10 Years Ago Today

Prologue

"Come on, Nate, hold my hand!"

"I'm not a little kid anymore, Leon. Stop it." The thirteen year old yelled to his oldest brother as they walked along the forest path.

Leon laughed as he took the lead in taking his brothers back home from the movies through a shortcut that they had found in the woods when they were little. It was a path they had taken for years, one they knew very well, which was why Leon was joking with his second youngest brother about holding his hand. Leon was the oldest of the four with Hael behind him and then the twins, Nate and Aelan. Nate and Aelan each had a brother they got along better with, Leon with Aelan and Hael with Nate, but Leon liked picking on Nate the most since he was the more outspoken of the twins.

As the two argued, a bright light suddenly shot across the ground in front of their path, going deeper into the forest on the other side. The boys watched in wonderment as the light dimmed into the forest, seeming to have a mind of its own.

"What was that?" Hael asked.

"Looked like a ghost light." Aelan said.

"We've been coming through here since we were five and no one's ever said anything about paranormal activity on this path or in these woods." Nate gave a big grin. "I'm going to go see what it was."

"Seriously?" Leon asked, looking at his brother with a crazy expression. "What if that was some sort of radioactive thing?"

"Or a ball of lightning?" Aelan said. "You could get electrocuted." He said softly.

"If it was a lightning ball then it would have sparked or at lease smoldered a few trees when it went through the forest. Did you see any smoke?" Aelan shook his head. "Then it wasn't anything dangerous. I'm going to go and check it out."

Nate started towards where they last saw the light but Leon grabbed his arm.

"Nate, don't worry about it. Let's just go home."

Nate snatched his arm back from his brother. "What are you, chicken? Come on, Hael, let's go check it out."

"You can go find the deadlights yourself, dude." He said. "I'm not touching that paranormal shit and if you get eaten by Pennywise then that's not my problem. Besides, I'm starving; let's just go home."

"You guys are a bunch of babies. It won't take two seconds to go and look at it. I'm going to go check it out, I'll be right back."

Nate took off into the forest as all three of his brothers called out to him not to go. He ignored them and went into the trees, disappearing in the darkness. The three of them waited and waited, but he never came back out. Hael looked at his older brother.

"Yo, we should go and find him. Now he's just being stupid."

Leon sighed and walked into the forest with the rest of his brothers.