The Night- A Short Story.

Chapter 3: into the woods.

As I went up a hill I was huffing for breath, It's been about 12 hours since I left the village for the night and the place was still no where in distance. I knew I had to be getting close though, I felt it. Though as I continued up the hill one thought occurred to me, "what if I'm stuck out here tonight?" It was a scary possibility, I never had any camping gear and only had a small torch for any sort of light. Though This fear quickly dissolved into another as I got up the hill and spotted what looked like the night. The night was nothing but darkness and large trees which stopped any attempt of light piercing through. Looking inside, I couldn't see beyond the first few trees as the rest was covered in intensr darkness. "There it is..." I mutter in terror and awe as I finally take a glance in the new world I was about to explore. Closing my eyes, I then take a deep breath to relax my thoughts before heading into the darkness.

As I walked closer and closer towards the night, I began tremoring with fear. The terror getting worse and worse the closer I became. But despite this I kept going, I had to. I made it this far and I was not going to quit now. So, as I stood only a few feet away from the darkness I decided to take out my torch and quickly light it. This torch was going to be my only star in the flood of horror ahead. With my torch in hand I step into the darkness and into the canopy above. I close my eyes in terror and mutter to myself, "I'm here, I did it."

Using the torch for guidance I continue venturing into the darkness. Inside were all sorts of oddities, as if the laws of the world were just twisted on its head. For when I made it to a clearing and looked above into the sky, there was nothing inside. No stars, no moon, no sun, nothing. It was just a blank, black pit of darkness. Though from a place like this, I shouldn't have expected anything less. Continuing onward into the nights forest, I managed to find what appeared to be a trace of civilization.

This trace was a house made of stone with a few torchs on a bench just outside the place. Exploring the house more, I notice that the place seemed to be abandoned with dust covering up everything. Only one thing remained that told about the former inhabitants and this was a picture frame on top of a cabnit. Inside the frame was a picture of a family of three. They all looked to have a light blue skin tone just like the ones who became one with the night. On the side of the son was another thing though, it looked sort of like a shadow creature but not like the ones I've ever seen before. "A new species?" I mutter. Setting the frame back in place, I brush off the dust on an old chair and rest my supplies off besides me. "what was a human family doing here?" I mutter to myself in confusion. Frankly it didn't make any sense. Without any light you couldn't see around this area at all, and how could you become one with the night and it's darkness if you used light to go around? Feeling tired, I wipe this thought off my mind and look towards the dusty old bed besides me. "Guess I'm sleeping here tonight." I say to myself. Getting up from the chair, I take off the beds blankets and bring them outside to brush off the dust it's built up since the family left. Using two hands, I wave the sheets and blankets in the darkness to take off the dust. while doing this I could barely tell if the dust was comming off or not with the darkness covering my view. Suddenly as I was doing this I felt a burst of pain going through my leg. "What the hell?" I wince in pain as I quickly go back inside the stone house and grab my torch that I put aside on a ground. I then take a minute to light said torch and use it to look down on my leg. Looking down, I spot a small dart piercing deep inside my inner calf. "Oh god..." I mutter in horror. Someone, or something, was hunting me down. While still in shock, I hear the door creak open and I look up in horror at what was about to come out. "Get away!" I shout as I wave my torch wildly to try and scare it off. All that came back to this was laughter, laughter at my struggle. Then from the shadows I hear a high pitched voice, "Please daykin, that torch may work on those idiot cornleons but not on my kind." Suddenly I feel another jab of pain as a dart Flys out from the shadows and into my arm. "Usually it takes only one dart to take your kind down, guess your a little different huh?" The nightkin snarls. "Please... stop!" I shout at the nightkin as I begin feeling numb. To this the nightkin comes out from the shadows and says, "sorry max, though congratulations on killing that feeble race off, we were never able to do that." I look up into his eyes in fear as my mind grew more dazy. This nightkin was about the size of a full grown man, and had weaponry on him to boot, though what separated him from humans was his pitch black skin and dark blue mark on his forehead along with what looked like a turtle shell on his back. This turtle shell caused him to slouch considerably. "What? You suprised I don't look like one of those weak little cornleons?" He scoffed as he noticed me looking at him in suprise and fear. As I tried to talk back to him, I was unable; my thoughts were just too jumbled from the poison to make out anything. I was about to black out, my body about to go down from the darts poison when the nightkin said, "ah poor human can't talk, to think I used to be just like you." As I blacked out all I could remember were these words and his laugh constantly ringing in my head.
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"Ah so you got a new one?" I heard as I began to wake up from the poison. "Yeah, this one was that human who killed magnus." I hear from a voice that I reconized as the nightkin that poisoned me. Using all my strength, I opened my eyes in an attempt to force myself awake; Though what I saw terrified me. I saw that I was in a cage with other humans. These humans were of all sorts, some were fat, some hungry, some looked rich, some poor, some blue, some completly unaffected by the night. But there was one thing everyone shared in common, we were all scared for what was about to happen. "Wait so he's the one who killed magnus?" The other nightkin asked in shock. The one who captured me nodded his head and said, "aye, I'm as suprised as you that I captured him." To this I hear the other nightkin laugh, "either magnus was getting real sloppy or your red." To this my capturerer laughed back and replied, "nah I just got lucky, kid couldnt see me through the dark." The other nightkin shook his head and said, "kid was an idiot to head here in the first place." My capturerer then replied back, "just like all humans." They then laughed together as anger began to fuel my body. Using all my might, I get myself up from the ground and lean myself on the bars surrounding me. "Im... awake... you know!" I retort tiredly. They then both looked at me devilishly, with my capturerer saying, "Hey look yellow, humans up." I looked over at yellow, his symbol was different from my capturerer in both its shape and color. "Ha magnus's killer huh? He looks a little small to me blue." Yellow said. Blue then looked back at yellow and said, "nah human can fight, that is if you don't ambush him." Blue continued to look over me, as if he was trying to examine who I was. "In any case we can mutate him easily, his body is strong enough to endure the process." As i realized what they were gonna do to me I retort, "No, your not going to change me into one of you!" To this blue laughs before blue says, "If you didn't notice you don't get much of a say in this." Yellow then took his eyes off me and said to blue, "we should mutate this one right away regardless if hes magnus's killer or not." Blue looked back at yellow in confusion before saying, " wait, why? He can't get away?" Yellow then sighed and said, "He's got a strong will, which is rare with most humans. This will frightens me." Blue nodded his head in agreement and said, "very well, should I fetch red and white for the transformation?" Yellow nodded and then blue was off, with yellow intensly watching me in case I escaped.