"Hello?" Patton shouted, once again.
He didn't know what, but there was something about the forest that made him feel like he was being watched. On more then one occasion he was sure that he had seen a pair of eyes in the shadows.
He had had to go alone to find the person he was told was called Virgil, as Roman was still not allowed out of his room and Logan was tasked in finding something in the castle's library about the Dark Kingdom. Although he knew as well as anybody else that there wasn't going to be anything there.
Patton rubbed his eyes.
He had planned to leave as soon as he had finished work and be back before the sun had set so he could maybe get a good nights sleep, but everyone had left him to clean up on his own again.
He was pretty sure that it was past midnight and He hadn't even found who he was looking for yet.
***
Finally, he saw a light in the distance. He sighed in relief and sped up, ignoring his aching legs.
As Patton got closer he realized it wasn't just one light, but many. There was a house, and behind it even more, a whole Kingdom. He stopped.
Maybe he had accidentally turned back and he was home again, but it didn't look quite right. The colours were all wrong.
There were people people walking about, their heads down. Nobody was talking to each other.
The houses looked run down. Holes were in the roofs, and the windows were smashed. A few houses had been completely burned down, leaving only a few bricks where the houses once stood.
The castle was the only thing that didn't look like that.
It was big, larger then any Patton had ever seen before. It was obviously a statement of power. There were guards on every corner of the castle's roof and even more walking around in the streets, watching, waiting for someone to step out of line, maybe like the people that use to own the houses that were burned down.
Without realizing, he had started to back away. He didn't want to know what would happen if he was caught anywhere near there.
He turned and ran. Fear replaced exhaustion, the thought of being near that place was not one he wanted to think about.
The trees were getting thicker again and he had to concentrate to not trip on roots or low branches, but he couldn't stop running yet.
He heard a rush of air to his left and he stopped to look. He could just about make out the figure of a person as he fell to the ground.
Maybe he didn't run fast enough.
