Vylt: The New Dawn

Chapter 17: Parents

"You can't simply rush into the forest like that!" Dr. Blake shouted angrily. "What if they saw you!?"

He had been in the middle of lunch when Anna pulled him away from his table to sit with us and brief him about our discovery at the lake. While he did show concern about having intruders so close to us, he remained calm until she mentioned her trip into the woods.

"They had no way of knowing! We would've seen them way before they noticed our presence." She yelled at him.

By this moment, both of them were on their feet whilst the rest of us remained seated, watching in silence.

"Really? Then how come they knew when to hide? What if they had one of those hearing aids wildlife observers use? If they did, they probably had other stuff to help them spot you. They could've followed you here without you knowing. Did your flawless plan take that into account?"

"Yeah? Well, I... uh." She sighed and looked down. "Okay, you're right, I didn't consider that. Sorry. I really don't think they followed me, though."

"You're too impulsive," he grumbled.

Alex cleared his throat, getting everyone's attention. "I don't mean to spoil your father-daughter moment, but there's a potential threat out there, doing gods know what, whilst we're getting sidetracked."

"Right. Sorry about that," Dr. Blake sighed and returned to his seat. "I think the timing is suspicious. Is there any chance it could be those... spirits, was it?"

"Spectres," Alex corrected. "And no, I don't think so. First of all, even if they were aware we survived, they had no way of knowing this was our destination. We made sure to cover our tracks, too.

"Now, from what Keith, our keeper, told us, I have no doubt that they would use all sorts of technology to locate their target, but the rest doesn't make any sense. While I'm unsure of whether they would hide in the presence of your rangers or not, I can guarantee that they wouldn't give away their position so easily, let alone stop to play an instrument in the middle of a hunt."

"Let's assume they aren't as clever as you say," Dr. Blake added, "Are there no chances Keith sold you out?"

"Not at all. Why would he let us run when he had the perfect chance to permanently silence us?"

"Could it be the monster hunters who followed you then?" I asked, hoping to be wrong. It still scared me to think Kelpont's incident could be repeated here.

"That's also unlikely. Even if they're not disciplined like the Spectres, those hunters wouldn't voluntarily announce their presence when their potential prey might be doing so already. If it was either of those groups, they would have done what Anna did and sneak their way towards the source, not initiate a long distance duet."

"That also discards the possibility of wildlife observers then," Anna commented. "Since they wouldn't want to scare the animals away."

"Unless they were taking a break and wanted to have some fun."

Alex shook his head. "No, trust me, Rex. Those guys wouldn't risk scaring a rare species."

"Then who could it be, Alex?" the dwarf asked with a darting gaze.

"I can only think of three possibilities. The first is a stray group of campers that ended up there by mistake and coincidentally played the same musical pieces at the same time. Highly improbable, but hey, it could happen. The second is that Anna here is going mad."

"Hey!"

Alex smirked, only to get his arm smacked immediately. "It's still an option." He dusted off his sleeve, not showing any signs of pain. "No matter how good your hearing might be when compared to ours, the fact that no one else heard anything, and that neither us nor your rangers found the culprit could mean it was all in your head. For all we know, your ears picked up some echo and made you jump to those conclusions. In all honesty, I strongly believe that's what happened."