Hollow's Grove (The Revised Version)

Chapter Thirteen: Luna's Story

I scooted closer towards the unconscious female, her body was bruised and bloody. Her chest rose and fell rapidly, as though she was finding it hard to breath. My face was still twisted into an expression of complete disbelief. I got closer to the girl and reached my hand out, wanting nothing more than to tap on her shoulder.

As soon as I did, she moved ever so slightly, a groan escaping her lips. My blood ran cold, what would the girl do if she awoke? Would she attack me, I wasn't too sure. Slowly, her eyes opened and my heartbeat climbed. "Hmm, oh, what...What happened?" She was groggy, her eyes looked dazed and foggy.

I stared, unsure of what to say to her. I just sat there, both of us awkwardly looking at one another. Finally, I needed to ask the one question that was plauging my mind. "What, what are you?! I cannot believe what happened back there!" I sounded hysterical, but I didn't care. The girl blinked a couple of times before reacting to my hysteria.

"Oh, I... Well, you see..." She broke off, taking a long sigh. Then she started to talk, "My name is Luna Crassfield. I was a student at the school Hollow's Grove, like yourself. My parents had sent me there on a promise that I would come home changed and reformed. I was sort of a rebellious kid and my parents, well, they were at their wits end with me and my antics."

I felt my heartbeat rise, so, I had been right. There was something more to the school than meets the eye. I froze, the young man in the cage, he wasn't apart of a crazy prank to scare me. It hadn't been any sort of prank at all, the girl screaming outisde my bedroom, she was probably going to try and take me back to where the young man was.

I glanced at the girl, waiting for her to continue on with her explanation. She coughed and continued. "Well, at first, I enjoyed it. Class went well, I made friends, I was even fancied by a young man by the name of Lycan. Everything was going really well, until one night."

She paused for a moment, letting everything she said, sink in. I was sitting there, my head spinning with all this information, it was too much for my mind to take in. She started to talk once more, "I was up, working on a project that had been due that next day. It was pretty late in the evening, everyone else, they were fast asleep. I was sitting at my desk when suddenly, I heard a knock at my door."

I waited for the rest of her story, my eyes wide with excitement. She took a heavy breath, it seemed that she was beginning to have problems breathing. "I went over to the door and just as I was about to open it, the door was thrown open. I was shocked to find one of my classmates, I think his name was Marcus..."

I threw my hands up, as if to tell her stop. My stomach twisted, I was feeling sicker by the minute. "Did he try and make you feel bad and tell you that you wouldn't make it there?" I had to ask her, I needed to know. I felt my blood run cold as she nodded her head. What could it all mean? She turned to me, "I have been watching the school for a while now. At first, I thought that it was some sort of weird admission into the school, you know like a frat house or something." 

She was now pushing herself up off the cave floor, brushing the dust off her gown. "Man, I was wrong. Marcus made me feel terrible for what seemed like forever, until I finally snapped and told him to leave me alone. He did, but after he left, I swore I heard footsteps." I was now getting up off the cool rock ground, my jaw was slack with shock.

To me, it sounded like she had encountered the exact same thing as I had. Only, with what I saw earlier, I knew that she hadn't been able to outrun whoever had chased her down. I noted that Luna was making her way farther into the cave, I frowned why were we going deeper? "I was captured, all I remember is the heavy footfalls echoing down the corridor and then, it went dark. When I woke up, I was chained to a large gurney and there were these masked men and women all standing around me."

She paused to take a breath and quickly turned to face me, motioning for me to follow her. I obeyed, there was something in her eyes, an emotion that I couldn't read well. We were far into the cavern now, I could hardly see a thing. All I knew was, where ever she was going, it seemed to be getting tighter, cramped. I cringed as I felt my hands touch something that felt wet and slimy.

I was lucky that I couldn't see, I didn't have any desire to have any sort of clue as to what I had just touched. Luna's voice startled me, "They injected me with some sort of serum, it burned as soon as it became apart of my blood system. I blacked out, screaming away."

I suddenly felt my feet give way, down I tumbled, falling onto something hard and uncomfortable. I groaned and glanced around, my vision was terrible. "Luna? Luna, are you here?" I called out, my voice shaky. "Yes, ow, I think we fell farther down into the cave than I wanted us to go." She sounded stressed and I didn't blame her.

I began to crawl blindly around, feeling for a piece of cloth or even a hand. "Hey Luna, keep talking, what happened after they injected the serum?" I wanted to hear her voice, get a good sense of where she had fallen. "Um, well, I woke up and found myself chained in an all white room, than there were all these people coming into the room. They examined me, took blood samples, I was in the dark as too what and why this was all happening."

She sounded as though she were whispering. Something wasn't right, I crawled along the ground, hoping that my eyes would adjust. "Why did you go so quiet all of a sudden?" I asked, trying to keep a steady voice. That was when I realized, there was another scent dancing around in the air.  Something or someone else was in here with us. 

"Luna, why have you gone so quiet?" I couldn't bring my own voice up higher than a whisper, I was trembling, whoever it was, hadn't moved, but I could still smell them. They were somewhere in here with us. Suddenly, a scream alerted me! "Help! Please, help me!!" It was Luna, I could hear someone running now. I scrambled to get back on my feet, Luna was screaming away, I could hear the hysteria in her voice.

I began to stumble around, yelling out her name. Yet, by now, the person who had grabbed her, was too far away for her to hear my cries. I felt a wave of fury wash over me, I didn't get to learn about how she had been turned into what she was today or what was going on in that godforsaken place.

Though, I did know one thing, Marcus was apart of this little scheme and if I were to get him to talk, then maybe all would be revealed. I also needed to find Luna, she needed to get her story to the authorities. I also knew now, that poor young man who was in the cage, who knew what would happen to him if someone didn't rescue him. We needed to get the school or whatever it really was, closed down.

For god only knew what other horrors were going on there...