XX.XX.XXXX?
The road was covered in pure white snow, but the red hue casting it made it look red. The moonlight was blue and sometimes these two illuminations would combine and cover everything in purple. That's what happened now. The road ahead of them turned purple.
It was a calming view, unlike when red dominates over the blue and makes this world eerie. It's sad that it had stopped raining, because for once, the rain would look magical. Not radioactive.
Elodie's words still hung in the air as the others considered their options now.
"We should go along the road. I've had a bad experience with woods in the past…," Ethan said, glancing at the trees that only appeared like silhouettes in the dark.
"But there won't be any snow in the woods. At least it wouldn't get in our shoes," suggested Victor.
"Good point," Velvette mentioned. "But don't act like we're not all wet already."
"And who's fault is that?" Victor looked directly at Alex.
"Why is it my fault?" he badgered.
"You started the snowball fight."
"Victor, stop hating on him. It's not like he's Theo," Velvette joined in.
Alex actually chuckled because he had nothing to do with Theo. But for Ethan his absence was still fresh and the words hurt.
"Velvette, I think that this wasn't the right time…," Victor commented, scanning the expression the others had on their faces.
"I was kidding. He's not that bad." Over the short while they had spent together, she realized she never really hated him.
"Let's just go," Victor stated, already walking ahead of them all.
"Wait, are we going through the woods or…?" Velvette said before he could get far.
Victor stopped walking, "Let's just go along the road, like Ethan wanted."
They walked down the road, sinking deep into the thick layer of snow each step—the car barely passed through it before.
—
Carmen and Alex were trailing behind the others—well Ethan was at their rear, walking alone, his mind clouded with the same thoughts from before. Thoughts on Theo and the things he wished to tell him but never for the chance. Yet, there was still a glimmer of hope in his heart that made him believe that he will get the chance.
The stars were clouded, unable to be read. Though if they weren't, Ethan would look up at the sky and wonder if this all was already written in the stars. That everything that happened was supposed to happen that way.
Perhaps, it wasn't, because the stars wouldn't know that they would act so naively. Out of all people, they believed Mrs. Agnes. And now, they had to fight against her.
Ethan, from the behind, watched how Alex and Carmen talked and laughed, sometimes he'd even overhear the conversation. Though then he shifted his gaze down to the ground and noticed drops of blood following their path. It came from Alex's wound.
"Hey, Alex." he tapped on his shoulder. "Do you know that you're bleeding?"
"Oh yeah, I know."
"What?" Carmen, who didn't know about it, spoke, his worry growing. "The bleeding should have stopped already."
"Relax."
"I think I'm just gonna leave the two of you alone…," Ethan said before awkwardly heading a few meters behind them.
He scanned the body language of everyone from the back, wondering what they were talking about while putting his hair half-up again.. But then, a hissing sound caught his attention. He noticed a figure blurring in between the towering trees. A creature? He asked himself. It had the body of a creature, though the way it moved, there was something off about it. A regular creature would attack the moment it hears someone's presence. Yet this figure just moved along his steps.
He decided to take a look. "Y'all, I'll be right back," he informed the others but all he got in response was a brief glance.
Moving towards the spreaded forest, the figure seemed to disappear. Ethan's eyes searched his surroundings, looking for any signs of what he saw before. As he turned around, he met with a shocking side. He fell to the ground, crawling back, his heart pounding. The figure he saw was towering over him. It was a regular creature, though what considered him was the fact that it didn't attack him. As if it could sense his fear and just feel bad. As if it could feel things, emotions.
He managed to crawl out the forest but the creature slowly came after him. It didn't attract, it only followed the sound of snow crunching under him. That was way scarier than if the creature attacked because it made him ask himself a simple question; 'why?'.
Elodie heard the defeating steps, and Ethan's rapid breathing, so she turned around at the sound. Her eyes widened at the sight, she immediately pulled out a shotgun she took from the van before and shot the creature in its head.
Ethan watched the creature's head explode before the rest of its body fell onto him. The creature was heavy—but still not as heavy as he expected it to be,away lighter—he never noticed that before. He turned to Elodie, who was still holding her gun in case the creature was still alive, and saw how she—and the others, trailing behind her approaching him.
Elodie came by his side and placed a hand on his shoulder. He shrugged it off. He shrugged her touch off.
"What happened? Are you okay?" Elodie asked.
"I don't know… It didn't attack me… The creature didn't attack me," Ethan answered, moving the corpse away from his body, his front stained in the sticky matter. Dark matter.
Everyone exchanged glances.
This world was getting more surprising every moment.
"What do you mean it didn't attack you?" Elodie questioned, confused by the situation.
"I knew the creature sensed me, it followed me. But it didn't attack. And I don't think that it was planning on doing that."
