Untitled Series [old]

Questions.

Continuation of 'An Incident in the Woods'

Crystal stood next to Ace, staring at the stranger. They stared back, their expression seemed emotionless but you could see the absolute fear that was in their eyes. The person seemed to be trying to get out of the bundle of vines, however they were too tight and wouldn't loosen up. Crystal was slightly shaking in fear, she hadn't realized that somebody had been stalking them, and another person or possibly multiple people knew of their secrets. She was scared that they'd be hunted down and locked up, used for military use or testing of some sort.She also stared at the stranger with a mix of disappointment, fear, judgment, and curiosity. Ace turned to look at Crystal and gave her a nod, Crystal just stared back because she didn't know what he meant. Ace waved for Crystal to come with him, and they got out of a low-voice hearing range.

"What do we do about this?" Ace asked.

"I don't know, set them free and take their phone?" Crystal had insisted.

"No, because then they could get a new phone and continue, however we can still take their phone and look at it for more info,"

"Oh, alright then, so then what else can we do?"

"I say we start questioning them, we can get more info that could've been shared in person, or through code perhaps."

Ace and Crystal nodded in agreement on this decision, and walked back to the person, who still appeared to be trying to get out of the vines even though they knew they couldn't.

"Well well, that's some determination right there," Ace remarked. The person snapped their head to him, and froze. They opened their mouth slightly as if they were about to say something, but closed it and looked away. Ace started to think of a question, since he wasn't actually thinking of a question beforehand. It only took a few seconds for him to come up with one.

"How did you find out about us, and why are you stalking us?"

The person didn't respond, and only stared. Ace waited about 10 seconds for a response, but never got one.

"You know, I could kill you if I wanted," he eventually said.

"I.. I... You- you wouldn't do that, you would never do that!" The person responded franticly. It came out a bit high-pitched, but you could tell their voice was fairly deep. The vines around them only got tighter.

"I will repeat myself again, how did you find us, and why are you stalking us?"

The person let out a sigh, and prepared themself to speak.

"My boss is the one who found out about you guys, and hired me to stalk you, since they wanted to keep themself undercover and unseen."

"Ok, ok, boss?" Ace exclaimed.

"Oh yeah I forgot to tell you Ace, according to the text messages they have a boss," Crystal interjected.

"Ace? So that's your name, very nice name," the person mumbled a bit too loudly.

"Oh thanks I chose it myself," Ace shot a look at Crystal, and she made the realization that she had said his name. The person just stared at what was going on.

"You didn't have to say my name Crystal-" Ace stopped, and realized what he had done. He cursed under his breath, and took a moment to get everything together.

"So Ace and Crystal, alright, alright."

"Can you just shut up for a moment?" Ace lashed out, his eyes quickly turning an even brighter green, almost as if they were slightly glowing, because they were. The stranger shut their mouth and turned away. Crystal came over and tried helping Ace control himself, but he turned down the help. Ace just sat down for a minute, and there was an awkward silence. Crystal started scrolling through the phone again. She decided to look through the notes app, seeing if there was anything there. She skimmed through everything, ignoring the more personal things (reminders, dream journaling, shopping lists, ect.) Eventually, Crystal came upon multiple messages, some encrypted, and some written in another language. Crystal immedietly recognized the language, it was the one Luna often wrote in, and sometimes spoke in as well. Crystal did not know the language, but she knew Luna would be able to figure it out instantly. Crystal looked up and saw that Ace had gotten up and started questioning again. It looks like he was about finished asking questions, so Crystal walked back over.

"Alright, so we are never speaking of this again ever, unless something else comes up, correct?" The person nodded in agreement, and they turned their head to look at Crystal.

"They want to know if they can have their phone back," Ace said.

"No, they can't have it, we need it for something, plus we don't know if we can trust them with it, they might continue stalking us, it's best to just take it."

Ace released the person, and they shook themself to rid of the pain from the tightness of the vines. They ran off, opposite of where Ace and Crystal were going. They both stared as they ran off.

"Do you ever wonder if there's a city or town of the opposite side of this woods?" Ace asked

"There probably is, although these woods are big, and you know that, you haven't even managed to walk through the entire area yet, and we've been living here for about a year," Crystal responded. They headed back to their house, as they got closer to the edge, they realized it was the middle of the night, and they had been gone for hours. The two hurried back home. Of course, everybody was still up, they all had disorders that managed to cause insomnia.

Celeste, Flint, and Luna were up, playing card games at the table. Once Ace and Crystal, entered, all three of them stared.

"You two were gone for awhile," Flint said as they entered, "did you manage to get to the other side of the forest?"

"No, we ran into a bit of an issue, but there's no time to explain, we're both tired and are out of the energy to talk to people," Ace responded. Flint nodded and went back to playing the game with Luna and Celeste.

"I wonder what all of that was about," Luna wondered out loud.

"No clue, but I hope it wasn't anything bad." Flint responded. They all continued playing for a few hours, and eventually headed off to bed as well. That night, the surrounding forest was finally fully quiet for the first time in months, or was it actually? Who knows who or what lays in the heart of the woods?