Bread crumbs

“Have you found anything else?”

Robert was a tired, more than what he usually was, but he had to push himself forward for the sake of these kids. If it wasn’t for them, then who else would try and give their families at least some peace of mind. 

“Nothing we don’t know already…” Michael’s voice came from the other side of the line, slightly garbled with static and carrying that same heaviness as his. Knowing his old partner, there was no doubt in his mind that he was the one taking it the worse. “The only thing we can call a lead is that report from two nights ago of five kids heading up to the woods.” 

Robert sighed, immediately recalling that bit of information they had gotten when they had been approached by a man who had no other intention that to try and be a good Samaritan. In such a small town, news were bound to spread faster than wildfire on a hot summer day, specially if they were tragedies, yet for someone to take action and do something about it was as rare as it got. 

It hadn’t been much, but right now any information would be good enough. 

As it was, the man had confirmed that a group of teenagers had made their way to the heart of the forest well after any reasonable curfew five days before the kids up and vanished. While he wasn’t entirely certain that this group might be the same as the one we were looking for, it all seemed too coincidental to be seen as unrelated events when taking in consideration the time in which it took place. 

This would certainly fit into the theory Michael had mentioned, about the kids being dragged into some cult and being brainwashed into the exemplary follower, and with the dark history behind Divinidad and Churchwood, there were bound to be fanatical nut-jobs lurking in the woods. Still, following this line of rationality didn’t fully appease Robert.

It was logical, and fit like a glove if anyone had the same amount of clues and knowledge on the town’s history like they had, but that posed a problem in it of itself. If this were to be the case, and that was a big if on Robert’s part, then why was it that they were acting now? What purpose did those kids serve? And most glaringly of all, who was this fifth kid that no-one had filed as missing? 

There were far too many questions and variables to make a right assessment, and with no apparent answer likely falling from the sky and into their hands, following this lead was as their best and only shot at making sense of this mess. 

“Shit… okay,” he sighed, trying and falling to keep his cool. It really had been so long since he was back in the field in one way or another, it didn’t help that this case was almost the equivalent of being dropped in the middle of the raging ocean expecting to swim back to shore. “are you heading up there now?” 

“Yeah, I’m just gonna scout ahead, he said that the kids left the main hiking trail by the second intersection, if we are- ucky- we c- some-"

“Michael? Mike?!” Without warning the call had been cut, the other end simply maintaining a monotonous beep the longer he shouted in hopes of it reestablishing connection. Regardless of how many times he tried to call him back, hanging up and trying again each time he was told that the call could not connect with Mike. “Fuck!” 

Seething frustration simmered just under the surface, barely held back by the dread of having lost contact without any explanation whatsoever with Michael. A distant memory long since buried slowly rearing its head from the damp earth which he hoped it would never rise from. The sound of wet coughs echoing inside his mind, small rivers trickling down the mouth of a pale young face as their eyes turned glossy as the life faded from them.

In that moment, Robert was no longer in his office surrounded by files and pictures he hoped would give him and indication of where to go next with the missing kids case, but on a side walk surrounded by faceless people as his hands pitifully tried to stop the bleeding from a poor kid caught in the crossfire. The sight of that scene replaying in his head made his blood run cold, the trials of sweat running down from his forehead stinging every pore while everything around him distorted and melted away into shapeless forms. 

Guilt ate away at him as the choking voice of the teen begged him to safe him, to not leave him alone, his heart feeling as if something clawed at it, tearing it slowly only to prolong his suffering as his eyes could only witness the unending agony of drowning in his own blood. Yet now, it wasn’t the face of the boy victim to his mistake before him, but of the only anchor in a crazed world, Michael.

The sight of it, was enough to send him over the edge and finally break from his stupor. 

From then everything became a blur the moment he got into his car all the way until he was a good feet into the main hiking trail, his mind still driven by that fear of losing that one ticket to make things right. Subconsciously following the mentioned trail earlier, it wasn’t until already too deep into the forest filled to the brim with dark legends and strange happenings that all his senses cascaded back to him. 

Walking through the shrubbery and twisted trees, the heavy air that grew with each step made into the infamous Blood hills made him draw his firearm put of instinct. There were no words to describe what it was that brought forth such reaction other than merely feeling that there was something extremely wrong with that place, as if something was lurking in the shadows, watching him with great interest the deeper he walking into its trap. The entire world seemed to feel the same way as him as with each step the entire foliage turned dry and the song of birds turn from distressed until becoming silent soon enough. It was as if all life itself seemed to be repelled and disgusted whatever it was that rested at the center of that dead part of the woods, like it contradicted everything they knew so much that death was a more composed and logical response than be tainted by it. 

Deep inside him, Robert felt as if he was standing at the verge of something big, not regarding the case at all but like witnessing an event so horrible and indescribable that his instincts told him that he shouldn’t be there at all. As he drew near a clearing, that voice that told him to flee, to kneel and pray as a singular response in hopes to be spared of whatever his being was so fearful of. His grip in his weapon tightened, no longer was the gun held as a means to face whatever it was that inspired such response, but as an worthless trinket of security that pitifully reassured him that he still held any power against that invisible threat before him.

Gazing at the decrepit building so dilapidated by the passing of time to fully concluded its prior use, he steeled his resolve, forcing his will to withstand whatever terrible darkness lurking within, because if not for him, then who else would risk their lives for those taken by it… 

If this shadow was responsible for any of the recent tragedies, then let it be him who is taken by it.