MY CELESTIAL SYSTEM

LAYLA

...

  It was nighttime, the group had scaled the mountain and found a cave halfway to rest for the night. They were currently seated around a fire as they talked and joked around.

'Jim.' Ascore called.

'Yeah? What's up? You've been quiet the whole time.' Jim asked.

'Have you sensed anything weird since you arrived on this planet?' Ascore asked.

'Weird? No why?' Jim was confused.

'Go out of the cave.' Ascore said.

Jim lingered for a moment before standing up.

"Um... Guys, I wanna go keep watch outside. Just in case." He said while the boys nodded in affirmation not really giving it much thought.

Jim walked outside the cave and sat cross-legged before closing his eyes. He took a deep breath savouring the tranquility he felt.

'Bring out the swords.' Ascore's voice came again.

Jim hesitated for a moment, he had no idea what Ascore was up to but he knew if it weren't for him Amy might have been hurt. And for that reason alone, Jim trusted him.

Jim brought out the swords from his storage ring, before holding onto the hilt. He suddenly felt his consciousness slipping but he didn't resist. He knew what was going on, Ascore was taking over.

__________

In a cave somewhere on planet Frighst.

"If we are to follow the map, we'll arrive at this mountain before noon tomorrow. By then our points would increase by a whole lot since this is the area the ground-hounds are located. It's gonna be a walk in the park for us since our abilities are more suited to battle against them." One of the group members said. He was their supposed leader.

"Yeah that's right! It's gonna be us grinding our way to the top!" A girl from the group suddenly said enthusiastically making the others throw weird glances at her while she just smiled as though oblivious to the stares they were giving her.

'How did it come to this?' The group leader asked himself as he recalled how they encountered the strange girl. The groups are usually made up of either boys or girls. They couldn't be mixed for obvious reasons. However, when their group were travelling, they saw this girl injured in the forest so they decided to help her after helping her with some healing pills.

She claimed to have been abandoned by her teammates when they were fighting against some beasts. What the group leader found weird was that on that particular area, there was nothing more than a few random E or F ranked beasts roaming around so he didn't really see anything that could pose a threat to a proper group in this area. Either the group was really weak, or a powerful beast happened to roam out of it's territory. Either way, the highest rank of beast on this planet that they were informed of was the B rank and those were incredibly rare, they probably won't even encounter one till the expedition is over.

When he tried asking the girl, the other boys in his group suddenly snapped at him telling him he wasn't being a 'gentleman' he knew them too well and he knew their motives, but what he couldn't wrap his head around was how carefree the girl was in the midst of four boys. He couldn't help but think something was terribly wrong with the girl, she was like a ticking time bomb that would go off any moment.

"Hey Layla, a minute please?" The group leader called while walking outside the cave. The girl happily followed after him and when they got outside, the boy turned to look at her straight in the eye.

"Who are you?" The boy asked blandly without loosing eye contact.

The girl looked at him for a few seconds, her expression taking a drastic turn.

"What do you mean?" A chilling aura spread from her very being making the boy instinctively take a step back.

"You... I know you're not who you say you are... What are you?" The boy said shakily while taking steps backwards.

  "What's taking Ray so long? Or is he..." One of the boys said with a mischievous smile. The other boys only laughed at this statement completely oblivious to the situation outside.

"You want to know who I am?" Layla asked as a smile appeared on her face once more but unlike last time, this smile was terrifying and utterly bone chillingly harrowing. What was worse, the smile never stopped spreading it just kept expanding till it had formed a complete "U" her lips had spread so wide that it had touched her eyes. The next second the mouth opened revealing rows of dangerously sharp teeth.

Ray had a look of horror on his face as he turned to run away from that place as fast as possible. But to his utmost dismay, when he turned around, he saw the exact same figure he was running from standing right before him.

"How?..."

"You'd make a nice vessel now wouldn't you?" Layla said before opening her expanded mouth as she grabbed Ray by the neck lifting him into the air while a bright glow emitted from her mouth. He struggled and struggled to no avail soon his whole body went limp and the light from Layla's mouth died down as she fell to the ground while Ray stood with a smile plastered on his face as he clenched his fist a few times before releasing it.

"Nice." He mummured as he walked back into the cave when the boys didn't see Layla with him, they were confused.

"Hey, where's Layla?" One of the boys asked.

"Dead. She died a long, long time ago and now you will too, such a shame." Ray shook his head.

"What're you talking about? You're scaring me Ray." Another boy spoke up the next second the boy who spoke suddenly fell to the floor, his head rolling away from his body painting the ground in red.

"There, there, now you're no longer scared are you?"

Soon the screams of the boys reverberated from the cave but all met a short end.