Chapter 3 – Chap 3

” Who is that?” Chris asked

“I dunno, but he doesn’t seem to have horns…” Jack added

“He’s the guy that lured me here!”

“Really? Mine was black!”

“Mine was a girl!”

“HEY,YOU!”

When James heard that and noticed us watching him, his face changed to one of fear and suprise. He started at us for a second and ran away. I immediately started chasing him across the mountain, with Jack and Chris following behind. Suddenly, Jack tripped on a border of the mountain. Thankfully, Chris had quick reflexes and grabbed him before he could fall.

“Gotcha mate!”

“Thanks…Chris…”

“Anytime!”

Despite Jack’s words, the expression on his face seemed to convey shock instead of gratitude.

“You ok,Jack?” I asked.

“I’m fine! Don’t worry about us, you should go after him, he’s getting away!”

James had descended the mountain while I was talking to my friends. I glanced from above and saw him running across the forest. I went there, but by the time I got there,there was no sign of him anywhere in the woods. Then I noticed the forest wasn’t a dead end, Jack,Chris and I hadn’t noticed that the night prior, but the path kept going.I followed it and ended up in a shore, with the open sea right in front of me. Wait, if I was on a beach, and there was also a cove on the opposite side, that meant we were surrounded by the ocean. An island…we were on an island. I began exploring the shore by walking to the left…nothing, so I headed for the right side of the beach, and I found an extremely suspicious cave. Had James hidden in there? I got close to the cave, I was about to get in there, when I heard what sounded like someone wheeping.

“H-Hello? Anyone there?” I asked.

“Qui…ets…tu?” Asked what sounded like a toddler, about 3 to 5 years old. They were speaking from deep inside the cave, completely engulfed by its darkness,so I couldn’t see them, there was no doubt it was a little kid,though.

Great, they spoke in a language I didn’t understand! I supose that wasn’t really suprising, given the ammount of children coming from all sorts of places that were imprisoned in the complex.

“I’m sorry, could you please tell me what language are you speaking?”

“Ets el gos monstre dolent? Et prometo que no sóc gens sabrosa…no em mengis,per favor…”

That definately wasn’t the response I was hoping for. Despite I didn’t understand the meaning of the kid’s words, I did get their tone, and it was clear that poor kid was scared. I could almost hear their vocal cords trembling in fear.

“I don’t understand!”

The kid didn’t respond, but they were still there, I could hear them crying. Any attempt of comunication was futile. Then I thought of entering the cave, but as soon as the kid heard my first step, they screamed and I heard them slowly back away, so I stopped as to not scare them even further. If I wanted to talk to them I thought it was best to start with simple, short and easy to answer questions.

“What’s your name?”

“n…name?”

“Yes,name!”

“Paula…”

At last, information! Eglish is taught in a ton of countries all across the planet, and saying your name is among the first things taught at an early age, so it made sense she was able to answer that. She was named Paula, and thus was most likely a girl, that…wasn’t really going to help that much, but at least it was something!

“Ok,Paula, are you afraid?”

” Vull anar a casa…tinc molta temor!”

Once again, it appears she didn’t get what I said, but it didn’t take a genius to figure out the answer to my question was an obvious yes. Paula then began crying louder.

“El monstre!”

That word, monstre, it was pretty dang similar to monster. Had she seen a monster? Maybe those men, or James? I then heard what sounded like footsteps, but they didn’t sound…human. Someone or something was coming.

“Paula? Did you see a monster?”

“Ajuda…monstre…”

Those strange footsepts became louder and were now acompanied by breathing, heavy breathing, that didn’t sound like it was coming from a little girl such as Paula.

“No…monstre…no…monstre…no!”

Then I heard what sounded like…honestly, I don’t know how to describe it. It kinda sounded like something that could maybe come from an animal, like an animal growling…but it didn’t sound like any animal I knew. Paula screamed and I heard her little feet running deeper into the cave, wich was followed by the steps of that…thing.

“Paula?”

But no one answered. That entity, the monster, it had gone after her.

“Oh,shit…” I muttered to myself.

I returned to the main area of the complex and reunited with Chris and Jack and explained everything.

“Dude…are you really sure that’s what you saw?” Jack said, incredulous.

“Well…I didn’t really see anything.The girl and whatever that creature was were on a cave that was pitch black, I was outside, so I only heard it happen, but I assure you, it happened!”

“Creepy… Do you think it’s related to our captors?” Chris added.

“Most likely, yeah. Who wants to go in there tomorrow?” I replied.

“I supose I do…” Jack reluctantly said.

“Count on me!” Chris responded.

Back at our bungalow, Jack and I talked about what had happened that day.

“Peter, you were right…”

“What do you mean?”

“About Chris, when she grabbed me when I tripped on the mountain. I felt that, I felt that wierd aura you were talking about last night.”

“Seriously? I told ya! What do you think it could be?”

“No idea, man! Maybe she’s secretly evil!”

“Nah, she doesn’t seem to be aware of this…”

The sudden sound of kids in tears interrupted our conversation. We looked out the window and saw a pair of men that looked pretty similar to the ones that chased us through the forest. The men were dragging three boys and a girl through the ground as they cried,screamed and tried to fight back, but to no avail.

“Looks like they weren’t as lucky as us,huh?” Jack said.

There was also something that caught my eye about the adults, their horns…they weren’t real. These people were wearing masks, plain white masks with two holes that served as the eyes and a pair of plastic horns attached to each.