Eight Stained Clues - Chapter 6

Eight Stained Clues - Chapter 6: Fooled

I woke up abruptly, sweaty. My breath was quick, irregular; my eyes moved almost by themselves, checking the room where I was. I sighed: it was my room. I tried to sit up, but my body hurt too much and I lied down again. I put a hand on my forehead and closed my eyes: I felt very dizzy, everything was spinning and I didn’t know whether I was lying down or falling from wherever I was placed. I let out a little moan of pain as I felt the headache struck again, weaker than before fortunately. At that moment, I heard a childish voice on my left and a hand pressing the sheets that looked to be covering me. I turned my head opening my eyes slowly… At first, I saw a pale skin with crimson tones; then, as my sight came back to normal, I could see her curly brown hair, her dull green eyes, the trickles of blood running down her face and her dirty pink pajamas.

“Hello, Sally”, I murmured with a kind tone.

“How are you feeling?”, she asked concerned. I was a bit shocked, as she didn’t seem to like me very much when she first saw me.

“Dizzy, but relief ‘cause I’m back… but without Jeff. I couldn’t rescue him…”

Sally blinked and stared at me, not sure if she had heard me correctly. “What? You took Jeff with you… and Smile Dog too! You three were back yesterday…”, she tilted her head a little, “Don’t you remember?”

At that moment, I realized: I didn’t remember anything beyond the bullet on my shoulder. I touched it, though there was no scar, no hole, nothing; the same with my arms. I didn’t know how my shadow managed to heal all those wounds so fast, but I thought that it didn’t matter and I just didn’t have to worry.

“Are you ok?”, she asked hugging her teddy bear.

“Yeah!”, I smiled with a thumb up and she chuckled.

“Thanks for bringing Jeff and Smile back. I was very worried!”

“You’re very welcome, girl!”, I sat up and rubbed my head, still feeling a bit dizzy. “Hey, Sally, how long have I been asleep?”

“All the night and part of the morning. You’ve woken up earlier than they expected.”

“Uh, that’s quite a lot. It’s time to get up! I’m fed up of bed!”,

I pushed the sheets away. Sally ran outside the room to tell the others I was awake. Meanwhile, I had a look at my clothes: I would have to sew the holes and stuff, but fortunately they could be saved.

I went to see Slender Man, who told me I had done a great job and I had a free day. Cheerfully, I went to see Jeff and Smile to see if they were alright. Smile Dog was still wounded, but it was out of danger. Slender Man said the veterinarians had found a kind of device inside the dog’s body and Masky was trying to find out what it was. Jeff, on his behalf, had his wounds dressed and seemed to be better. He raised a hand to say hello when he saw me. “Hey, sup?”

“Hi, Jeff. How are you?”

“Fine for what they did to me”, at that moment, BEN and Eyeless Jack came in.

“Hey, man, you’re awake! And you too, Aerial!”, BEN approached to Jeff and they did a bro fist; the same did Jeff with Jack. “How are you two?”

“Fine, thanks!”, I replied with a thumb up and a smile.

“I’ve been worse. This shit is nothing!”, Jeff said and both boys laughed. When they started talking about their stuff I felt it was the moment to leave. Jack waved at me at the moment he sensed I was going out, I said goodbye and soon was walking along the purple rocky corridors.

I went to the living room. I saw a pot filled with cookies on the table were Zalgo ate his meals, whose vision made my stomach growl loudly as an angry animal. I ate three cookies which tasted delicious, with those black chocolate chips and that crunchy texture. I munched slowly each bite to enjoy their taste…

“Will you give me one, please?”

I turned to see who asked. When I saw him, I almost dropped the pot due to the surprise. It was a young boy, whose skin was completely white, just as his clothes and in contrast to his short black hair. He was wearing a white and black reversed cap, a hood, short pants… I opened my eyes widely when I realized he had no feet, or legs for that matter; he had no arms either. I looked at his face, only to see he was crying blood, liquid that poured of black pitch eyes with piercing red irises. He looked so sad that I felt really bad for him and wanted to know how he ended like that, even knowing I couldn’t do anything to help. I gulped nervously trying to calm down, although it wasn’t very useful since he sensed I was horrified.

