After the fight, the cowboy picked up his machete, walked towards Mr Leonard's body, nelt near it's battered head, raised his left hand, clenched it into a fist then bumped it on his left shoulder, his right shoulder, his chest and then his stomach. Forming a symbol that seemed to match the constellation of the four crimson moons in the sky, after which he severed it's head.
Immediately after the corpse's head was torn from the body, the sky which had been peaceful all this time suddenly turned chaotic. Strong winds started blowing followed by red clouds that obscured the four crimson moons, after which dark red rain poured for about ten seconds before everything calmed and cleared as fast as it'd began.
After everything calmed down, the faceless cowboy took the severed head, walked towards the path and placed it down carefully, before he turned to mist and vanished.
------------
(Two minutes earlier)
Sprinting towards the path,Alpha abruptly stopped and turned to look at Mr Leonard, who inturn gazed at the group a bright smile on his face, before turning and facing the cowboy.
What's this, why are my eyes blurry Trying to rid of the water works that were now running uncontrollably in his eyes, Alpha stepped on the skulls. With sounds of cracking bones filling the air, he dashed to catch up with the rest of the group, in his heart, deap down he kinda knew that this was the last time he was gonna see Mr Leonard.
After running for about two minutes, the sky suddenly turned dark, the moons had illuminated the place in such a way that they'd forgotten that it was nighttime, not a second later rain started falling. And before they could even react, the weather was back to normal and the clouds obscuring the moons had retreated.
~Ahhhhh! Ahhhhh~
Screams echoed throughout the forest, the kids who'd previously mastered the little courage to walk on the skull path had now reached a breaking point. Most of them screamed, trying to wipe the blood off of them, while the rest couldn't even utter a single word and just stood there in shock.
Alpha was in the same boat as the latter group, his eyes filled with terror, he couldn't utter a word, to his left was Ciru who had her glasses in hand as she tensely scraped them, almost to the point of breaking them.
"Calm down it's not your blood" her voice brittle, Mrs Taiyo said. Her black blaids dyed in red, her face though covered with blood, looked like that of someone who'd seen a ghost.
Soon as they heard her rather sweet voice, some of the kids appeared to have calmed down, if only a little.
"Whats happening?" Dan, with shoulder length black locs, that somehow still retained their natural colour even after the blood shower, yet no one seemed to notice with all that was happening, dark brown eyes and a small build that looked to fit him perfect, asked with a confused look on his face.
"Come on man, she doesn't know either." Tony, with a brown fade, that greatly complemented his big eyes, though now dyed in red, said
"What, but she's an adult, she must know." Her voice barely audible, Mercy, interjected. She had black hair, that was tied up into Bantu knots, brown eyes and thick brows.
"I don't really know for sure but as an adult, I'll figure it out." Mrs Taiyo said glancing at the kids who looked eager for her answer.
"So we can now all go back home?" Mercy asked, as if she'd not heard the statement.
But immediately after the question, Mrs Taiyo's face that had lightened up a little, turned gromy and her entire diminor filled with shame
She remained silent for about thirty seconds, looking at the kids who gazed back at her with expectant gazes and took a deep breath before answering.
"No."
Alpha, stood there motionlessly as he gazed at his teacher, like every other kid on the path, there expectant gazes had turned to clear disappointment and fear. When he heard the answer his heartbeat increased and a cloud of dispair engulfed him.
After Mrs Taiyo uttered the word, some kids broke into silent cries
"I miss my mom"
"I'm scared"
"I'm thirsty"
"Me too"
I'm hungry"
They all had different kinds of outbursts, but all of them revolved around the same things going home, being hungry or thirsty and the obvious one being scared.
Mrs Taiyo couldn't really find word's to comfort them with, she too looked like she was on the verge of breaking. But that wouldn't have helped the situation. She new she was the adult and no matter the conscequences she had to take action. For all she knew Mr Leonard had sacrificed himself so that they could survive.
"Alright, we'll be going home soon but first we have to fill our stomachs. If we follow this path to the end I'm sure we'll find food and a way back home." She assured with a miserable smile displaying on her face.