"Planning?" Alex repeated Ethan's words. "Creatures don't plan, they act."
Victor meanwhile observed the remnants of the creature body, looking for any signs of anomaly. "We should've been more careful about the head. Maybe it had a brain or something," he said, searching through the insides of the creature, though there was nothing. If there was anything, the shotgun had destroyed it and they would never find out.
"Can we just go," Ethan suggested as he tried to brush off the dark matter away from his clothes. The matter felt heavy against his body, he began to wonder how creatures can move so fast with all the weight they carry.
"I think we're done here so…," said Elodie waiting for the approval of the others.
"No," Alex stated. "I wanna take the creature with me."
"No, you don't," Carmen shook his hand and dragged him away.
"Careful," Alex said, almost tripping over his own feet. "I still have the heart."
He then pulled out the heart from sealed in a plastic bag out of his pocket.
"Where did you get the plastic bag, do you just carry them around in your coat?" Velvette asked, her voice filling with amusement.
"I carry a lot of things in my pockets," Alex responded.
Velvette searched the pockets of her own fur white coat to see if she also carries something. "I've got a spoon?" she asked herself, unaware that this hid in her pockets. The spoon was silver with a decorative handle and a shell-shaped bowl. It looked unique.
"A spoon?" Alex repeated.
"Oh yeah," she realized aloud. "I remember stealing that spoon because I liked its ornateness."
Alex didn't bother to answer and just simply gave her a look which he left with, continuing the way, the rest joining him.
The path stretched before them, now littered with signs bearing illegible inscriptions. Snow had blanketed some, while others were obscured by the strange, dark matter. The once vibrant colors had faded, leaving them ghostly and unrecognizable. The sky, once filled with swirling snowflakes, had fallen silent. No one knew if the snow would ever return, or what its sudden appearance had meant in the first place for now. A chilling wind swept through the trees, their branches now tinged with an unnatural crimson. The moon, once a comforting presence, was nowhere to be seen, hidden behind a thick veil of clouds. With the moon's disappearance the beautiful purple hue vanished, replaced by red tinge again.
Stillness stretched across the world—literally. Even between that many people no one chose to speak. With each breath they exhaled the cold was carried everywhere, frost forming on the eyelashes and hitting hard especially against the soaked clothes. The fingers stinged with pain as the snow melted and went through the shoes. At least the melted white canvas hasn't freezed instead.
But every path has an end, and even this one had. It's been an hour, more like hours, though definitely not minutes because the legs were already sore from walking when the forest stretched to an end. The town ahead wasn't the one from where they came. It couldn't be told based on how it looked but based on the time it took to get there. It took hours to get to the reservation by car and it took the same amount of time to get here. They must've chosen the wrong path.
"A town!" Velvette called out as the silhouettes of houses up a hill came into a focus, their presence breaking the silence that lasted for an hour—if not two. No one responded at first, relief flooding them. No one responded before Victor did but his words weren't intended for Velvette. "Alex," he began. "Where were we going?"
"I don't know, back to the orphanage, I guess. Why should I know?"
"This is a different town. We'd die if we had to walk what we rode by car," Victor explained
"I almost died walking this. What do you mean this is the wrong town?" Elodie joined in, her voice a canvas painted with her determined thoughts expressed them almost clearly; her voice showed her desire to disappear into the snow and hope that freezing to death is fast.
"Y'all, we probably won't find out where we are either," Carmen informed, checking the sign that once told the name of this place to any new visitors but now was covered in dark matter—not even the snow enveloped it because it was hidden under a tree's shadow, the snow couldn't fall through the tree's protection. The sign wasn't exactly hiding in its shadow, it was always night in this world without any illumination, no shadows could trail behind. So just hidden under the tree, since this world wasn't just a mere shadow, but the very embodiment of darkness itself.
Carmen tried scraping the dark matter off the sign but it just stuck to his hand and the text on it most likely peeled off anyways. He somehow shook the dark matter off his hand and spoke along his movements. "We're fucked."
"Not yet. We can get a car or new clothing here," Alex said and with a little of a new regained energy they proceeded further up the hill. But up there, it didn't seem like a town. A sight of a quite small village met them. The houses could probably be counted on fingers how little the amount of them was.
"Well Alex, I don't see any cars here" Elodie mentioned, her energy decreasing.
"We can still search the houses and see if we find anything in them."
With Alex's suggestion they split up in the same groups from before and each entered a house.
As Carmen approached the door of one of these houses, he tried to pull the handle but the doors had freezed to their frame. He struggled for a couple of times until Alex decided to try it. "Move," he ordered playfully.