“Sorry for disturbing you, I didn’t want to…”, he bowed his head and floated away. I felt worse… I didn’t want to hurt him, but I only made it worse. I hated it when that happened.

“N-No, wait!”, I caught up with him and stood on his front. “Don’t go. I’m the one who must apologize… and of course I’ll give you one, and as many as you want!”, I took a cookie and put it in his mouth.

He smiled and thanked me. “You’re the member who united the group a few days ago, aren’t you?”, I nodded as I offered him another cookie which he accepted. “I’m Lost Silver, but everyone calls me only Silver. You’re… Aerial?”, I nodded again with a slightly wider smile. “Nice to meet you. At least, you’re nice…”, because of the face I had to make he read my thoughts and was more explicit. “Most of the members reject me… or simply don’t look at me. It is as if I didn’t exist…”

“Why?!”, I was disappointed. I left the cookie pot on the table and put my hands on my hips.

“They say I’m useless… I can’t do anything by myself and I live here as a parasite, doing nothing to contribute to the community… The worst thing is tha-”

“Aw, that’s so cruel…”, I couldn’t believe it… nonetheless, when I thought it over, I had to admit it was normal. I was surrounded by killers, insane monsters and heartless creatures… It was their nature. Shadow Beings…

“I’m used to it, though, and not everyone ignores me… There are a few members who like to talk to me and try to make me feel better. I’m happy that… you seem to be of that kind”, I saw he was going to cry some more blood, thus I took a napkin from the table and wiped his tears.

I perceived a group of four people which was approaching to the room, but they stayed out, talking and laughing. I was curious to see who they were as I only recognized Kagekao’s aura. I could tell that, from all of them, none was a human, or not completely at least. I peered out to see what they looked like: there were two girls and two boys.

Next to Kagekao, a happy blonde, one reddish brown-eyed woman was standing and telling the others some kind of joke, or I guessed so since they all guffawed. She was wearing a short sleeved white dress, no footwear and had several cuts on her arms and legs, as well as another one on her neck, across the jugular. I didn’t know which kind of being she was, as she seemed to be a human but her aura told me she wasn’t, until I concentrated and found out she was only energy. Actually, she was what the documents called “a being which took its power from a post-existence energy source, an intangible sphere placed on the chest”, which, for normal people, would be some kind of ghost, or a wisp. When I looked at her with more attention, I saw that her head wasn’t complete and part of her brains was visible.

I looked at the young woman in front of her to not throw up. That one looked more normal: she was a red-haired woman with emerald eyes and pale skin. She was wearing a hairband with a black cat ear, a short sleeved turquoise T-shirt, quite dark blue pants and pinkish purple shoes with white shoelaces. I also saw her pendant, which had a name that read “Hope”, and some scars on her face and arms. The ones on her mouth reminded of Jeff’s… I wondered if that maniac had attacked her. When I tried to figure what she was by her energy, I couldn’t guess which kind of being she was. Instead, I felt she had lots of small trails of other auras mixed with hers, some more powerful than the others; I felt even a little piece of Zalgo inside her, mostly because it was the more hostile one, though there was another one, yet not so powerful, that was more extended in her inner. I supposed she had a similar problem as I had with my Shadow Self, but she had to suffer more having to deal with four auras instead of one. I felt sorry for her…

Finally, but not less interesting, I saw the man who stood on the red haired woman’s right side: he was a tall guy on his twenties, not very strapping but not weakling either and his hair was white, with a weird circular saw-like haircut. He was wearing a black hoody, light blue jeans, both with darker blue and red triangles at the end of the sleeves and the trouser legs respectively, and black and white shoes without shoelaces which had… bull horns? I looked again to ensure I was right. Yes, a pair of big white bull horns on each shoe. Strange and original at the same time. I didn’t like his blue gloves, especially because of the fingers; they looked oddly long. How huge my surprise was when I saw his face and noticed that they weren’t blue gloves, but his actual skin! He had an ‘X’ instead of a normal right eye and a spiral instead of a left eye, both same color as his hair, along with a wide sharp-teethed grin and a quite long neck. The strangest thing of all was his aura: he was the one who had part of human energy, but it was clear he wasn’t one anymore. Then, the other half… what was it? It reminded me a little of another I had felt before at a point in my life, moment and being that I couldn’t recall.

