Rose climbed through the entrance in the back and looked at the situation. Everyone was tired. One man was helping Sam further covering his wounds, preventing any additional loss of blood. Sam had heard her enter, and immediately started talking to her.
"Girlie, thanks for what ya did there. Without ya, we wouldn't be around anymore." He gratefully bowed his head as far as he could, without interfering in the work of the man. "What's ya name?"
"Flori" Rose answered.
"Flori... I will remember that name. If there's anything you want, anytime, let me know! I'll find a way to get it to ya."
"I-it's okay, I'm happy you are all fine. That's enough for me!" Rose smiled flustered. "Oh wait, I actually have something I want! Can you give me all your badges? You will get them back, I promise, but I need to check something first."
Sam nodded and instantly threw Rose his badge. A few others were first reluctant, but after considering she had saved her life before, they decided to trust her. The badge was their entry into the city, so Rose understood the hesitation. However, there was a bigger issue she had to solve first.
She went outside with the stack of badges and put her concentration on them. There was only one that had a tracking device in it. She was pretty sure it was Sam's. The others had no trace of prana in them. She went back inside and gave everyone back their badge, except for Sam.
"I'm sorry Sam, but I'll have to borrow this for a bit longer."
"Do what ya need, girlie!" He put up his thumb. She took that as a confirmation.
Rose went back to the exit, but the moment she stepped outside, she heard a deep growl in the distance. That was...
"No... Nooooo!" She heard a scream from inside. They had also heard the growl and probably had come to the same conclusion as her. Whatever had blasted their own carriage, was back for more. She heard a lot of smaller growls closer by, and the wolves' figures showed up not much later. It was a horrible timing. They still hadn't recovered from the previous assault. Sam would not be able to hold them off and she and Taro were split up. But the two of them had to hold them off somehow.
"Flori, what's happening?" She heard Taro running towards her.
"The wolves are back. And that fire shooting thing too. If it hits the carriage again, we'll be stuck here!"
"Let's split them up and try to force them away from the carriage!" She proposed. Rose did not know if it was the right plan, but if they just fought here in front of the carriage, it would be destroyed for sure. Additionally, her movement would be severely limited. She needed a bigger space.
She focused her attention on her left foot, then dashed through a gap in the pack. While dashing she looked behind to see if the wolves were following her. To her surprise, they were... All of them.
"Wha-"
She counted at least twenty of them, but there might've been more hidden in the mist. Out of the corner of her eye she saw a familiar flash. Rose had to think quick. The ground was extremely close below her: she could easily lower her arm and touch it. But with the speed she was flying with, it was turn to turn her arm into mincemeat. However, she had another emergency solution she could use. Rose focused on her right foot, then slammed it on the ground below. Stones from the road came loose from the impact, slinging in all directions. Rose's body instantly came to a halt, barely dodging the beam of hot flames shooting in front of her. If she wouldn't have stopped, it would have burned her alive. She heard the wolves catching up quickly.
Rose put her arms underneath her and pushed herself up. The bottom part of her right leg was covered in stones. Some parts had been scraped off due to the impact, but there were only a few shallow cuts on Rose's legs due to its protection. She tried to stand up straight, but the remaining stones were hindering her ability to move efficiently. She could not control this power at all.
The wolves were closing in on her. Rose clenched her right fist. The situation seemed dire, but she was not going to give up. She couldn't. Because she needed to find her little sister and for that, she had to survive this. So no matter how many wolves would come at her and no matter how many fire beams that would still try to fry her, she would not fall. A rush of adrenaline flew through her body, elevating her perception of the area. And that's when she noticed two things.
One, she had lost one of the badges due to the impact. It had flown out of her left hand and landed further down the road. And two, there were wolves running straight past her, without paying her any attention. In the direction of that badge.
...
That's when everything suddenly clicked in her head. Why the wolves had only targeted specific members in their team during their first encounter. Why the thing in the darkness had always fired at her, but never at Taro for example. How the thing had known they were there in the first place, and the precision of its blasts. She looked at the badge in her hand. No matter how strange it was, it could be the only explanation. Or at least, that's what Rose hoped. If she got it wrong, it could cost her life. But there was no other solution but to bet on it. The wolves were not much of a threat alone, but the incoming blasts and her partial immobility had set her at a big disadvantage.
She breathed deep in, and focused all her attention on her left foot. Meanwhile, the wolves charged at her. She only got one shot at this.
Rose threw the badge up in the air, and put all her weight on her stone leg. Then she swung around the other one, speeding it up with the gust beneath her foot. The moment her foot hit the badge, the force of it sent it flying at a tremendous speed.
Please, work!
Rose's prayers were answered soon enough. The wolves charged past her, trailing the path of the badge. One by one she saw them vanish into the mist, until none were left.
"Flori, are you okay?" A voice was getting near her. She wanted to answer she was all right, but she got muted by something that suddenly came out of the mist and passed her. Deep red eyes, filled with a murderous gaze. A mouth full of razor-sharp teeth which could rip a human into tiny shreds with ease. Inside the slightly opened mouth she could see a small red glow, and she felt hot air coming out of the beast. There was no mistake, that was the thing that had been blasting them. Its eyes met hers. Rose felt the anger inside the beast. An unquenchable thirst, but not simply for blood or flesh. It was deeper at that. The beast... It had eyes filled with hate and revenge.
