It was already a terrible night with seeing the death of a person and him killing his killer as well, sounds ridiculous right? All the haunting noises coming from this eerie environment was making me nervous, and with that thing which we saw, *sighs* everything was becoming a mess.
Even after seeing that, Jasper didn't fazed and instead started following that... that thing. I aggravatingly said to myself. I grabbed his hand and tried to stop him and in a low breaking voice I said. "Where are you going?"
"To ask him the way out of course." He replied.
It was not illogical. "But with what we have seen until now, we shouldn't risk it." I said.
"Are you a chicken or were you always like this?" he asked. "I... I'm just..." He cut my line and said, "Just shut up and walk. He might not have gone too far."
I took a deep breath, dropped my rambling and started to follow him. As we moved deep into the village, I was able to see some lights, yet I was not sure if people actually live in a place like this. But, it was worth a shot I guess.
We kept on moving in the direction which that human figure went. As we kept on walking around for an hour now. We were able to see somewhat clearly in the dark as our eyes started to adjust to this darkness.
At a distance, we were hearing people's voices and we thought that yes, this is the place we wanted to find. Now we will be free from this. Their was a sense of relief within us and we almost started celebrating. But as we got closer, the voices started to turn into screams. The voices which we thought would be cheering us up to help us, which turned out to be one's screaming and needed help.
We moved even closer thanks to detective Jasper who wants to uncover and see everything he could get his eyes on. But I knew we were going to see something much worse than what we saw earlier. I was hoping that I might be wrong or should I say, I wanted to be wrong this time. But what we saw was definitely... HELL.
In this dark environment with flickering light coming from the flaming torches, we saw people running away from such kinds of people, and being chased by humans like figures. I saw them as they slashed through people like nothing. People were screaming and not without any reason because what we saw was a slaughter house of humans being killed by human-looking figures.
It was a bloodbath, some people were running and others were praying for god's forgiveness before being sent to heaven I guess. It was a completely different world from which I was in, before entering this village's gate.
In this chaos, I saw a little boy who pissed his pants and was standing there, shaking in his boots. He was unable to move as two-three of those hunting figures surrounded him. He was alone, and this whole scene awoke something in me. Something which I had buried deep inside of me.
It was somewhat similar to what happened to me, when I was 9 years old. I went to my nanny's house which was in a somewhat this kind of village. There was a place close to that area which was considered dangerous because of scary animals.
While playing alone, I went there by mistake while playing and in that moment, I got surrounded by wild dogs. I... I could see the sharp canines which can easily crush my bones and the saliva dripping from there mouth ready to munch on me. I could sense the danger but I was a child and froze by all of this.
Even in this situation, I was lucky enough to be saved by people who rushed around me. But one was not lucky enough and that scene still stuck in my head. When I was completely shaken from fear and blocked by a tree, a single man came to my rescue before all the other people from the village. He was like a ray of hope for me but... the light faded away even before reaching close to me. The person got attacked and snacked on, by the pack of wild dogs.
The sounds of his bones cracking made my ears go deaf and the pieces of human flesh flying over, made me vomit at the scene. In that meantime, there focus was not on me but on eating that poor soul. I was able to see some fire so I mustered up my courage and shouted at the top of my lungs. "HEEEELP!"
People wandering close by and the dogs, both heard me loud and clear as if a steel pipe crashed into a completely silent room. It was a life and death situation for me but, the villagers reached there before the dogs could get there claws on me, and that's how I was saved.
While all of this was going on in my head, Jasper's voice hit my ears saying. "Wake up. Wake up Dave. You Idiot" I was out cold because of all that stress and fear built up till now. I slowly got up with my body barely supporting my consciousness. When I got stable, I saw fear and sweat on Jasper's face as he pointed me towards my right.
He was pointing towards the boy which I completely forgot about but now it was too late. I looked for him but there was nothing left of him to be saved. His skull was opened with a heavy hit from a club by those HUNTERS which killed him instantly.
I could see his brain twitching on the ground in the pool of blood and the boy's eyes wide open starting right at me. I imagined him harshly saying "Why didn't you help me?". I was unable to look anywhere else as if his eyes were the only thing in this entire world which I could see.
Seeing me shocked, Jasper put his hand on my shoulder and said. "Let's get out of... here." I could sense his body shaking and that fear in his voice now which was not there prior this slaughtering. "Let's reach out to a higher place to get a look at the outside." Jasper suggested. With minimum movement and brain power, I said. "Alright."
When we entered this village, it didn't seem that big. But as we kept on walking, it was getting bigger and bigger. We kept walking through the bushes to avoid any attention and we were following the lights to be able to see if anything comes our way.
On our way towards a higher place we encountered one of those HUNTERS but managed to avoid any detection and moved on. After a half-an-hour walk we managed to get to a higher place, and from there we started scouting.
We could see that the village is vast and somewhere we were able to see torches moving in the woods. There were around 7 or 8 of them but we were looking for an escape route which we wanted the most.
While searching for our escape, I remembered that it's been a long time since we seen each other. We were apart from each other for sometime now but we were in touch somehow. We met due to the steals and deals jobs but got to know each other better as time passed.
"So, I could see that you got something from that guy, huh." I asked. "*smiles* This was something I was looking for, for a long time you know. This jewel alone could be sold for thousands or even millions of dollars. Of course you would get your fair cut, but this would be the biggest achievement of my life, like a Hall of Fame for me or maybe needed, for a certain someone in the near future." He replied.
"You looking for a girl?" I asked. "Sort of, I guess. Because now, I'm done with all of this and want to go for something like building a family, like any great citizen of our country will do." He replied.
"Never thought that Oh so-great stealer would have such a simple wish." I said in a teasing way. "Are you mocking me-" "No. Not really. It seems quite realistic and achievable, than staying in this place." I replied with a straight face while looking at him.
"Ah! There you go ruining the whole mood. Why do you have to be so down and depressed. Why always bring the darker side into our conversations." He said. "Sorry, force of habit." I said with a smile.
All this talk was like one of the roadside conversations which we had like any normal human beings rambling about our life and struggles.
We were not friends, but we got close. We didn't know what our relationship was aside from being stealer and broker. So we came up with a term just for us... A 'so-called' friend. It was a symbol which tied us together with some meaning of each other in our life.
While this conversation was going on, I could hear a flock of birds taking off in the sky, rising above, but... one of them just fell down the way. I sensed anexity and as I turned around, I could see an arrow piercing right through Jasper's heart.
I saw his body fall and the human like figure with the blood covered club, running down towards me. Without a single thought or hesitation in my mind, with a clear head, my body moved on its own. I don't know if it was instinct or some external force trying to keep me alive, but I ran while abandoning my only 'so-called' friend.
----- To be Continued in Chapter 3 -----