A smirk tugged at Carmen's lips as he saw that he couldn't open the door either. He watched him from the back trying repetitively as if anything's gonna change or the frost magically melt. Then, Alex kicked the door when it got to his nerves, saying. "Fuck it." He pulled out a gun, stepped back and shot towards the glass window, shattering it into pieces.
Carmen protected his face the second he heard him pull the trigger. "Be careful. Jesus."
Alex smiled slyly, turning back, his eyes spotting the others—especially Elodie standing behind the illumination of her flashlight—the batteries still kept going. They all turned to them at the sound of a gunshot shattering the window with a surprise that left as soon as they realized that nothing serious was going on.
When Alex shifted his gaze back at Carmen, he gestured for him to enter first. "After you, Mrs. I care about my hair more than my entire existence."
"Haha. Very funny. Now, I am asking you politely, please die," he said as he entered.
"For you? Gladly," Alex followed Carmen in and even though he could not see it, he pictured him rolling his eyes the second the words had left his mouth.
The interior of the house wasn't exactly spotless, but it wasn't chaotic either. It looked better than most of the places they had passed through, though the atmosphere inside felt heavy, messy in a way that dust and time can create. Despite this, the house remained mostly untouched—family photos still hung on the walls, as if the occupants had just stepped out and might return any moment.
Alex picked up a chamberstick with a candle resting in it. He flicked his lighter, igniting the wick. The knot of the wick remained pristine, untouched by flame until now, suggesting the candle had only ever been for show, purely decorative.
The first room they decided to explore was the bathroom. Carmen walked straight to the sink, turning the faucet, but nothing happened.
"That's not gonna work," Alex said, watching from the doorway.
"No way." Carmen twisted the faucet again. Still no water—but this time, dark matter oozed out, landing on his hands.
"Ugh, gross," he muttered, shaking it off in disgust.
Alex smirked, setting the candle on the counter. As he glanced around, his eyes fell on a hair straightener left on the floor. He picked it up with a grin. "Hey, Carmen," he called, holding it up. "Mind if I straighten your hair?"
Carmen turned, glaring. "Yes, I fucking mind. My mom used to do that to me, and I ended up looking like a damn waterfall afterward."
Alex imagined Carmen's mom as a shadowy figure, wielding the straightener like a witch's wand, and Carmen, a younger version of himself, sobbing under the mental damage it caused him. He had no idea if Carmen would've actually cried about it, but the imaginative image was too funny to resist.
"Aren't waterfalls considered beautiful, though?" Alex teased, snapping the straightener together playfully.
Carmen snatched it from his hand. "No. Well, yeah, but—oh my god, I hate you."
"I love you too."
—
In the meantime, Elodie and Ethan entered a house of their own. The mailbox still showed who it belonged to; 'Jacobs' was written there. The door also couldn't be opened, but the window was ajar, ajar enough for them to slip in through.
Inside, Ethan at first could barely see himself but when Elodie shone the flashlight a memory flashed through his mind. This place was oddly familiar. His eyes moved along the illumination Elodie casted and he noticed every small detail, a little voice in his head convincing him that it was a different place. But he saw the red worn out couch, the exact armchair he remembered and the numerous plants. They were dead now and their leaves weren't the vibrant green he remembered. The voice in his head wasn't telling him anything anymore. It was just him who fought with the truth now.
The place itself was still comforting, him and Theo thought they were free back when they got here. It was just the fact that it brought back the memories of what happened next—not even the part where he almost died. The part where they returned to the orphanage and he accepted Agnes' offer. Just the memory itself made him want to puke, sob, cry, anything. Any emotion. Even joy because he knew Theo wouldn't have to suffer anymore.
Elodie noticed the nervous change in his physical appearance. "Everything okay?"
Ethan took a deep breath. "Quite," his eyes slowly moved from one corner to another. "You already left the orphanage when me and Theo escaped, so you won't really understand. Let's just say that our path ended here and that this place evokes some memories."
"Oh, I remember. You told me that you two escaped before when I asked about the scar on your stomach."
"You also asked about the leg."
"Yeah, and the leg. But the one on the stomach is worse."
"But the leg hurted more. I still remember it."
"Mhm. You told me before"
"Did I?" he asked, proceeding further into the house, the nervousness already ceasing.
"We can leave if you want."
"It's okay. I don't mind being here," he said, stepping inside the bathroom.
Plants filled the tub. It must have been before him and Theo got here. The old lady, whose name he has never learned died and who else would return the plants back to their original spot?
This place began to evoke more memories from the day they escaped each glance he took. He wondered where they'd be now if the old lady never took them in—or her husband hasn't turned into a people-consuming monster. It was true that the old lady could insist on calling their 'parents' later, Agnes could find them in any other way but those thoughts haven't met Ethan's mind. All he could think about is where they'd be if they remained free.