It was at least ten times as big as her. If it'd wanted, it could've easily devoured her there. But it didn't. It simply ignored her, vanishing in the mist in the direction of the badge she'd kicked away earlier. Just before it completely became one with the mist, Rose noticed something strange about the beast, apart from the things she saw earlier. Its body... It wasn't... Consistent? That the only word she could describe it with. It's as if parts of its body would exist at one point, but stop existing at another. Yet, the beast did not seem to have trouble with that at all, even when moving.
What was that thing? What was happening in this forest?
"Hey Flori, are you alr-" Taro saw Rose crouching, with one of her legs disabled, full of cuts. "Hey, get a hold of yourself!"
Rose's turned around, softly saying his name. "Taro..."
"The wolves, where are they? They all ran away as soon as I saw you jump..."
Taro's loud voice woke up Rose from her trance. "W-we should go! I managed to distract them, but I'm not sure if they'll be back or not."
Taro nodded. He put her arm over his neck and slowly carried her back to the carriage. There, he quickly reassured the group in the back that the wolves were gone and they were okay, before continuing to the front. He sat her down into the driver's seat. Rose's right hand was softly put on the glass ball. Then, he closed the door, went to the other side and sat down into the seat next to her.
"Concentrate your fire prana on the ball. It will absorb it and run it through the whole carriage, acting like fuel. The power you used earlier, will be just fine." He told Rose.
Rose did as he told, and after a short stuttering the carriage started moving. She'd never driven a vehicle before, but this felt surprisingly easy.
"If used right, prana can make the worst driver into a professional just by directing the flow of prana to the right places. This ball does this partly for you. As for steering, they added an additional steering wheel as a precaution if the driver would ever lose control of his prana. A second person can then take over the steering, so the driver only has to focus on adding prana to the vehicle." He took the wheel in front of him, and turned it to stay on the road.
The mist cleared up the further they went, until they had ultimately left it all behind them. They had finally escaped the nightmare. However, the sense of relief did not erase the sense of remorse. If only Rose had told everyone about the badges beforehand, maybe they would've looked into it and never departed...
But maybe the carriage wouldn't have departed, and you couldn't go to your sister. These humans or your sister, which is more important?
She did not know where this thought came from, but it disappeared as quickly as it had appeared. A bitter taste was left in her mouth just by thinking about that. It was probably because she was tired, her mind was playing tricks on her. There was no way she'd simply dismiss human deaths like that.
Even though she was tired, Rose could not sleep. After all, she needed to get these people to safety first. And there was only one way they could go: to their original destination, Vinclum. She would not rest before they were all safe within the walls of the big city.
The rest of the road, Rose thought about the still unsolved mysteries of the past events. However, the answers were missing, just like the stars behind the clouds in the darkness of the night. Yet, one by one, those clouds would go away, revealing the shallow lights behind them. After they'd all gone, they would reveal a hundred of them, all forming one big cluster. And each of them would be interconnected, just like one answer would not exist without another...
Deep under the ground, the abducted people were sitting in a cell together with a few others. Rats crawled around between the cracks, and spiderwebs filled each corner of the area. The place had been neglected for years.
One of the guards, unrecognizable by a weird, triangle-shaped mask, entered the cell and took one of the people outside, knocking him down once when he struggled. He dragged him down the hallway, out of sight from the prisoners. Not much later, they heard a loud scream. After that, a deadly silence.
"What's going to happen to us?" Yuu sobbed. The last time she'd cried, she had been four. She'd been trying to look strong ever since her childhood, so nobody would ridicule her for her smaller posture. She thought she'd forgotten to cry ages ago. But the tears just wouldn't stop coming. Next to her lied the motionless body of David, almost devoid of life. They had taken away Noa earlier, and he still hadn't come back. She hadn't seen Liss ever since she left the carriage. Everyone had left her. She was all alone...
Ironically, the moment that thought crossed her mind, another guard showed up. He walked towards her and grabbed her arm forcefully. Yuu tried to break free, but the man's grip was too strong. He dragged her outside the cell, through the hallway. They went through an old door into a dark room. Before she could get a good grasp on the area, the guard had put her down in a chair and chained her with colored bands. Each color had a different element on it.
After he was done, the guard left the room. It was completely silent around her. Her eyes slowly adjusted to the dark of the area.
"Let me go! Let me go!" She yelled. But nobody answered. Then, suddenly, she heard a sound from behind her. A wriggling sound? No, it was like something heavy scraping on the ground. She then heard someone closing in on her.
"I'm sure you want to join your friends. Well, it wouldn't be nice to let you wait any longer, would it?" A female voice with an evil tone whispered in her ear. She then turned around the chair. Before Yuu knew what was happening, the woman, whose face was also covered with a triangle mask, put some kind of tube on her forehead. Yuu tried to shake it off, but its sucking strength far succeeded the force of her movements. Her body felt weird. It was as if the tube was pumping something inside her body and slowly sucking out something else in return. Slowly, she felt her energy flowing away.
"You don't have to be afraid." The woman said. "Look, see how happy they are." Yuu's vision was gradually getting worse, but she managed to look into the direction of the woman's finger. Then she saw them.
Noa's and Sam's bodies were lined up with tens of others. They all stood up straight, looking in the same direction. Their eyes were completely devoid of life. Their chests were slightly going up and down: they were still alive. However, there was one thing about them that brought Yuu true despair. Their mouths. They were all put upwards, into some kind of wicked smile. It was an image straight out of a horror story. But this wasn't a story, this was real. And those were her friends.
Yuu screamed. But the scream didn't last for long. The remaining energy had left her body, turning the world around her pitch black. The last thing she heard, was the woman's voice.
"Don't worry, I'll make sure to give you the most beautiful smile..."
