I stand up, grab my backpack and rifle before saying to them, "Thanks for the information. Patrick… you can stay here with them if you like.
I will pick you up after finding out what is there."
Patrick looks like he wants to say something, but John is faster,
"You think you can get past them with a bit of witchcraft? Don't make me laugh. There are too many; they will rip you apart before you can even think about using your spell."
"He is probably the only one who can go past them, believe me," says Patrick towards him.
Then picks up his backpack too and turns to me, saying, "And I have to disappoint you. You won't get rid of me here. I'm safer with you anyway…"
"Good, it's your death sentence. Let's go," I respond while putting another piece of beef into my mouth before walking towards their gate.
"Wait, it's nighttime. You two will die for sure if you walk out now,"
Hmm? I turn to the woman who shot an arrow at me earlier and see that she is genuinely concerned.
So, I ask surprised, "Huh, I thought you guys would be glad to get rid of us?"
"Normally, the humans trapped inside here live peacefully and don't fight each other.
The Staff kills enough; we don't need to do it too… so even when we had a bad start, you two would still be welcome to stay, especially someone with your powers…" she says trying to sound honest.
People always talk around the bush. If she had directly said that my powers would be beneficial for them, I would have understood it too without the emotional stuff before.
Anyway, I don't think John, who is staring the whole time, would agree to that.
"I pass. I have a girlfriend outside who will storm this place if I don't get out soon, and if she does, I don't think there will be anything left to explore… So good luck with living here."
I say with a wave, and we continue to walk to the gate until someone unexpected stops us.
"Wait! You'll need someone who'll lead you there, or you'll get lost a thousand times," says John, who walks after us, then stops and adds,
"But first, I need to get this group and Ana to safety, and this will happen only during the daytime. So, grab a bed and get comfortable."
Patrick and I look at each other, and I shrug before going back to the bonfire while Patrick searches for a bed with a smile.
It seems even a hunter like John, who hates every supernatural being, knows that he has the best chance to escape this place with someone like me.
Even though I would prefer a friendlier guide than him…
With a sigh, I sit down again and watch the flames hypnotically dance in front of me, while listening to Ana and John in the distance.
"John, you can't! Don't you remember what happened last time? We were lucky to get out alive, and I don't think we will be this lucky a second time."
"Yeah, that's why you will stay with the group, and I will go alone. And I promise you that I will return even if I find a way out—"
Should I wave a red flag around for him to see, or does he know himself that such a promise always leads to drama…
It's like telling your girlfriend that you will marry her after you return from the war, only to die there…
So, I turn off my super hearing in fear of catching more cheesy lines, and continue to chew my jerky. And man, I wish I had something strong with it.
Next time I bring alcohol and not water since I can't die from thirst anyway…
—
After a few hours, the light finally turned on again, and the music changed to a happier melody, signaling its opening hours.
Shortly after, the people began waking up, and John and Ana instructed them that they planned to take them to another group nearby.
The people simply nodded to everything and began packing their stuff without saying anything. And since they didn't have much, they grabbed their boxes and backpacks and were ready to go...
When we left the shelter, an army of the Staff was suddenly in front of it, which made Patrick and me get cautious while the others simply continued to walk past them.
And after seeing what the army was doing, we began to ignore them too and followed the group relaxed, because the Staff simply rebuilt the shelves, I had destroyed the night before and totally ignored us…
For the next two hours of walking through the labyrinth, no one talked to us as we, or at least I, was considered as the brutal newcomer.
Not that I cared since I lost interest in these people the moment, they broke down from the fear of the incoming Staff the night before…
Humans who surrender to their fate and do nothing except freezing in fear are not worth caring about.
What makes it worse is that, except for Ana who had a self-made bow and John with his bat, the rest of the group was completely unarmed.
And even, Patrick has a gun to protect himself if necessary...
If I were in John's place, I would have split the group into melee and ranged units, and equipped them all with bows and spears.
Then I would have forced them to kill Staff members during the day to get used to it, and allow them to be human again, who are willing to fight for the right to be alive.
But it seems he and Ana are too considerate of them after losing their other group.
Anyway, I no longer need to see the sorrowful individuals because we arrived at another shelter with a sign in front stating "Welcome to Alexandria".
After opening the gate, a tough-looking man walks out to greet John's group of 'survivors'. He appears to be a former policeman or sheriff, as he wears a standard police belt with a holstered revolver.
However, the even more interesting person is the black woman with dreadlocks who accompanies him, while having a freaking katana on her back.
