'SCREEEEECCHH' sounded out from deep in the forest. 'ROOOAAARRR' echoed out. It sounded like two beasts fighting. The first was a shrilling shriek I didn't recognize, while the second sounded more like a bear.
They kept roaring for a long time; I don't know how long until suddenly, the bear cried out and went silent. Anna and I looked at each other with sweat dripping down our foreheads, trembling in fear of what was out there. "It's the wr-wraiths co-co-coming t-to g-get m-me," the boy cried out in fear.
I didn't know what was out there, but I knew I didn't feel like meeting face-to-face with it today. I turned to Anna and asked her, "Did you find what we wanted? Cause I think it's time to leave." She looked at me with shock, "You're going to leave this kid here?!" She asked me, angry at the thought of abandoning a child.
"No, of course, we won't leave him here. We're taking him with us. He can understand us. Don't you know how valuable that is?" I explained to her my reasoning for taking the boy with us. I looked at him with determination to get him and Anna to safety.
Anna was the only person I cared about, but this boy was valuable. He could tell us everything about this world and where we were. The first problem was that the journey back to camp was through the forest and past the wraith.
I didn't know what it looked like or how fast it was, but I knew it was quick and strong enough to kill a bear. The second problem was the boy's ankle. He wouldn't be running anytime soon on that thing, so I had to carry him. If I got caught in a fight with this thing, with him weighing us down, we wouldn't last the night.
While contemplating what to do, another shriek cut my time short. This one was closer to us, uncomfortably close. I decided the boy was too valuable, so I bent down towards him to pick him up. As I wrapped my arms around him underneath his legs and back, he started screaming and wailing around.
He flailed his arms against my chest and began screaming, "LET ME GO!! DON'T TOUCH ME!!!" Anna came over to us to try to calm him down, but it was too late; whatever that thing out there was, it was coming over here now.
"Calm down, it's okay," Anna kept whispering into his ear, desperately trying to calm him down. I knew we were out of time now, and that thing would be here any second, so I handed the boy to Anna; he was pretty light, so she should've been able to carry him if only for a short time.
"Take him and go hide; I'll deal with this," I told her. The moment he left my arms into hers, he went dead quiet. That annoyed me quite a bit, to be honest, but at least he was now silent. Anna opened her mouth to argue with me before I pushed her away towards where we found him. I bent down to lift the door frame again and told her," Hide under here and don't come out unless I ask you to." She was hesitant at first, but looking at the boy made the decision easier for her, so she crawled underneath the rubble, taking the boy with her.
Now, it was my turn to hide; I wasn't planning on standing out in the open for this thing to rip me apart. I wasn't some idiot from a horror movie. My hiding place of choice was the well. I quickly ran over to it and tied the rope for the bucket around my waist before jumping in and clinging to the side of the wall.
Not a second later, I heard it, not its shrieking but its footsteps. I knew it was stupid to expose myself, but I felt compelled to see what it looked like. So I looked. It was ridiculously tall, at about seven and a half feet. Its arms and legs were long, while its torso was small and short. It seemed as if it had no flesh on its bones, only skin; that was how skinny it appeared.
I couldn't see its face as it had its back facing me, its spine was poking out of its back, and you could see the points of the spine pressing against its skin. The most disturbing thing about it so far, besides its height, was the skin, its pale white skin.
The skin looked like it had never seen the sun and had no blood flowing through its veins. Then suddenly, it turned around, and I lowered myself deeper into the well to stay out of its sight. 'First, I thought this would be like an isekai adventure, and then It turned into a survival show like Nekked n Fraid; now it's a damn horror movie. Will this world make up its mind!' I thought to myself, lamenting my situation.
The rope that I had tied to my waist was holding most of my weight, but I still had to hold onto the wall so I could keep from dangling around. While gripping the stone wall for dear life, hoping it might just leave, saving me the trouble, one of the stones my feet were resting against fell loose.
