Immediately Benjamin pulled off his foot from the accelerator to look towards that side of the forest.
Much to his luck, the sound didn't come again. He waited for another ten or so seconds to be completely assured there's nothing wrong for the time being.
He shifted his eyes to the road ahead and advanced further into the forest adhering to the path carved out by the fire torches. Nonetheless, as they moved into the forest, the fire torches kept blowing off of that particular path as soon as the motor car has been through it.
This guaranteed the presence of some living being that had been blowing out the light as soon as the motor car passes through it. "Now it all makes sense" thought a frightened Martha, her heart pounding.
"It is making sense to me how come a living person is able to take the flame out of the fire torches as soon as we move ahead of that particular path.
It is now making sense to me why I could hear those breathing sound from a distance.
It wasn't any hallucination at all. Everything was happening because of that wolf-like figure.
What does he has to do with us? Is he the one daddy wanted to meet?" Martha was now on the verge of bursting into tears. She didn't want to experience even a moment of this event, albeit she couldn't help but suffer through this misfortune.
Each of the positive thoughts she had relied to calm herself had now turned into worst of the worst nightmares.
"I literally am bewildered what are these two people who are my all time favorites are up to? They intentionally or unintentionally put me under the impression that we'd be visiting granny's place.
No! First of all, they parted me from my just-found-love Matt and then threw an unexpected plan at me! Then they drove me through some abandoned for neither just one nor just two but numerous hours.
Only when I took the matter into my hands and found out myself what both of them were up to that I discovered partial truth, if not whole.
Now after assuring me of our safety to my every concern expressed to them, a wolf, or maybe a werewolf, now shows up in front of the motor car and they do not utter a word and maintain their silence.
This thing is going way beyond anyone's imagination. How worse can it get? And the biggest of all the questions is what sort of hell have we already brought ourselves in?"
"Do you really want to keep on going into this hell or we might stop and reconsider going back?" said Martha.
It was less of a saying and more of a screaming. She had no other option to adhere to.
She had been asking or responding to her parents' in a mannered way and all that the well-mannered way has yielded for so long is a series of unfolding mysteries.
She wasn't up for one more unwelcoming mystery to be thrown at her fate. She just wanted peace.
All she cared for was peace for her. Her temperament had reached such a level of precariousness that to quench her thirst of a peaceful environment, she saw no other way except to take a U turn and drive back and reach all the way from where they initially began.
Her parents, as expected by Martha, didn't care to acknowledge Martha's suggestion since they seemed to prepare for a fateful event which is going to be even more worrisome and unbearable than the werewolf-like figure showing up in front of the motor car.
Martha could already sense the tension in the air yet nonetheless she had put her question. Upon getting no response from either of her parents, she both screamed and cried at the same time,
"There's still time for you to listen to my words carefully.
Maybe I am not aware of this entire situation but going by this experience so far, I can already tell things are not going to go pretty well for us in the nearby future.
We can avoid the upcoming events by just making a quick turn and trying our best to escape the scene.
It is not too far we've come from the place we made a turn from to follow the lights" Martha's words screamed a sense of concern for both of her parents and herself.
Cindy, in this present circumstance, had gotten sick of responding to whatever Martha had to say to her specifically since both the ladies knew Benjamin wouldn't pay much heed to either of the ladies' words and would simply stick to his resolve that he had planned to do beforehand.
Cindy just pulled herself backwards to rest her head on the headrest as in her course of being vigilant even since the array of the fire torches had begun, she had parted her head from the head rest and it had remained in an unsatisfactory position.
In doing so, she got an amount of satisfaction that was almost negligible in front of the big problem they were about to face.
Yet, Cindy attempted to derive the least of the satisfaction that she could as they drove through the path.
Once she had settled herself by meeting her back comfortably with the seat, she let out regrettably, "It is too late for any sorts of reconsiderations honey.
We cannot back off from the trade now. It would risk the lives of every one of us
. Better would be to let fate decide if this trade results in a success as we expect it to be" Martha was now infuriated by this time.
But more than she was infuriated, she was sorrowful as she wanted to convince her mother so badly to step back for once and return to their village again.
"How do you think it wouldn't risk the lives of the three of us if we do participate in this trade? I see the chances of going back to the village drop with every inch we move closer to this destination or whatever the fuck you want to name it!" said Martha, the former sentence in a mixed feeling of anger and deep pain while the latter sentence solely expressing deep pain.
She again said whilst tears rolled down her cheeks,
"Only yesterday the three of us were having a perfect life and having meals together and residing in our hometown and now we're encaged in this hell environment" Her parents remaining silent as she cried made it certain to Martha that they were indeed going to end up in hell which she was speaking about to her mother.
There was no going back nor could she muster up the courage to confront what was about to come.
She, however, wasn't thinking about either of the two at that point in time. What made her feel better was to let her fears and distressing emotions and long-kept silence and everything else just withdraw through her tears.