Clouds River Valley

Chapter 4: The Lantern

Albert walked directly behind the door without any hesitation, with Maggie following him closely. Mia and Leo also followed them and stepped in. Sophia was hiding behind Leo, she didn't seem like she wanted to go but still, she followed them.

It was a tunnel that could only fit two people walking in parallel once they stepped in, the tunnel was not too dark with the moonlight from outside shed in.

"Is it the abandoned coal mine?" Mia asked.

"I don't think so, the coal mine should be deep in the forest, we could barely see it on top of the tower." Leo answered quickly.

Albert kept walking in the front without even turning around. Mia was wondering, did he know something down here? How come he seemed like even more daring than me?

As they walked further and further from the gate, the tunnel became more and more dark. Surprisingly, it was not pitch black as they were afraid of, there were a lot of green fluorescent rocks on the wall of the tunnel that made it bright enough to show them around. Sophia started to get more and more scared, she was looking for Leo's hand and then held it tightly as soon as she touched it.

"Did you guys realize we are walking down deeper and deeper under the ground?" Leo asked.

Mia confirmed and then patted Albert's back, she repeated Leo's question as soon as Albert turned around. Albert could see what Mia was talking with the help of the fluorescent light. He nodded at her and then just turned around, keep walking.

Not sure how long they had been walking, Leo had loosed Sophia's hand for a couple of times and Sophia had grabbed back his hand every time, Mia was walking in the middle of them, Albert and Maggie in her front and Sophia and Leo in the back, she started to feel a little bit sleepy. As soon as she felt like she couldn't keep her eyes open even longer, she was startled and opened her eyes widely immediately because she almost ran into Albert, who stopped walking in a sudden, the same with Maggie. Maggie started growling like she sensed something, everyone was standing still, it was almost like they felt something scary was approaching to them that none of them dared to make a little sound. Dead silence was surging from underground, they could not even feel the air flow. Mia had never felt this kind of fear before, she looked closely in front of Albert and realized there was no fluorescent rock in the front, she couldn't even tell if there was a tunnel in the front because it was literally pitch black, she stick her hand out and tried to grab, but nothing in the front just like a huge black hole. She turned around and looked at Sophia and Leo, she could tell they were as scared as her. She didn't know why none of them said a single thing, she wanted to scream but somehow, she felt she shouldn't.

She looked at Albert and Maggie, they were staring at the front like they could see something. But what was it? She didn't know.

When Albert first came into the Orphanage, he was only six years old. On the first day he came, all of the teachers were so happy to see him, because he was such a good-looking boy. But when they found out he couldn't hear or talk, they felt so bad for him since they knew he would probably stay in the orphanage till he grew up, just because of his disability, regardless how cute he was.

Albert was cute, oh, no, he should be called handsome instead since he was already eleven years old now. His head was covered with curl and dark brown hair, his nose was straight and long, his dark green eyes were like crystal clear diamonds, not too big but so deep, his thin lips had the perfect curve that everyone could tell he was a stubborn child.

Yes, Albert was stubborn. Since he came to Clouds River, he had been adopted three times. The first was not too long after he just came to Clouds River, a weird looking old lady came visit Albert a couple of times and she seemed like Albert a lot, even though her age might not be a good fit for adopting Albert but the teachers all agreed that this might be a good chance for Albert to have a home. Before he left with the lady, Richard told him he could stay if he didn't want to go with the lady, but Albert didn't mention anything.