haunted, the forest // nct [3]

{19}

"Lucas, please, don't do anything stupid," Jihwan said through clenched teeth.

"Come on, when have my plans ever failed?" Lucas crossed his arms while waiting for an answer.

Jihwan widened her eyes. "When have they ever not?"

"Just tell us what your plan is," Johnny told Lucas. "We have to think critically if we want to make it back safely."

Lucas shook his head, taking a step back. "How about I just show you?" A smile surfaced on his face. "Just trust me." With that, Lucas took off running.

"Lucas!" Jihwan yelled.

"Don't split up!" Ten demanded, but it was too late.

Lucas was jumping over roots and branches that were scattered on the ground. His feet would almost slip out from under him as he ran over fallen leaves. Before he could start his plan, he had to make sure he was far away from his friends so they could stay out of harms way. Lucas was determined to do anything to save his friends from these cloaked spirits.

"Hey!" Lucas yelled into the trees, slowing to a jog. "Where are you now, huh?!"

A small breeze began to pick up around the trees. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up and Lucas came to a halt.

"Look, I'm here!" Lucas opened his arms wide while turning in a circle. "Come at me, you ugly bed sheets!"

Twigs snapped from the right. Lucas swung his head in that direction to find nothing there. Another snap in the opposite direction, but yet again the area was vacant.

"Stop hiding, cowards!" Lucas shouted to the ghosts.

Just as he yelled, four cloaked figures appeared in each direction surrounding Lucas. His heart began to pound with fear, but he pressed his lips together with the intention to not fight back. They began to approach him slowly, cracking twigs and crunching leaves with their bare feet. Words from a language unknown to Lucas spilled from their mouths in uniform.

"Effuderunt sanguinem et tu esses et pereat ex Creator omnium: et arcum, ut Deum novum."

Lucas closed his eyes so he didn't have to watch them approach and see their awful rotting skin.

"Lucas!" Jihwan's voice rang in his ears. He pushed it away, thinking the spirits were messing with him.

"Effuderunt sanguinem et tu esses et pereat ex Creator omnium: et arcum, ut Deum novum."

"Lucas! What the hell are you doing!?" The voice was closer this time.

Don't open your eyes, Lucas told himself. Don't open your eyes.

Slowly, Lucas lost consciousness and his own thoughts grew fuzzy. Before completely blanking, there was only one thing left in his awareness: the sound of Jihwan's voice calling his name.

~ ~ ~

"Lucas," someone whispered his name. The voice was muffled, like he was hearing it underwater.

"Lucas," they whispered again.

"Jihwan?" Lucas questioned, slowly opening his eyes. A massive headache was developing in his temples. An orange glow briefly blinded him before blinking and seeing a large fire. Confusion sprout in Lucas as he tried to regain his memory. He attempted to go toward the fire, but couldn't move. That's when he discovered the ropes that tied him to a tree. "What the hell?"

"Pst!" someone tried to get his attention.

Lucas turned his head to the side to see three familiar faces also tied to trees of their own. "Vernon? Jisoo? Mark?"

The three nodded, a look of terror on all of their faces.

"How did you guys get here?" Lucas questioned.

"We were running when Mark tripped over a root," Vernon started. "He said it hurt really bad and it started swelling quickly. We couldn't leave him, but us supporting him made it hard to get away. The ghosts must have seen that as an opportunity to capture us."

"Why are you here?" Jisoo asked Lucas. "Weren't you with the others in our group before getting split up?"

"I sacrificed myself to the spirits."

"Well, that was stupid," Vernon put in. "No offense."

"I know," Lucas agreed. "But it was part of my plan."

Mark lowered his eyebrows, leaning his head forward to get a better look at Lucas. "And Jihwan allowed you to do this?"

"I didn't give any of them time to stop me because I knew they would've tried to."

"What's your plan now?" Jisoo asked with a hint of sarcasm.

"Um," Lucas tried to wiggle around under the rope, "maybe I can slip out of this?"

"Tried that," Jisoo told him.

Lucas bit his lip.

"Didn't think this far, did you?" Mark asked before sighing and letting his head fall back against the tree.

"I thought about how I was going to get to the core of this mess and the fact that I was going to destroy the source." Lucas looked back at the fire. "I just didn't weigh factors that might get in the way of my goal." He scuffed his foot on the ground, rolling a rock around under the bottom of his shoe. Just then, a thought popped into his head.

"Do you hear that?" Jisoo whispered as she tensed under the rope.

"I think they're coming back," Vernon replied in a quiet voice as well.

Acting quickly, Lucas rolled the rock up onto a root sprouting from the tree he was tied to. Pressing it against the bark, he continued to use his shoe to drag and roll the rock closer to where his hand stuck out of the rope tied around his body.

The sound of leaves crunching continued to get louder as the figures came closer to the fire. Lucas stretched his hand out from under the rope to get to where his foot held the rock. He could feel the adrenaline kick in because he didn't want the cloaked spirits to see him reaching for the rock.

Holding his breath, Lucas quickly snatched the rock from under his foot and hid it in his fist while he dropped his foot back to the ground. The four cloaked spirits came to the other side of the fire. One of the two standing in the middle raised their finger to point.

It led straight to Vernon.