Into the Dark [SLOW UPDATES]

IV

For a moment, all I could hear was my heartbeat pounding in my ears. Sweat slid down the sides of my face and I felt my shirt beneath my jacket sticking to my back which is moist with sweat. My arms felt shaky.

My mind went blank and I suddenly forgot everything around me. My eyes were glued on Kai as he took another step towards me.

"You should not have come here."

The girl's voice repeats in my mind. Suddenly I felt thankful that I did not follow her, but who knows what Kai might do next if I had not found him?

Kai walked closer, pushing aside a wooden chair that was in his way.

Then he lunged at me and I gasped for air.

* * * * *

The night was eerie and quiet that no one would suspect that people were still living in the village.

Kathleen and her mother fell asleep while waiting for Kai and Veronica to come back. They don't even know what was happening to the two.

Meanwhile, a young girl was talking to a boy who looked like he was in his teens. There were some similarity between the two so it was easy to predict that they were siblings. They were in a small room of another cabin. Behind the young girl was a blonde teenager who is trying to stop herself from shaking but desperately failing to do so.

"Madrigal, what you are asking me to do is . . . impossible," the boy said, sitting down on the desk behind him.

The young girl–Madrigal–was standing across from him. She was not looking at the eyes of the boy, but at the empty wall behind him, her gaze as hard as steel.

"We can keep it from anybody else," Madrigal replied, but the boy did not seem to be paying attention to her. He was curiously eyeing the blonde girl behind Madrigal.

"Who are you?" the boy asked. The girl looked at him, her eyes studying his face.

She shakily replied. "Ve . . . Veronica."

"Hm . . . Where is it that you come from?"

Veronica shook her head. Her mind was running with a hundred thoughts and she could not think clearly. She was trying not to cry or collapse on the ground. The only thing keeping her standing is adrenaline, which was already starting to fade away.

"What is your intention of coming here?" the boy asked, but she did not reply. Her stare was glued on the floor.

He frowned, thinking of what to do with the girl.

"Benjamin, she is tired," Madrigal said, making her brother–Benjamin–wearily sigh.

"Let her rest," he said, before looking at Veronica. "We still have much to discuss tomorrow, if you can make it."

Madrigal narrowed her eyes at her brother, but Benjamin returned a calm and even look.

Madrigal led Veronica to a room with a single bed and left her in the room. Veronica did not want to rest. She knew that the nightmares will haunt her in her sleep, but once her head hit the pillow, she fell in a deep, dreamless sleep.

* * * * *

"I know what you're planning to do, Benjamin," Madrigal said once she returned to the room where Benjamin was. He was now sitting at the chair behind the desk, his head propped up on his hand. He had an excited look on his face, like he was waiting for something to happen. "You shouldn't have put that boy in another one of your spells."

"Oh Madrigal, if only you could understand," he sighed, a smile forming on his face. Madrigal crossed her arms and scowled.

"I do understand, and what you're doing is cruel and evil," she replied. "Whatever you say or do, I am never going to be like one of you."