“Aerial?”, Lost Silver’s voice took me out of my thoughts. “You look… shocked.”

“What? Oh… It’s just that… I don’t know who they are; I’ve only talked to Kagekao once.”

“Let me tell you about them”, he floated next to me, looking at them too. “You already know Kagekao, so I’ll go with Suicide Sadie, who is Kage’s girlfriend. She had a very sad, painful life and ended up killing herself by cutting her legs, arms and jugular. She doesn’t work for Slender, although she comes to see Kagekao and her other friends and sometimes helps them when they’re in trouble, even when she claimed to be neutral in the conflict between Zalgo and the insurgents.”

“What about the other two?”

“Hope is a vampire. She’s a Zalgo’s proxy and, of course, is a partner of ours, but she works in a different zone. She sometimes comes and has fun with BEN, Eyeless Jack and her other friends. She’s a good fighter who has katanas as a weapon of choice, and when she doesn’t take them with her she fights using her claws.”

“She’s got more than an aura, as if she had different souls living inside her…”

“Never talk about that. She gets very sad…”

“Alright… so… who’s that blue guy? What’s his deal?”

“Ah, he’s The Author, Hope’s boyfriend. He likes playing pranks on people he dislikes or who try to hurt him; Author usually makes them do shameful things. He can change people’s destiny by writing on a surface whatever he wants thanks to a demon which turned him into one, but he needs their names or pseudonyms first. Also, he can fly, summon creatures and use telekinetic powers when he’s angry. Author is neutral too; nonetheless, he helps Hope during her missions, and frequently hangs out with other members.”

“Hold on a sec… Did you say he’s a demon? I thought demons were fictional creatures!”, I was astonished. I’d have never imagined that demons were real.

“Both Kagekao and Author are demons. They’re of a different kind, I think.”

Sadie turned when she heard Silver mentioning her boyfriend’s name. She waved at him and motioned to him to come. Lost Silver looked at me and tilted his head to tell me to come as well, which I shyly did. The four looked at me, Kagekao with a happy expression on the black side of his mask and the other three with surprise and curiosity. It seemed it had been a while since a new member had joined the group.

“This is the girl I was talking about”, Kagekao told his friends. “C’mon, introduce yourself!”

I smiled quite timidly before talking. “Hello… I-I’m Aerial Balshe… Lost Silver has told me about you…”

“Ah, really?”, Author grinned. “So, what about you? How long have you been here?”

“Well…”

It was weird… Being with someone, or a group of people, was so strange to me. I thought it would be pretty hard to overcome the shyness and talking to unknown after all those years of isolation; although, words came out fluently as I went on. They listened to me, and even laughed and made me laugh with them! It was… so great… As great as when Amy was alive.

I had to keep my joy. For me, it was a wonderful experience, but it was a simple thing to them. It was hard, in a good way. I missed that feeling so much…

-----------------------------------------

“… And that’s how I finished him”, I concluded shrugging with a smirk.

“So, you must kill…  eh… how many people?”, Sadie asked me.

“Oh… Now that you mention… Slend didn’t tell me!”, I couldn’t believe I hadn’t noticed before. “How can I be so distracted?”, I covered my face with both hands pretty ashamed. Such a good first impression…

“I know of someone who’s worse than you, Aerial” Author crossed his arms and cackled. ”He’s a complete dumbass…”

“Really? Who?”

We heard quick footsteps heading to Slender Man’s office. We turned and saw it was Masky. Albeit wearing that white mask we all could notice he was worried, seeing that he almost tripped when he tried to sprint.

