"We rest for today, tomorrow blood will rain."
"Those were your words you muttered." Mrs Taiyo clarified.
Hearing that, Dan pondered, what did he mean by blood will rain, then almost instantly his face darkened, he seemed to have understood the gravity of his words.
Today the cowboy was giving them a pass, this meant that they could rest, but tomorrow a slaughter would commence.
"You can try and rest today, tomorrow we'll try and figure things out." Her words soft and soothing to the ear, Mrs Taiyo inquired.
Some would've protested at this, but considering how tired they all were they kept quiet.
Mrs Taiyo also sat a bit further from the kids and begun contemplating. Today they would get a pss. Her heart would've lightened if not for those last words Dan added.
What could she do? How could she help them? How could they survive? Her mind raced with question that couldn't be answered. At the moment, all she needed was a good rest and hope that they weren't attacked by wild animals. She would've wanted to stay guard and protect the kids that now slept peacefully in a bundle after their fatigue won, but she too needed the rest and there wasn't really anything she could do to protect them. She was weak and useless and only depended on luck and the kids for survival.
The night was a breeze as only cold wind blushed against them.
.....
The sun peeked above the horizon, it's yellow rays radiating the forest.
It wa not until it reached midday that Alpha woke up, finding himself clumped in the bundle they'd created to combat the cold. Glancing at the direction Mrs Taiyo had previously laid on, half his face still covered with Tony's white shirt, he noticed her absence, though something told him she was fine and was maybe out doing something.
Gazing around the forest he found a spot where he could relieve himself.
Walking past the gigantic trees around, he secluded himself behind a bush and was about to do the deed, when suddenly he noticed something. Behind one buck of a tree that was strangely similar in almost all aspects with the one they'd laid Lucy, and on it were scribbings that looked exactly as the one Alpha had scribed two days ago. First he thought it was the same place that they circled back to, but looking around, the skull path didn't appear to be anywhere close. And looking closely enough the scribbings appeared older, way older.
Forgetting what he'd initially gone to do, Alpha shot out of the bushes and dashed back to the ground.
There he found Mrs Taiyo back and with a rabbit in hand, the hunger Alpha had would've have made him forget what he saw, but this wasn't something one would brush off.
"There's something you gotta see."
"What?" Mrs Taiyo asked with a raised eyebrow.
Everyone, having woken up, looked at him curiously before initially following him.
Alpha went behind the particular tree, before pointing out, I wrote this on Lucy's grave.
The kids first had solemn expression with the mention of her name, after which they begun shoving each other to see what was inscribed.
'In loving memory of Lucy'
'May we meet again in the vast sea of memories'
Margret seeing the writing, intently looked at Alpha, not only her, but everyone stared at him, the words here surely couldn't have been his, right?
Although everyone remembered him scribbing the tree they still doubted.
Mrs Taiyo after witnessing this didn't know what to make of it, she saw what Alpha wrote back then and right now she was sure the handwriting and the word placement was the same.
What did this all mean? If it was new inscription then that couldn't have bothered her as she would have guessed the cowboy copied it and wrote on this particular tree. But now this we old inscriptions, six to seven years old to be precise, this made her connect the dots she'd hoped not to.
From Mr Leonard precise instructions to stick on the skull path, to adapting to a situation this fast, even the death of one of their classmates, killing the red wolves like cockroaches and now this.
It was all too coincidental, making her fully believe that this wasn't actually their first time.
"This forest is strange, maybe the cowboy copied yours and wrote it here making it seem like it was written years ago." Mrs Taiyo didn't wanna arouse panic, which forced her to lie before adding while raising the rabbit that was surprisingly big.
"Who wants some lunch?"
"Me."
Alpha could tell that that was a lie she had concocted but decided to go with it and follow her to the clearing.