiftly slapped on the arm by a distraught Sarah. "Don't make it any more terrifying than it already is."
"Aww. Come here and let me kiss you" Leo said as he rapidly covered her face with smooches. "Stop- Stop it, Leo!" Sarah exclaimed as she finally pushed him away.
"Alrighty, now that you have calmed down, I can tell you what is going on." Leo said calmly with a smile on his face.
"It probably is just space behaving weird around here. We did come from another world, after all. It wouldn't surprise me if the space isn't working as it should. How about we go into the forest again and see if we end up here again." He said easily as if what happened was just a normal occurrence.
The girls shared a look really considering if Leo isn't a case for the looney but since his conclusions rarely end up being wrong, they might just take his word as gospel.
"Yeah, that might be a good idea to check our options, but I am not going into that forest again." "I agree, I am not eager to step inside it either." "Same here, how about we go into the other direction of the beach instead?" The three nodded at that suggestions and quickly decided that they would have a walk on the beach while Leo would go through the terrifying forest on his own.
"Really? Why do I have to go alone??" Leo was dumbfounded. He looked at the forest again which's tree was swaying as if it invited him to enter.
"Please, you can deal with anything it throws at you" Laura said with a nod so full of confidence that Leo couldn't bring himself to disagree. Besides, she wasn't wrong.
The wolves and the boars wouldn't be able to prevent him from running away and the stalker monster that mimics the screams of its victims didn't seem to be out to attack them and even if it did, they would probably stand no chance against it either way.
"Alright, we meet up at the shack again, I guess. We took about 5 and a half hours for the walk, so make sure to keep track of the time to turn around if you didn't end up back here." Leo then went ahead and French kissed Sarah before slapping her behind.
"I will get my revenge tonight, you two as well." He pointed at the two before he turned around and headed into the forest again.
Fortunately, he wasn't greeted by the screams like he had expected. It had said it's goodbye with choir of screams, after all. He investigated his bag again that he had filled with some meat and water bottles. He would be able to survive for the next few days without having to stock up again.
He walked for several hours with nothing happening, he did come across some birds and smaller animals but nothing dangerous or especially weird happened. There were no screams either but that didn't mean much as the screams took their time to make their presence known.
After 5 hours and some tens of minutes he noticed that the trees seemed to clear in front of him. It didn't take long until he saw the ocean and the beach again.
He was honestly relieved to see the ocean again as he would have to walk the entire way back again and that would mean treading through the forest in the dark.
It was already slowly getting dark when he stepped on the beach again. He saw his girlfriends in the distance and waited for them to catch up to him.
"So, no way out. There is only land for 5 hours' worth of walk in every direction?" Laura asked as they headed back to their shack together.
"We haven't tried to swim 5 hours out into the ocean yet." Leo pointed out but they wouldn't try that for obvious reasons.
"Seems we have no choice other than to activate the magic circle platform. Might be the only way out." Leo said nonchalantly, he continued with a suave tone, "And if it isn't I wouldn't mind if I was stuck here with you three." To lay it extra thick he gave them a wink before taking his shirt off to get some more fish.
Shunlei and Sarah only laughed it off finding it more funny than sexy seeing Leo's flirtatious attempt that could have come straight out of a teenage romance movie.
They looked at Laura, who was blushing fiercely. "Of course, it's the straightforward girl that has never seen a romance before that this stuff works on!" Sarah threw her hands in the air and decided that she would rather make a campfire for the incoming fish, Shunlei on the other hand only chuckled slightly.
As Leo caught some fish he thought about their next course of action, especially about activating the platform. Was he idiotic enough to think about doing something that might kill him? Yes, he was. Well, not really, but they needed to do something to get away from this little plot of land. It was part of the test they participated under, right? He tried to convince himself.
They also couldn't do nothing and spend the rest of their days on this part of land, well they could and even though he said that he wasn't willing to leave everything behind to live in this cut off part of the world. There was so much for him to still do.
Maybe the platform would just activate the darkness again and they would return to their world? Of course, he could only speculate right now, but it was better to think about it now than later.
After eating it got dark again rather quickly. Leo decided to check the platform for more clues and the other wanted to have a look as well.
Like the day before the carvings were glowing and the triangle only a 5th away from being fully glowing.
"Hey, Leo what if the magic formation doesn't need any charging but is just broken?" Sarah's words send shivers down Leo's back making him cough.
"Well, then they wouldn't have invited more participants for the test, right? They would have fixed it first, otherwise there would have been no point in inviting us, right?"
There was also the possibility that they invited people just routinely and had no way of knowing if there was a problem on the other side or that they were a sacrifice for a higher being, but he wisely kept that to himself.
No point in making them panic over something that he himself didn't want to believe in. "If it doesn't seem like the triangle fills up then we can still build a boat to try the ocean route." Leo then got some coal and decided to mark the point at which the glowing stops.
"This is the equivalent of putting my finger on the download bar to look if it actually progresses, isn't it?"