“What’s wrong with him?”, Kagekao had a confused face on the black side of his mask. Hope and I shrugged.

“We should ask him when he comes out”, Lost Silver said lowly, as if he was talking to himself.

“Hope it isn’t too serio-”, I quieted when I felt an unknown aura in the surroundings of the hideout. I looked up and counted how many there were. One… No, three… No, seven…

They looked at me a bit concerned due to my change of mood. “Aerial, are you ok? You’re very serious…”, just when she finished the last sentence, Hope felt it too. We exchanged glances and followed Masky before the surprised eyes of the other four partners.

When we were there, Slender Man looked at us and Masky turned. The last one was holding something, a black spherical device stained with dried blood. I recognized it immediately: it was the detector BEN gave me when Masky, Hoody and I went to kill Mainre.

“They have changed the signal and put the detector inside Smile Dog…”, Masky explained to us with an anxious voice.

“Crap…”, I murmured. The number of auras was increasing alarmingly fast.

“It was a trap…”, Masky said. “They’ve found us.”

“There are a lot, and more coming…”, Hope’s eyes were turning from an emerald hue to a bloody red one.

We felt they were coming from every direction… which meant they’d appear…

“On your right, Masky!”, Hope moved to him and pushed him away from the wall, from which a big pawed monster came out through a hole big enough to me to go in without bending. Slender Man impaled the creature with his tendrils and ran out of the room, followed by Masky.

Some noise outside the office. Voices warning the members the hideout was being attacked. Blood about to be soaking the rocky walls and floor. They day they had feared the most had come.

As soon as we stepped out, a bunch of tall grey, green eyed bear-like beings with enormous paws and sharp teeth surrounded us. We were back to back, watching our enemies growling and staring at us menacingly. Hope swore lowly. “Wish I had my katanas… Dealing with these guys only with my claws will be hard.”

“I can fix that”, I stretched out a hand, made her shadow emerge from her feet, slowly turned into a black katana and handed it to her, who quickly accepted the improvised weapon.

“Not bad. I guess this will be enough.”

The monsters were about to pounce on us. I raised my hands until they were at the same level as my chin, holding a shadow weapon which was formed by an axe on a side and a spiked hammer on the other, almost as tall as I was. “One…”

She turned her head smirking. “Two…”

The monsters roared and attacked. “THREE!”

She stabbed one of the bear-like beings in the forehead and I cut another’s feet. The bears were quite slow compared to us: when they moved their heavy arms, we already had slid behind and finished them with a few moves. As we killed them, more and more came to substitute their fallen allies, though each of them followed their friends.

“Behind you!”, I told Hope, who crouched down. I threw the axe-hammer to a creature’s head and then retrieved it once it had hit its target. I, seconds later, jumped using my shadow to gather impulse and dodged Hope’s circular cut which damaged three of those bears. Finally, she killed two of those and I sunk the axe side on the third one on my way back.

Back to back again. There were five of those around, hungry and angry after seeing their brothers die. We looked at each other and both smiled. It seemed we were a nice team even though we had met a few minutes ago. She seemed to know what I was thinking, as she agreed that we weren’t doing it too bad. Ready to attack, we held our weapons tighter… However, a shot distracted us. It went towards Hope, but she dodged it with no problem. Then, more shots came from the spaces between the new creatures. After swearing, I ran to one of the creatures and took it with a shadow hand, to place it behind me as a shield. It couldn’t let them shoot me again… I was afraid that I could hurt Hope if I lost control.

I heard a moan of pain and saw Hope falling. She had been shot on a leg and a creature was approaching to her. I dropped the weapon, fused it with the rest of the shadow I wasn’t using and moved it to the monster; nonetheless, another of those bears pushed me and made me lose my balance. I rolled on a side to avoid the foot that tried to stomp me twice, trying to help Hope at the same time. I, sadly, could only see her dodging the attacks for a few centimeters as she fought the pain on her leg. Tired of feeling as a roach, I put the palms on the floor… My shadow grew bigger and turned into six thick lances that impaled the three bears behind me. There were two more on the front, but I was too slow… The beasts were about to claw her.