I readied myself as it tumbled and fell into the water with a big splash. I wouldn't be an idiot like in a horror movie and 'hope it didn't hear the stone fall' while waiting there, so I untied the rope around my waist and took out one of the knives I had so I could stab it in the head as soon as it looked over.
The moment its head peaked over the well, I stabbed it in its left eye and pulled myself out of the well while it screamed out in agony, clawing at its face, trying to pull the knife out, making a bloody mess of its face in the process. I ran to hide while it was busy and pulled out my other knife with the intent of taking its other eye when it threw the knife in its eye at me. Thankfully, it had a horrible aim and missed me.
Leaving me no time to breathe, it ran towards me, closing the distance after it had distracted me with the knife and swung its claws in a wide arc towards my head. I dropped down low to the ground and slashed at its legs, only for it to have no effect. The knife just glanced off the skin like I had hit stone and sent me reeling backward on my butt. I pushed myself further back, kicking its leg to avoid the claw coming down on me.
I then got back up and continued slashing at it while dodging its attacks. I was tired of trying to keep up with it and could only manage to dodge its attacks because of how long its limbs were. Staying close to and working the body was the best method to avoid its attacks, but I was getting no results in killing this thing.
After repeatedly trying to cut its skin, I decided that the knife was useless; I might as well have hit it with a feather. The only spot on its body I knew I could cut was its eyes, so I started targeting its remaining eye. It immediately could tell what I was aiming for and focused on protecting its remaining eye. With its remaining eye now being guarded, I knew I couldn't pierce its skin, but I could pierce the eye I had already destroyed, so I targeted that one instead.
Blind in one eye, it couldn't keep up with my movements, leaving it vulnerable to attacks to its left side. I jammed the knife once again into its left eye, digging into its skull and trying to kill it when it grabbed my wrist. It started squeezing my wrist, almost breaking it, until I let go of my remaining knife. After I let go, it grabbed my wrist with both claws this time and threw me. It nearly tore my arm out of its socket when it did that.
Not wanting to risk getting stabbed in the eye again, it picked up the knife it threw and threw it along with the one in its eye into the well. Now, I had no weapons. It walked towards me slowly, mockingly, believing that I was defenseless without weapons. I quickly corrected that line of thinking. I sprinted toward it, ducking under its claws, and went for a single-leg takedown.
Never having been taken down like this probably confused it about what to do, so it hesitated for a second before trying to get up, but that second was all I needed. I transitioned from top control to side control and grabbed its arm, pinning it in an arm bar and pulling it as far back as possible.
It was awkward holding its limbs because of how long they were, but I managed to dislocate or break them, leaving it crippled. The wraith screeched at the top of its lungs as it lay immobile. I was planning to finally kill it by breaking its neck, but it kept lashing out, threatening to bite me with its sinister-like mouth. Not wanting to get bitten, I decided to kill it with fire and walked over to grab my torch.
I thought its screams were annoying before, but the sounds it made while I burned it alive just about made my eardrums bleed.
With it now dead, I walked over to Anna and our new 'collectible' 'cough, cough' companion. I lifted the frame and out came Anna and the kid, who was now holding a mysterious-looking book.
The book intrigued me because it looked old, like ancient old. So I asked the kid about the book, "What's that you got there?" "Y-y-you c-c-can't h-h-have it!!!" He yelled with ferocity and determination that seemed unnatural for him.
That made me even more curious about the book. But not wanting to upset our 'translator' 'cough, cough' new friend, I let it go and told Anna we had to go. She was hesitant initially, not wanting to leave without anything, but I convinced her that we had already found the best thing possible: someone who could understand and translate for us. Already weary from this expedition, Anna agreed with me and told our new translator we were taking him back to our camp. Initially, he was hesitant to go into the forest, but Anna convinced him that he would be okay because we were protecting him now and wouldn't let anything happen to him.
With that, we prepared to return to the camp. Anna would carry the kid since he screamed whenever I touched him. Hopefully, we wouldn't encounter any more wraiths that night, but things rarely went as I had hoped.