"Is there something you're not telling me, Jade?" Waylon asked Jade. Ambience started to gather up around the dark and almost empty cave. Waylon still wasn't aware of the monster that was already lurking towards them.
"...No? No!" Jade said abruptly, but a sweat escaped her hairline, it was either the heat due to the closed spaces in this cave or due to her nerves.
"Is there really a kid hiding in here or not?" Waylon looked away and glanced at the darkness. Then he turned back to Jade.
She sighed. "Just go."
"No." Waylon said, negativity brewing as he gave Jade a fierce gaze. "Is this a trap?" He asked.
Jade continued to sweat, but still chose to protest. "I-I don't know what you're talking about." She said.
Waylon sighed. "Y'know, I never got to ask you. Whatever happened in that shit hole that made you so... different?" He said. "Like, lately. You haven't exactly been quiet nor calculating like you used to be, Jade."
He stepped closer to her. "What happened to you?"
Jade placed a hand on her gun in her holster in fear of what he was gonna do. She was more paranoid recently, that's for sure.
Waylon spotted this, but he chose not to cross that line further. As he confronted her calmly.
"We came across Summer, recently. She was wondering how you've been." He said.
Then Jade retracted her hand away from her gun. Suppose hearing about a loved one who had been gone for a long time quite eased her mind.
"I'm... good. How is she?" She asked.
"She's doing really well, actually." Waylon smiled, stepping forward into the darkness. Pretending he forgot about Jade's suspicions.
Then suddenly, he heard the cracking of a bone, a sensation that spiked under his boot. Waylon retracted his foot back, alert, then decided to promptly activate his aura. Cue a black forcefield outlining his body.
"What is it?" Jade said. Promptly turning on her aura. Then came hers, only it was green.
Even though Waylon's aura was black, it wasn't completely dark. When it glowed, there was grey light.
"It's..." He said as he found that he had stepped on... a jaw, that's been broken in half for he stepped on it. One that's been disconnected from its skull. Fresh, as it was all still coated in blood. It didn't end from there, hence a blood trail leading into the darkness, which they found next.
Jade got locked and loaded, taking out Vengeance; her formidable handgun. The first and most recent weapon she had been using, as the rest she had lost in the past during battles.
But Waylon wasn't budging, as he stood there frozen. As if something was eating him up.
"Waylon?" Jade called him out.
He didn't answer. All he could hear were cries of his friends, his teammates, everybody he loves, originating from the darkness. They felt like ghosts haunting him, instead of things he should run for to do rescues.
The feeling was all too familiar for him. When he was just a kid, a street rat of a boy rushing around the streets. The village he stayed amidst with Jade and Summer was at one point attacked by unusual Grimm that showed no mercy. Grimm that he had run from. That every escape plan he took, always lead him to dead ends. Such as alleyways that led to nowhere, even getting trapped between the rusted behinds of dumpsters and walls, and more hope-murdering sights that he didn't realize were merely hallucinations back then.
He was then saved by Huntresses, a group that took out the Grimm which ended the experience for him.
But sadly, that experience carried on into his dreams.
That monster, he had dreamed of for years. It never stopped haunting him no matter how much he tried to think up better and more happier dreams.
It became a part of him everywhere he went. That he would be vastly anxious, too anxious and uncomfortable regarding the thought of sleeping.
He had always dreamt of it chasing him around the village. Throughout the same corners, and alleyways. Everything he never wanted to remember again. Not once had he ever tried to face it, for in every dream he was always a small child. Nothing more than that, which didn't help hinder these nightmares that flourished throughout his life.
He had a near perfect memory if it from his dreams. The monster, like any other Grimm was horrifyingly skinny, ghastly standing on its feet, its ribcage opened up everytime it got close to him, those sharp claws it bared was one of many things he had to avoid. The glowing red core within the ribcage and the black mist that emanated from its torso stood out from the rest of its features.
He had studied about it at one point and learned that it used the black mist to induce hallucinations into prey it would snatch into its ribcage.
It was always hungry.
The nightmares stopped once he had graduated from Haven Academy, the time his friends helped him move on from the trauma. So he had been free from it for a while, until now.
Sure, it was deadly like any other Grimm. But to Waylon Blake, this was
something everlastingly demonic.
He stared into the darkness in fright. Those nightmares were coming back each second he spent taking sight of the monster's core, now glowing and had showed itself to him and Jade.
"Hollowed..." He whispered, still frozen in fear. As Waylon recognized its abilities with the hallucinations. He sure had not seen it in a big damn while. All he could imagine or already feel from that moment were its claws digging into his flesh as it caved into his innards. His worst fear.
"Don't be an idiot." Jade said, rushing to him then took his arm. "Let's go. Now!" She shouted and pulled him away from the Hollowed, which took chase.
He grunted, turning away from it. Then took out his shotguns, wanting to open fire but the first thing he kept doing was to run away from it.
He was doing it again.
"Not again! Why here?!" He yelled, hearing the abrupt roar of the Hollowed. A chill circuiting down his spine.
Don't look back, you bastard.
Although, he wanted to. He wanted to aim his guns at it and shoot it in the face. That's what the fire in his heart was saying. But his body was giving into the fear and trauma.
"Why did you bring me here, Jade?!" He shouted as they took haste. She did not answer.
The Hollowed sprinted from behind them, pushing its claws forward, making attempts to dig these claws into their bodies.
They were nearing the exit. Luckily, they didn't wander into the cave too deep earlier.
"Almost there!" Waylon said.
Jade got out, pushing past boulders that further darkened the entrance. Then from Waylon's perspective she was pulled out by people. Familiar pants could be seen.
"Jade?!" Waylon called out. He was worried of crawling out as well, with no trust for those outside. He looked back at the Hollowed chasing him, vibrant red eyes and sharp claws struck at him.
Nevertheless, he crawled out. It was better than being torn to shreds by a Hollowed anyway.
When he got out there the people who caught Jade turned out to be Robinson Claeg, the famous huntsman around himself accompanied by his own Dee and Dum's.
"Good evening to you, sir. I'm a Huntsman." Robinson said. He seemed quite handsome. Rocked the somewhat delicate visage even though he had semi-bald black hair. His outfit was all mostly turtle green: a sleeveless shirt of cotton with brown stripes, and he had brown pants.
"And you're under arrest." Claeg added, he strapped a handcuff around Waylon's wrists. Jade already had one before Waylon could say anything.
"Wh-What?! No!" Waylon tried to resist.
"Oh, come quietly now, buddy. Otherwise we'll have to do things the hard way~." Claeg run a finger across Waylon's chin sweetly but in the mocking manner.
Claeg's friends laughed with him, at the pair of bikers.
"We didn't do anything, Huntsman!" Jade said.
"Didn't do anything? Then what do you call robbing a dust cargo just this morning?" Claeg approached Jade and fiddled with her chin.
"Don't tell me you just 'accidentally' robbed it." He said.