Suddenly, the foes yelled in pain. I blinked surprised as I went on my feet, watching their bodies falling down, lifeless. At that moment, I found out the cause of death: each one had been impaled by two giant pencils. I perceived Author’s energy approaching and, in a matter of seconds, he landed next to Hope. I stayed still to see if she was too damaged: judging by the gestures, it seemed she hadn’t more wounds. Author, who was wrapped by a red aura and had small flames coming out from his eyes, took her on his arms and flew away from the battlefield, to Eyeless Jack’s bedroom, where I perceived Lost Silver and BEN were hiding. At the entrance, Hoody and Masky were fighting some of the humans who were shooting at us. I breathed a sigh when I saw that the couple successfully arrived… and didn’t notice the giant who stood behind me. I was taken in surprise… I was struck by a hammer that threw me three meters above the floor and made me crash into the wall seven meters away. As I sat up, I noticed a group of seven humans coming to me at a quick pace. I expected them to be surrounding me in a short time; what I didn’t expect was a scream and the sound of flesh being torn. I looked to the ones who had come to help me: they were Suicide Sadie and Kagekao. She was cutting the men’s arms and legs and he was clawing their necks and chests.

“I saw you flying above our heads! Can you move?”, Sadie bent down next to me and gave me a hand. I took it thankfully, stood up and nodded. “Ok, Kagekao will take care of the group with the guns and I’ll deal with the men over there. You ca-”

I gasped when I saw the giant creature that hit me before close to the room where the injured ones were being treated. “Sorry, I need to do something. I’ll be back in a minute!”

I ran after the creature. I was shocked that no auras were nearby; when I got there, I realized Masky and Hoody were gone. Instead, Eyeless Jack and Jeff were facing the monster, which hit them with the hammer as strong as he did with me. Both ran into a wall and fainted seconds later. I clenched my fists, made a scythe and sprinted to it. The monster didn’t notice me until the blade went through its back, but it was fast enough to catch the weapon. I jumped off before it threw the scythe against a wall, made a motion to retrieve it and caught it with a hand. I made it spin on a hand as I watched the giant slowly turning around: it was about fifteen feet tall, wide and pretty brawny. It skin was grey, lighter than the bear-like creatures’ fur, its eyes were brown, an orange liquid was pouring from its mouth, filled with two rows of shark-like teeth, its ears were pointed, it had some scars on the chest, as well as on the legs, and its feet had white claws as big as a human hand. It had a metal rusted hammer as a weapon of choice and only a reddish brown leather loincloth as clothes. I stared at its misshapen face, a face that resembled of a human who seemed to have had hot oil or acid spilt on it. It growled loudly as it prepared to charge; I bent a bit separating my feet a little in an offensive pose. The creature raised its hammer and hit the floor with strength, to call more minions, both bears and humans. I buffed annoyed when I saw I was enclosed, albeit my luck wasn’t so bad that time.

“Need some help?”, I hear him while he landed softly behind me.

I grinned and chuckled before facing the giant once more. “It would be very welcomed…”, I changed my voice to a serious one when the giant held its grip tighter and roared very angrily. “How’s Hope?”

“They can’t treat her wound until the nurses arrive. Right now, they’re stopping the hemorrhage”, Author pretended to be calm, but I noticed an ounce of worry on his voice.

“I’ve only known Hope half an hour, but I’ve seen her fighting and, believe me, she’s strong. A simple bullet won’t beat her!”, I said with a confident voice. He seemed to calm down a bit, just as I wanted. “Are you sure you can deal with all those?”

“Yep, just need you to keep them away for some minutes”, he said as he started to draw on a piece of paper at a speed I had never seen.

