CHAPTER THREE: BEOCRAFT

The figure, clad in a black baggy garment, sauntered down the passageway. Something about the way he walked struck Kevin as odd—he walked as if his feet were controlled. This inspired horror in Kevin. He felt an unnatural energy engulfing him. The fear spiralled through every nerve in his body, and he wondered what was going on.

What is that thing?

Thereafter, he heard the door open, then clang! All was calm again. After the hooded figure had vanished through the main door, he quickly ran to Cedric’s room to see if he was ok. Standing in the doorway, he called out Cedric’s name in a hushed voice but found that he wasn’t in his room. No one was.

Kevin’s eyes were drawn to an empty suitcase lying on the table close beside the bed. He blanched, and his eyes became wide as though he’d seen a ghost. Then he returned his horror-stricken gaze to the passageway, and it all began to piece together.

The hooded figure… is Cedric.

He felt his heart pounding as he stood there in a dilemma. Now was finally his chance to see what Cedric had been hiding in his room—or he could follow him to see where he was going at such an unholy hour of the night. Standing there in the doorway, contemplating, a thought came to him. He knew exactly what he had to do.

Kevin dashed out of the room into the passageway to follow Cedric. He found the hooded figure a distance away from the house, moving at a swift pace. He moved with great stealth from one car to another as he followed from a distance, watching as the hooded figure vanished into the eerie darkness of the lonely street. He took to his heels and pursued him.

Kevin moved at a slow and gentle pace behind him to avoid being detected. After an hour, they soon came upon a dark forest surrounded by sculpted trees. Kevin followed him cautiously into the forest, using the trees as cover. As they walked deep into the forest, the darkness thickened.

Cedric’s black garment blended with the dark, cold night, and before long, Kevin lost sight of him. He looked around and observed that he had gone deep into the forest with no clue of where he had come from. He did not know his way out, neither did he know where he was going. He was lost.

Trees surrounded him, and he could barely see a thing in the darkness. He walked around the forest, clueless, searching for a way out. His empty hand thrummed nervously in his pocket.

After what seemed like hours, he came across an old, dilapidated warehouse, almost similar in structure to the one T-Murek had used to torture Loretta. Exhausted from wandering in the dark for several hours, he approached the ramshackle building wearily.

Kevin heard chanting coming from the warehouse as he inched closer. He tiptoed to the door and gently pressed his ear against it, unsure of what was going on inside that wooden building. He heard loud chanting coming from within the warehouse like there was a throng inside.

 He slowly bent to look through the little keyhole. His eyes widened when he saw them—the dangerous shifters Leonard had described. They were chanting in unison. All were dressed in big black hooded garments, just like Cedric, and each of them had a mask on. They sat surrounding a long table that had the eye of a wolf drawn on top of it. The painting was as Leonard had described.

Kevin’s eyes darted about in all directions as he glanced at each of their masked faces. He became drawn to a masked figure that closely resembled the figure that’d kidnapped him a year ago. An icy chill went down his spine when he noticed the letter ‘C’ marked on his mask.

His eyebrows rose.

That’s him.

 Seeing the masked man jerked his memories to the event that led to his kidnap.

He opened the door to his old, darkroom and observed a mistily human figure watching him from the shadow far across the room. He neared for a closer view. Slipping his hands into the pocket of his jacket, he pulled out his phone and turned on the light. He was startled when the light fell on the face of a masked figure standing in the corner. It held a shovel in its hand, gazing straight at him coldly. Kevin opened his mouth to scream, but then felt the shovel slam hard against his forehead, knocking him unconscious. A thud sounded after he collapsed, and his phone scattered beside him. The room whirled before his eyes as he lay motionless on the cold marble. He felt a tight grip on his left leg as he was being dragged out of the room, and then his world went blank.

It puzzled Kevin when he saw a little teenager sitting beside the figure that’d kidnapped him. The teenager also had a similar mask on, but his had the letter ‘M’ carved on it—a little close to his left eye.

 It was at that instance Kevin noticed they were all wearing similar masks, but each one of their masks had a unique letter of the English alphabet carved on it. He quivered as his eyes fell on the one who had the letter ‘T’ carved on his mask. His guts told him it was definitely T-Murek.

And just then, he noticed a creature standing behind T-Murek. Only that creature remained standing, while the rest were seated. The creature had a hideous red face, which made Kevin wonder if it was wearing a mask. It couldn’t be his original face, could it? Again, an icy shiver spiralled down his spine when he realised it was.

He observed that it dressed a bit differently from the rest of the group. It wore a tattered, dark hooded cloth that had many tears on it. Its cloak was torn to look like rags. And it held some kind of fork with pointy ends in its bony fingers, which made it closely resemble the grim reaper. It scared Kevin to the bone.

Suddenly, the hideous creature slowly raised its head as if sensing that something was wrong. Then it turned to look towards the door—where Kevin stood. Kevin felt its cold eyes bore into him.

Almost immediately, the chanting stopped, causing the room to be as quiet as a grave. Every masked figure in the room turned to gaze at the door—as if they could all sense his presence.

Kevin’s eyes widened.

AUTHOR’S NOTE

Thank you so much for reading this far! I’m so glad to know that someone found this story interesting. It would truly mean so much to me if I could get many intrigued readers such as yourself to see this piece! You could help me do this by giving me some gems and a review to show support.