It looks like they are on somewhat friendly terms since Ana and the Katana woman hug each other while the male leaders seem to have a somewhat complicated relationship, as they only stare at each other.
Since we are not part of the group, Patrick and I stay a bit away from them until they finish talking.
John basically leaves his group in the hands of the guy named Rick and the badass woman named Michonne.
And like the obedient people they are, his group simply walks inside the shelter, and John comes afterwards towards us.
"Ok, let's go. It will take us nearly two days to get there since we need to hide during the closing hours to not get chased by the Staff," he says and walks forward, not showing any signs of sadness towards the left-behind people.
Well, it seems he doesn't need to be sad because…
"Wait! Who told you to simply walk away? I wasn't even finished saying my goodbyes to them."
Because Ana comes running after us while scolding John.
"Ana, I told you to stay here. It's too dangerous," says the surprised hunter who freezes in his place after seeing her.
"Never! We do this together or don't do it at all, and afterwards, you show me your world as you promised," she says with a grin and starts to lead the way.
John shakes his head and smiles happily for the first time, probably in his life, and matches her speed to walk beside her.
"Why does it feel like we are not the protagonists here?" Patrick asks with a sigh after hearing them and walks after them too.
"Because our women would kill us if we went into another dimension and flirted with women…" I say and hope that they keep their romance far away from me in the next two days…
And that Cthylla would have enough patience to wait for me a bit longer.
~~~ Two days later, with Cthylla and Teresa ~~~
For nearly three days now, Cthylla and Teresa have been waiting for their stupid husband and immortal boyfriend to come out of the cursed door.
"Wait, you can't go inside, it's not time yet..." says Teresa, who has stopped Cthylla countless times from entering the store by now.
But this time, she added something that enrages the secret eldritch being.
"What do you mean, yet...? What do you know?!" says Cthylla, shifting her attention from the automatic door to Teresa.
Who immediately steps back while raising her hands and says, "Sorry, but it was an order from Patrick... you see, he saw more than he told you.
Most of the time he sees the bad outcomes, and shortly after the good ones, if he can do something to influence them.
And the first future he saw was countless faceless creatures storming out of the door, invading our world, while a blurry dark creature that he couldn't see clearly led them...
But when I entered the room to tell him about your vampire adventure, he had another vision where Aiden fights this creature until both of them perish from the crushing dimension."
*Shatter*
"What?!!!" screams Cthylla, and her presence makes the air so cold that the glass around them starts to shatter.
The agents raise their weapons, but Teresa orders, "Everyone, lower your weapons or we will all die here, and leave us alone immediately!
The agents and scientists listen to her and all leave the premises, while Cthylla looks angrily at the woman she has spent the past few days with.
"What else? Tell me about the creature. You probably found something out, right?!"
Cthylla has learned from her past mistakes, and now seems to want to gather more information before facing an opponent, unlike the last time.
Teresa starts to shake from the cold but remains calm and says, "We couldn't. He only saw its blurry form, that was dark and large, with something like tentacles on its back."
"Blurry and tentacles?" asks Cthylla, while her heart started to beat faster.
Most humans can't perceive the true forms of eldritch beings, so they see them as blurry and grotesque things. And since tentacles are a common feature for her kind, she fears that another one of her family would try to enter this world.
"Yes..."
After hearing the confirmation, Cthylla checks her backpack to see if she has enough sheets of paper with Enochian and elder signs to hold back something like her.
Sadly, Rasiel couldn't create elder flames to effectively wound other eldritch beings, so it's a must for her to enter the building to help him if one of her kind appears there.
She closes her backpack again and runs towards the glass door, and this time, Teresa doesn't even try to hold her back, as it would end up bad for her.
Afterwards the glass door opens as she comes closer, but before she can enter, two people suddenly appear out of nowhere at the entrance and fall to the ground.
Teresa comes next to her, only to see her husband lying on top of the hunter who entered this anomaly a month ago.
Patrick looks confused around, before John throws him off himself and also looks panickily, while searching for something.
Before anyone can ask questions, Cthylla lifts the confused Patrick up by his collar and asks while shaking him, "Where is Rasiel? Tell me!"
"Wait... stop... shaking me... he... is still inside... he sent... us out while holding it off..."
"Aaaaggggghhh!" Suddenly, they hear an unnatural glass breaking screech, coming from inside the building.
Which causes even the experienced Teresa to drop to her knees in fear, while holding her ears. While Cthylla looks at the entrance in horror, then drops Patrick and runs inside.