Both sides dashed to us. I put my hands on the floor, from which a shadow circle increased its size until it covered a ratio of two meters. At the moment a few monsters stepped on the edge, some shadow lances came out to impale them, so fast that none of them could react on time. The rest of the edges emerged as well, and all the lances met three meters above our heads and mixed into a single plain surface, making a translucent dome that could resist several hits for a long time, although I wasn’t sure if it would handle the big guy’s long enough. The monsters charged against the dome, struck with their weapons, the humans shot at it repeatedly and all were helped by the big one, whose hammers blows counted as ten attacks. I felt as if they punched me each time the hammer landed a new attack on the dome, but I didn’t distract. I kept the shield for four minutes… and the hard strikes of the big beast weakened the barrier. I begged Author to hurry up when I heard the dome cracking.

“I’m almost done… Just a sec… Ok, remove the dome, quickly!”, he stood up and took a step back as I deactivated the shield that transformed into an amorphous intangible stuff.

From the drawing, a magic red circle came out, along with some weak lightning. After that, a white hand with three snowy silver claws appeared, followed by two big horns and a screech. The next thing I saw was the head, big and white with wide yellow eyes without pupils and a huge mouth. The monster itself could be seen until its abdomen, so I saw it was pretty thin, with the ribs marked on its skin, and a pair of wings, same color as its eyes. As soon as The Author pointed at the beasts, it bent down at started to eat them and tear them off mercilessly. The demon summoner, meanwhile, raised his hands, made a bunch of pencils float in the air and changed their size to make them bigger, while I took the shadows of all the fighters, mixed them with mine, divided the whole thing into several parts and made a great amount of small knives and some hands. One of last ones held the arm of the giant as the others grabbed the knives and aimed at it. We stretched our arms out and both pencils and knives flew towards their targets. The projectiles, with bullets that missed by inches, whizzed besides us, moving closely and leaving a trail of blood wherever they went. The agonizing yells of the foes that surrounded us mingled with the ones of further groups, accompanied by stabs and cuts. The air smelt awfully, I stepped on crimson pools, my friends were fighting and getting hurt, killing and avoiding being killed… For a moment, I felt as if I was at a sick battle from one of my nightmares, made up by my Shadow Self.

A high-pitched scream was heard. By the tone, I guessed it was a child, a girl more exactly. Author and I turned to the direction were the voice came from. “Sally!”

A hammer blow threw us against a wall; a punch followed the strike and finished breaking one of my ribs. I coughed some blood between cries and twitches, knelt and kept my Shadow Self away from my consciousness. I checked Author’s state: he had been hit on the head and the legs, which were bleeding hard. He couldn’t move, and the creature was going towards him with a wide smile on its horrible face. I coughed up some more blood, moment when my Shadow Self told me to let her deal with the guy. I, seeing I was weakening, ordered her to give me some power; she, resigned, agreed and spread inside me without taking me. I had to act fast…

I went on my feet thanks to the wall, after what my shadow transformed into a rope. I grabbed it, made the rest of the shadow concentrate behind me, turned it into a hand and made it throw me near the beast, high enough to pass above it and reach the wall. Each time I touched a wall I left part of the rope attached to the surface just on time to dodge the mortal hits. I repeated this a few times while dodging the hammer blows, the feet and the fists. I crouched down before the last jump, rolled on a side to avoid the smashing hit and threw myself a last time, in which I landed on a knee behind the foe. I pulled the rope, what released the attached parts, tensed the whole shadow and the whole rope wrapped tightly the giant’s neck. It gasped for air as it tried to reach me, but the net of shadows kept it still, unable to move further than six inches. I pulled harder slowly; the beast flailed faster. It groaned, begging to be set free, asking me to forgive it, but I was deaf. Eventually, the shadow stopped shaking and the creature fell down, its body supported by the shadow strings. I stood up, made my shadow go back to my feet and… fell to my knees due to the pain on my chest. I coughed hard and, out of strength, lied on my own blood as more red came from my mouth and my right lung. I heard a voice swearing, my vision was starting to get blurry and I couldn’t perceive the energies nearby.

“Fuuuck…”, I murmured clenching my fists.

