Though the system had assigned them the mission of finding the ritual sites…the forest was huge, and the ritual sites were not easy to find. Within a few minutes, Belle was already lost and trying to figure out what to do.
The forest was called Darkwood Forest, named after the giant trees that would block out any light, causing the forest to be especially dark, even during the day. Because of this, many murderers would come to the huge forest to dump bodies and others would come here to commit suicide out of view.
Back in the day, the forest had been closed off from the public after word got around that a big cult had been using the forest for their rituals, often sacrificing human lives in the process. It was a huge scandal and few people in the area hadn't heard of it.
"What would these ritual sites even look like?" Avery questioned with a scowl.
"I'm not sure, but think cult, candles and pentagrams and the like," Belle answers.
"Maybe we could use the ghosts in the area to find where we need to go?" Leslie offers.
"Good idea…but…where are the ghosts?" Belle asks. They hadn't seen a single one since entering the forest, which was strange considering this was supposed to be a ghost hotspot.
"I don't like this…" Avery mumbles.
"Sigh, drastic times call for drastic measures, we're splitting up," Belle states. Avery and Leslie both turn to him, blinking their eyes in confusion.
"Are you crazy?!" Avery shouts, grabbing onto his collar and shaking him repeatedly.
"I agree, this is insane, did nobody ever tell you that walking into a death forest and splitting up was a bad idea?" Leslie says, shaking his head.
"We can cover more ground this way, don't worry, I brought walkie talkies." Belle smiles, reaching into his pockets and grabbing out two walkie talkies and throwing them to Leslie and Avery. One was pink and had a princess on it while the other was blue with a prince.
"You've got to be kidding me." Avery deadpans, her eye twitching.
"I've got the third one here," Belle says, holding up a green one with a horse on it.
"Did you buy these at a children's toy store?" Leslie asks.
"Yep! But they should work just fine. They had a wider range than some of the official ones, and it was a great bargain," Belle replies.
"This guy has completely lost his marbles," Avery grumbles, slapping her forehead.
"Everyone choose a direction to walk in, and we'll keep in contact on the walkies. If something happens, make sure to give your location." Belle states, already walking off one way.
"Oh, wait, here." He pauses for a second and grabs the knife and kusurigama out of the system, handing them off.
"For protection." He states, waving as he traipses off.
"We're going to die out here," Avery tells Leslie.
"I'm sure we'll be fine. If anything happens to us, Belle will make sure we're safe," Leslie responds confidently.
"Uggggh, fine, let's go," Avery mutters, choosing the direction opposite to Belle and walking off. Leslie is now alone and decides to go in the direction directly between those two, walking hesitantly into the woods.
He gets more confident as he walks, the darkness of the trees is scary, but also sort of comforting. It's peaceful in the woods with the rustling of the leaves and the lack of noise from animals…wait, that's probably not a good thing.
Leslie pauses and strains his ears, there's no sound of any bugs or animals. He hasn't seen any nighttime critters, when realistically there should be one or two of them, the lack of bugs is even more worrying. A chill creeps up his body at the realisation, but he continues walking in the direction he picked.
CRACKLE
A sudden noise makes him jump, but he calms down when he realizes it's just the walkie.
"Hello, hello! This is Belle checking in, everything alright?"
"I'm fine idiot, you nearly gave me a heart attack though."
"Everything's good on my end as well but…" Leslie trails off, deciding whether to tell them about what he noticed or not.
"What is it?" Belle noticed his hesitation and pointed it out.
"It's just, have you guys heard any animals or bugs?" He questions. There's a pause on the walkies, both sides are thinking about the question.
"Now that you mention it, I haven't seen anything," Belle answers.
"Me either…" Avery replies.
"I think it's a bit-" Leslie hurriedly turns off the walkie and hides behind a tree, in the silence of the woods, he heard voices talking. He peeked around the tree and saw two men talking. One was older with a brown beard speckled with gray, the other was a younger man, with brown hair in a low ponytail.
"...rything is ready." He could barely make out what they were saying from where he was hiding.
"Good…ke sure…terrupt our work." That was the older man talking.
"Yes sir…y best." The younger man says. Leslie doesn't know what they're talking about, but they're probably not there for anything good. He decides to move closer, quietly stalking forward and hiding behind another tree.
"We've already collected all the ghosts and put them at the ritual sites, all we need to do is sacrifice our hostages to summon it, once we have it in our possession nobody will be able to stop us." The older man states.
"Yes sir, we will rid the world of scum and make a better future." The younger man replies.
"...Yes, our goals will soon be rewarded." The old man hesitates for a fraction of a second, but the younger man doesn't seem to notice.
"There is a slight problem though, Jeff got a bit rough with one of the hostages and they ended up dying." The younger man says regretfully.
"It's fine, I'm sure we can find someone else to be a hostage soon." The older man replies.
Whatever these people are up to is definitely bad, Leslie decides to back away for now and tell the other about what he found, but as he backs up, a cracking sound echoes through the forest. Of all the times to pull a horror cliche it had to be when he was in this situation.
"Shit." He curses when he notices the older man and younger man staring at him. He takes off running in the opposite direction, but is stopped when he's suddenly picked up in the air. He tries slicing out with the knife, but is stopped by someone restraining his arm.
"Well, what do we have here? Seems we found our last sacrifice." The older man smiles and Leslie has a sinking feeling in his gut, he messed up.