The hounds were released.
The four bloodthirsty creatures with salivating maws pursued the frantically escaping children. And this remained unknown to them.
Reo cast a worried glance at the advancing kids. Their pace was constant and steady. In due time they were sure to reach the exit.
'Not fast enough.' Reo thought grimly.
But it couldn't be helped.
At the front of the party, lighting up the dark tunnel way was Kyle, walking side by side with Trise. They advanced the tunnel paths with anxious and hesitant steps, the thought of something pooping out of the darkness brought hesitation to their actions.
Right behind them, the hollow kids in tattered rags dragged their feet like undead corpses, Lia in the midst of them. She tried to support the weakest among them by offering a shoulder, bringing a burden to their pace.
Reo was very worried about these kids. They had remained unresponsive to anything else and quietly went along with them without any form of resistance.
Their wills were broken.
They had gotten to the point where anything anyone said goes. Like mindless, hollow slaves far beyond the threshold of despair. These kids were genuinely waiting for their deaths.
When he saw the kids, Reo was reminded of that bastard with an ugly hobby of torturing little children. And when he did, Reo found himself glaring openly at the empty air.
"Reo," Don weakly called out to him.
He raised his head and forced a tattered smile. Leon on the other side hadn't failed to notice this. He quietly side glanced at the two for a short moment then looked away, suppressing a small scowl.
Then Leon looked forward with a silent question. He noticed the advancement of the group had come to a sudden stop.
"Hey, Lia, what's wrong?" Reo took a step forward and asked.
The hollow kids had gathered around Lia, forming a small crowd enclosing her against the wall on one side.
Lia's unsettled voice came next.
"Reo, I don't know, but it's one of the kids...she just broke down."
Reo's dark eyes narrowed in a slight scowl. He looked passed the kids and gestured urgently at Kyle in front. Kyle reacted with a nod before handing over the torch to Trise and heading to the back of the group where Reo was.
Putting Don in Kyle's care, Reo walked through the kids' enclosement and approached Lia and the frail young girl on the floor.
He lowered himself and reached a hand for the girl's exposed thin neck. It was obvious the girl was still alive. Her chest and back pumped from behind her skimpy, tattered rag cloth.
"What is it?" Leon had already made his way to them with Don and Kyle. He asked as he gazed down at the pale expression of the girl.
Retracting his hand with a deep scowl on his face, Reo informed behind gritted teeth.
"She's burning up. Most likely a fever."
The little girl had short brown hair at neck length. Her expression was pained, ghastly, and pale. Her cheeks were sunken, with the outline of her face bones apparent on the surface.
The little girl struggled with each breath. Her forehead was beading with sweat and her sunken cheeks were flushed a bright red along with her trembling body.
Lia raised the girl's head, placing it against her lap. She raised her head and glancing at Reo with a tense expression, she called out to him.
"Reo."
"We have to keep moving." Reo simply said as he picked the girl off the ground and carried her against his back. This was even easier, considering the frail girl didn't have much body mass.
Reo instantly felt the full brunt of her burning temperature against his back and neck, her little weight pressing down on him mildly.
Feeling the sharp pain of his broken ribs, Reo forcefully suppressed a grunt. He tightened his expression and looked ahead.
"Come on, we still have some ways to go," without sparing a glance at Leon and the others, Reo walked forward to the front of the group and stood forward with Trise.
He took one more step forward then stopped.
Trise glanced forward at him.
"What is it?" She asked.
She also failed to notice the slight trembling of Reo's body. With his back against the others, Reo's tight expression contorted into an even tighter grimace.
'Damnation.'
"Run!" He squared a tensed grimace at the rest and warned.
The next second, the cave walls of the tunnels shook and shivered from the distant cacophony of bloodthirsty barking and cries of starved beasts.
The bloodhounds bolted through the tunnels from the direction the kids had just come through. Their hungry maws dripped with ghastly saliva.
The distant sounds of the ferocious growls and barks reached the ears of the kids, and with it, the intense sense of urgency that stiffened each of their bodies.
'They already found out.'
" Now! Run!" Reo barked urgently.
The group hurried and advanced quicker down the path. The sound of the hounds approaching was still an echo, this meant they had yet to entirely catch up.
But they were close. Too close for comfort.
Reo hurried. He struggled against the resistance made by the burning pain in his side and marched forward with the burning girl on his back. He could feel the quickening breaths escaping her lips encroach and smolder the heat on the back of his neck.
The girl trembled and shrunk, her arms wrapped a little tighter around Reo's neck.
The group made a left turn down the tunnel paths. The texture and surface of the wall changed once again, slowly reverting to the haphazard Stony surface supported with scaffolding.
It meant they were getting closer...
And so were the hounds.
Boom!
The tunnel shuddered.
A figure blocked the path of the group, the weight of his feet the size of boulders, and a massive spiked club in his hand.
Veins wriggled like worms, bulging all across the oblong bald head of Shorty. The bloodshot gaze in his eyes, still dripping with tears, focused and intense seething bloodlust and murderous intent dwelling ferociously in its depths.
Shorty howled like a wild beast devoid of sanity and intelligence. The intensity of the roar quaked the walls and tunnel, forcing a shudder to spread far and wide.
Lia's knees trembled and gave out, unable to withstand the full brunt of it all.
She grasped both sides of her head and broke into tears.
The ember of flame forming the torch shook. Trise took an involuntary step back with a trembling expression. Kyle went pale and Leon forgot to breathe.
The fear of the quickly approaching hounds was instantly overwhelmed by a whole entirely different pressure.
Despair.
Shorty took a mighty stride forward, his step forming a deep grove in the ground, a tremor whispering through the tunnels again.
The insanity in his gaze shuffled through the group, falling on one of the kids.
'Black hair...' a visage of a thought in Shorty's mind.
Boom!
With another mighty roar, the short giant charged at Reo willed the large spiked wooden club without a single thought.
The spiked club raced through the air, ripping through space at his target, the feeling of urgency in Reo's body heightened at what could be presumed to be a dangerous level.
As such Reo didn't think, his heart skipped a beat and he forgot to breathe. That fleeting moment felt like an eternity.
Bam!
The club smashed into the left wall, missing the target by a great margin. The sound of an exploding drum rolled through the tunnel like a clap of thunder.
The ancient structure failing to withstand one more shudder came down and apart on itself. Massive cracks forming a web spread across the wall, from the point of impact to the ceiling and even across the ground.
Reo had slipped and was lucky enough to dodge the hit, taking an unsteady step back. Feeling the rolling tremors and the ground parting and shifting under his feet, he was forced to acknowledge the current situation he was facing. And it was dire.
The ground underneath him partitioned and crumbled under his feet, the cave ceiling coming down against his head as a considerable section of the tunnel fell in on itself.
He grabbed hold of the girl on his back into a tight embrace and cast one final glance at the others.
Reo, the girl, Shorty, and the rest of the tunnel paths forward...
The whole thing sunk like quicksand. The underground structure shook in a mighty rumble like a crack of thunder as it caved in on itself and its victims, swallowing three of them whole.
***
Authors' Note: apologies for the chapter delay, had technical issues. RED will be out in a few.