I thought I would die there. Who wouldn’t, having a lung stabbed by your own broken rib and losing blood without a chance to stop it? I couldn’t hear my shadow’s voice… Maybe she had already given up and assumed my death and, therefore, her loss, but… she normally didn’t surrender, no matter how black the situation seemed to be. So… why didn’t she say anything?

I found out soon. It hurt a lot, but the rib was placed to where it belonged, my wounds healed at a moderate pace and I got my strengths back. With some effort, I sat up; later, I looked around and noticed Author was writing on a piece of paper. I remembered his power: changing people’s destiny by rewriting whatever he wanted. I stood up, walked to him and stretched a hand to him with a smile.

“Thanks so much. I owe you a big one!”

“Actually, I owed you one, but we’re even now”, he grinned and took my hand.

I put one of his arms around my neck and helped him to go to the injured room with Hope and the others. Once he was there, I got out and ran straight to the Black Eyed Kids’ room, from where Sally was heard. However, Slender Man came out with Sally among his arms, all covered with blood. The poor girl was crying hopelessly, probably after witnessing a gruesome scene. I looked to Slender Man with an inquiring gaze, trying to guess what she had seen and… why he, somehow, looked concerned. It was weird, but… his gestures and caring side told me there was bad news.

“Slender Man…”, I said with a low voice.

“We’ve finished them all!”, Kagekao, followed by Sadie, Tails Doll and Anonymous, approached to him. “All the intruders are dead!”

“Hm? W-What’s wrong?”, Suicide Sadie asked Slender Man. She had to feel the same as I did, because she looked equally concerned.

“Where are the others? I have something important to say”, he announced caressing Sally’s hair in an attempt to calm her down. I pointed at Eyeless Jack’s room and we all went in. When we arrived, Jeff and Jack were awake. “Is there someone missing?”

“Not now”, I heard Zalgo’s voice from the entrance. His clothes were soaked with the blood of the creatures and had some pieces of flesh stuck on his cape.

Slender Man left Sally on the floor, waited until she reached Jack, BEN and Jeff and proceeded. “The threat has been successfully eliminated. You all have worked really hard, together, as the team I’m proud of. Very well job, everyone”, we all were worried, since we were afraid it wasn’t the only thing he had to say. “However… not all of us have made it. We lost four members today…”

“Who?”, Hope asked nervous holding one of Author’s hand tighter.

“The Black Eyed Kids. When I arrived, it was too late…”

I looked down. It wasn’t my fault, but… even so, I felt guilty for the kiddos’ deaths. If I had killed the giant earlier…

“Also, we’ll have to move out to another area. This place isn’t safe anymore… You’ve got an hour to get everything you need or care about and prepare yourself to leave. I’ll go to your rooms in a while and give you some clothes you must wear from now.”

Having said that, Slender Man walked out of the room. Opposite feelings were bugging my head: we won, we survived, and I felt happy because we were victorious, but… I felt pity for those kids whose lives had been cruelly stolen. The thing was that I didn’t have strong bounds with any of them, a lot less with Roxy… They were Shadow Beings after all, my enemies! If that was the case… why did I feel bad for them? Why was I sad?

------------------------------

Once all the belongings were packed and all the wounded members treated, we left the cave behind. We walked through the woods under the everlasting moon and night sky. I saw the defeat in my partners’ faces… All of us shared the same feelings, all of us shared the same thoughts. None of us talked; we just walked, only breaking the silence when we stepped on a dead leaf or a thin branch. Slender Man was at the head, guiding the rest to the new home with his tendrils stretched out to be more visible. It seemed to be eternal, the trees looked the same to me, as if we were walking in circles. I felt the urge of asking where we were heading; nonetheless, the silence of the collective sadness was stronger than the voice that willed of an answer.

Eventually, about two hours later, a light could be seen on the horizon. I lifted my white tiger mask to see it better, but quickly put it on again when Slender Man commanded me to do so. I also put on the hood, so that he didn’t complain. I was pretty hot in that cloak and wearing my regular clothes and the mask, a lot more with the hood on, and I could only think of taking it off as soon as I arrived at my room. I looked around: all of us were wearing a brown cloak and a mask. Those who already had a mask and hooded clothes didn’t need those, but the rest had to cover.

