Although their leader had banned them from talking about the ghosts, their fear of the boss' authority and strength still couldn't overpower their fear of what had just happened last night.
More than half of those bandits all gathered, telling each other about what happened to them, albeit in whispers as they still didn't want to outright ignore their boss' warning.
However, no matter how small their whispers were, the whispers of tens of people couldn't be called a whisper anymore as their voices soon reached the boss' ears.
"I've told you all to not ever talk about ghosts again!"
The boss had called all the members of his bandit group to gather before shouting right in front of their faces.
Some of the bandits wanted to retaliate and shout back, 'You don't even know how it felt, you have no right telling us what to do!'
But knowing their boss' temperament and his actual strength, none of them actually dared to say it out loud.
They all just looked down, preventing the boss from looking at their eyes which reflected their defiance against his words.
Seeing he got no response this time, the boss just shook his head.
"That's it. You all went nuts."
"We're all leaving tomorrow morning. Prepare your things today."
The boss then once again stared at all his underlings, most of them had pale faces now, only leaving a small number of people who didn't seem to mention any ghosts at all.
"This will be the last warning. You all better stop that ghost nonsense lest you want me to send you to the afterlife and become one yourself."
The boss then returned to whatever he was doing and the other bandits slowly dismissed themselves and continued doing their activity.
They were told to pack up and get ready to depart tomorrow so that's what they did.
All the bandits followed their boss' orders, every single word of it.
But there's just something that they couldn't do no matter how scared they were of their boss.
And one of the examples of that was to ignore their fear of what had happened last night, especially towards the ghost that had appeared before them.
The more their fear grew, the more strange things happened in the hideout.
Before, it was simply their stuff being misplaced somewhere that they didn't know before. A few missing things here and there were found in another place.
But right now, some of them saw with their own eyes how the entrance to their tents had closed in by itself.
Some others saw a rock suddenly being thrown out of nowhere.
And a few actually saw blurry silhouettes of ghosts walking amongst themselves.
They wanted to scream and run away, their innate feelings screamed at them to run away and tell the others about what they saw, but the boss' words prevented them from doing so.
Once again forcing them to bottle up the fear that they felt deep inside their hearts.
As more and more strange things happened right in front of their faces, the bandits couldn't even relax in the daytime as they could only imagine what would happen later at night when they decided to close their eyes.
The tense atmosphere of the bandits' hideout only grew and grew as the sun began lowering itself into the horizon.
And at night where they were eating their meals, none of them could even enjoy the taste of the savory meat they were eating as everything tasted bland.
Their body, their senses, their whole being was enveloped by fear as they couldn't even keep their hands still without shaking every now and then.
The only thought replaying in their minds were the memories of the last two days when they were visited by the ghosts right in the dead of night.
After they all finished eating, they all stayed rooted in their seats, not leaving the bright campfire that lit up the dark empty night.
Even after the last embers of the campfire died out, not a single one of them moved a single muscle to get up as they all looked at each other, trying to gain the strength to cope with their fears with each other's company.
They all planned to stay with each other until morning came, not daring to go on their own as the tent they used to sleep and rest had become their worst fear.
Unfortunately for them, their plan couldn't be realized as the leader noticed a huge gathering of people in the dead of the night and told them all to get back to their tents.
He told them to rest as tomorrow, they would be on their way back to the highway where they could hijack more merchants and travelers.
Even after hearing the boss' order, they all still hesitated and refused to go back to their own tents.
But after a firm threat from the boss, they all finally left the campfire site, walking very slowly into their own tents with all their senses heightened up.
Even jumping a little when they heard one of them accidentally broke a twig or stepped on a patch of dry leaves.
Once inside the tent, none of them dared to get inside their sleeping bags and close their eyes.
All of them sat on top of their sleeping bags, refusing to close their eyes even for just a split second.
They all planned to sit through the night, waiting for the morning sun to come and give them the strength to push away their fears.
However, just as their prior plan to stay together until the morning failed, their plans to stay awake to get away from the corpse-like ghosts also bore them no fruit.
After about an hour of silence and nothing happening to them, they finally saw it.
None of them were asleep, but they all saw it.
The corpse-like ghosts that had been haunting them in their sleep for the past two days appeared right in front of them while they were still wide awake.
None of them was ready for it to happen, but it had happened.
As if their bodies were already trained to do it, the second these ghosts appeared right in front of them, their whole body froze as they couldn't move a single muscle in their bodies.
They weren't even sleeping, but they still couldn't control their own bodies as they all froze in a sitting position.
Just like before, the ghosts slowly crept up towards them and they tried to struggle.
But their struggles were much much weaker this time as deep down, they knew, no matter how hard they struggled, it wouldn't matter in the end.
They still tried to break free of their paralyzed state when the ghost once again touched their bodies.
But the second they felt the ghost touch their faces, feeling the textures of the ghosts' bloodied and rotten hands, and they still couldn't do anything at all, most of them had given up fighting altogether and ceased their struggle.
Knowing that they couldn't move a single muscle at all no matter how hard they tried, not being able to utter a single word even if their throats had been hurt because of how hard they tried to do it, most of them just gave up.
And the moment they gave up, the light in their eyes darkened as they lost any signs of life.
But that was only until another light filled them and gave their eyes a new, different kind of light.
A light that didn't belong to a human.