'She's lying' Alpha had seen much of that smile, so he immediately knew but didn't really say anything. Those few words from her seemed to give a few kids hope. Looking to his left though, Ciru who still stood beside him didn't seem to have bought what her teacher was selling, a few other kids didn't really appear to either Dan and Mercy were among them. 'So they can tell it too' Alpha lampooned as he observed his fellow classmates reactions.
After dispair hit him, for a minute, he had a lot to think about and the only solution he came up with was surviving in this strange forest. He couldn't have helped being on that bus. Was he unlucky? sure, Was their a way to prevent it? none that he could think of, so the best next thing for him to do was to try his best and survive in this cursed place, and maybe one day they could all go back.
"How do you know? You've never been here, you can't even be sure if there aren't dangerous animals in this forest, you don't even know how long this path is, What if it's over 100 kilometres?, What then?, What will we be eating in the meantime? What if that guy catches up to us?" Like a broken record, with a stern face, black eyes, silver cluster earrings and short curly brown hair that was tied up into a sleek bun, sitted atop a pile of skulls, Margret asked, seeming unfazed by everything that was happening.
Once again every gaze was on Mrs Taiyo, only this time they weren't filled with expaction. They were filled with fear and concern, even though obscured by the blood on their faces none of the kids were crying. After the torrent of questions from their classmate, reality had finally started dawning up on them. When she comforted them before, deep down most of them knew it wasn't true, inspite that they had chosen to hold on to that one thin string of hope, but after the flood of questions echoed in their ears, the shells of hope they'd built around themselves crumbled, and only fear of how they were gonna survive and go back home remained.
"Hahaha", Mrs Taiyo let out a hopeless laugh and a couple of seconds later added with a bitter smile " I really I'm the worst adult, aren't I? I can't even manage to comfort or give you hope"
"No, you're doing just fine, I don't think anyone would have done any better in your shoes, I think Margret just voiced what a few of us were thinking." Ciru who had finally finished wiping her glasses and put them back on, comforted.
"Yeah, but what are we gonna do now?" Tony who'd nearly managed to wipe the blood on his face and fade asked.
"We can all wait hear for the sun to rise." Mercy inquired.
"And risk that phycho coming after us? Fat chance." with bright brown eyes and an afro hair style, Billie said.
"Billie's right, we can't wait for the sun to come up, which I doubt will be any time soon, we've been at this place for over two hours and the moons positions haven't changed" Alpha earger to join in on the exchange, voiced.
Everyone gazed at the sky with surprised expressions.
"So we keep following the path?, And hope the sun rises or we make it out of the forest before the cowboy catches up to us? Got it" rising from her earlier sitting position, Margret asked with a bit of sarcasm in her tone.
"Why do you always have to make everything hard and complicated? Mr Leonard is from the military he's gonna defeat him and join us soon." Graring at her, Ciru, her tone laced with anger, said
"Sorry princess, but this isn't a movie, or have u forgotten what you're standing on? Those are humans skulls, they're over a thousand, maybe hundreds of thousands of them, each and every one of them belonged to a human that tried to fight that thing.
"But he's from the m..."
"Sorry princess, but not everyone is as optimistic as you" cutting her off Margret added.
"Don't call me princess." raising her voice, she gritted her teeth almost to the point of breaking them.
"Now, now girls, this is not the time nor the place" Mrs Taiyo who'd been standing there deep in thought said, before adding . "As Alpha and Billie said, we're gonna keep walking and hope that the sun rises sooner, we'll figure everything out after."
"What about Mr Leonard?" Ciru asked, her voice low.
"He's gonna catch up " Mrs Taiyo answered with a flat tone. She didn't really wanna lie to them, but telling them that Margret was probably right, would've caused unmanageable chaos, sure a few of them could've taken it, but some of them like Ciru wouldn't have been able to come back from something like that.
After the conclusion, once more, cracks of bones breaking filled the air as they marched forwarded.
What adventures and horrors awaited them, only time could tell.