Minutes later, we arrived. I looked up to the building very impressed: it was a mansion whose walls were made of brick and painted in white, the windows’ frames were silver and the tiles red, and there was a smoking chimney. It was very high, about four floors, and very wide, large enough to take in seven times our organization. Slender Man knocked on the door and stepped backwards. The door was opened by a human, a cloaked and masked woman who let out a shout of joy and covered her mouth when she saw Slender Man. She realized he didn’t come alone and gasped.

“I must tell the others!”, she ran inside. We waited there for a couple of minutes until a man, who, compared to the earlier human, reacted very calmly after seeing The Tall One, motioned to us to enter.

One by one after Slender Man, we went in, followed by the curious eyes of those weird people who were singing in Latin. I noticed all of them had a similar outfit to us, though their masks were a human-like face whereas ours were animal ones. I thought that Slender Man wanted to distinguish us from the bunch of humans who knelt as our leader passed by their side. I felt I had gone right into a cult, one that venerated Slender Man…  I shivered when that idea came to my mind and felt awkward for the rest of the day.

We were left at the living room. I had to say it was pretty I liked it a lot: dark walls, pictures of robbed people wearing the mask every member had and mythological creatures, a chandelier, expensive wooden furniture, comfortable dark-colored sofas, a matching circular-shaped rug among them, a big TV, shelves with books of different kinds…

I was sitting on the red sofa, next to Jeff –on my right–, who was complaining about his bunny mask, and BEN, who was wearing a strange purple mask with colored feathers and big frightening eyes, along with the brown robe. There were other members around, chatting or looking at every object in the room. After a while that seemed to be an eternity a robbed man told us to follow him and he showed us our rooms.

I closed the door behind me and leant against it with my arms on my back. I whistled when I had a look at the bedroom: it was big, with the walls painted with a light grey tone, the floor covered by a red carpet and a window, which had vermilion curtains, at the front, in the middle of the wall. About the furniture, I had a wooden light-colored wardrobe near the door, on my left, a couple of shelves on the wall on my right, in front of the bed, which was at the corner made by the shelves’ opposite wall and the one with the window. Next to the bed, I had a bedside table and a silver-colored lamp with a crimson lampshade on it, and next to the mentioned table I had a chest of drawers. Finally, at the corner made by the door and the bed’s walls, I found a desktop, same color and material as the wardrobe. I looked up and realized I had another lamp, similar to the one on the bedside table, with six light bulbs. I smirked: not bad for a novice.

I closed the window and the curtains, took the robe and the mask off and put them away in a drawer. It was way better like that, with my normal clothes and my face uncovered. I left all my belongings in the wardrobe, went to my bed and lied down looking at the ceiling. I closed my eyes and thought about all the stuff that had happened within those hours: the meeting, the fight, the Black Eyed Kids’ loss, the new home… It reminded me of those days when I was a girl and had to escape from the Shadow Beings when they found me and I wasn’t able to defeat them. Even having a place to call home, it was still weird.

Besides that, having partners, or friends, was an experience which I remembered with nostalgia and fear but which had reborn with new hopes. I was happy that I had someone to rely on, someone to play and hang out with, someone who… cared about me. The image of Author and Hope during the fight appeared in front on my eyes. The way he took her on his arms and put her out of danger, the worry on his eyes and voice, the gaze on Hope’s eyes when she saw Author had been hurt, and later her relief after seen he would recover… their exchange of looks and smiles… I closed my eyes: those feelings… how would it be? Being in love with someone… It seemed so… sweet… so warm…

I was startled by the sound of a guy knocking on my door. I told him to leave me, that I was tired, but his reply made me jump off the bed as fast as I could, took the cloak and the mask on and run out of the bedroom. On my way to unite the other members, I took a rose from a vase, adjusted my mask and put the hood on. It was time to begin the funeral.