Blue Mist Creature

Tilly pulls a large branch from the dirt road that she and her group are traveling on. Tilly stops, a small movement catching her eye. She looks toward it, a pile of leaves rustle and the pile bursts apart. Tilly takes a surprising step back, standing not five feet from her is a small rabbit. 

    “Ha, your afraid of a bunny,” Ben teases, he puts his hands up behind his ears like he had rabbit ears. 

    “Oh, stuff it,” she snips back. Tilly looks over to her best friend Molly and whispers, “Man, he’s annoying.”

    “He’s just jealous,” Molly whispers back.

    “Hey TIlly,” Ben calls from up ahead. “Come here.”

    TIlly moves quickly up to her brother, “What?”

    He points to what looked like a small hole in the ground, “a bunny home. Be careful they might come after you.”

    Tilly shoves him, causing him to stumble forward, laughing. The laughing stops abruptly as the small whole widdens. Ben screams as he falls into the now deep hole.

    “BEN!” Tilly hurries to the edge of the hole. “Ben, are you okay?”

    “No, my leg hurts,” a muffled yell answers. “Help me, Tilly.”

    Tilly looks desperately around the area, looking for something to help him. “Molly, go get help.” She turns to her friend. “Have them bring something to get him out, please.”

    Molly pales, ‘But I’ll get into trouble,” she whines. “We were told not to go into the woods, my parents are going to ground me.”

“My brother needs help, Molly. Go get someone.”

Molly turns and runs back the way they came.

    “Tilly,” he calls. “I’m scared. I think my leg is broken.”

    Tilly moves a little closer, trying to look down. The ground beneath her shifts and she quickly slides down. She rolls over, trying to grab the edge but misses. Scratching at the side, she slides down the rocky dirt wall, landing at the bottom with a painful thud. “Ow.”

“Tilly,” Ben calls. “Tilly are you okay?”

 “I don’t know, everything hurts.”

Tilly slowly moves every part of her body, seeing if she had any broken bones. Nothing felt broken. She gets to her feet, looking around the area for Ben. “Where are you?”

Ben shifts slightly, Tilly looks toward the shifting and sees a dark figure hunched over, “Ben is that you?” 

The figure moves again. “Yes,” Ben answers. 

Tilly’s eyes begin to adjust to the darkness, she pulls out her keys and clicks on the small flashlight. She shines it around and stops. A small tunnel leads off a part of the wall. 

“No,” with a but of panic, Ben tries to grab Tilly. “We shouldn’t go through there.”

Ignoring him, Tilly moves forward and shines the light down the tunnel. The small beam of light does not touch much except the solid dirt walls on either side of a long dark tunnel.

“We have time,” she whispers. “It’ll take Molly awhile to get help. We’ll be back long before she returns.” She turns to her brother, “Unless you’re scared?”

Ben looks at the tunnel and back at her, “I can’t move my leg, I think I broke it.”

“I can help you,” she moves back over to him and reaches for him. “Let me help you up and you can lean on me.” She pulls him to his feet.

Together they enter the tunnel. 

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    Running through the woods, Molly trips over a branch, falling hard. Breathing hard, she gets up and hurries on. After a few minutes of running, everything starts looking familiar and she stops to get her bearings. After taking a few breaths, she looks around. She’s lost, why didn’t she go back to the path? What made her think it would be faster to just go straight through?

    Picking a direction, Molly moves. She has to reach someone at some point. Maybe she’s been going the right way the whole time and she’s about to reach her house.

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    Tilly and Ben move slowly down the tunnel, Ben breathing hard in Tilly’s ear. Using her free hand, Tilly flashes the light ahead of them, side to side. “Can we stop a second?” Ben hufs.

    Tilly stops and slowly lets him sit down, she points the light down the tunnel, “Stay here, I will go in farther.” She steps forward, leaving Ben behind.

    She moves away from her brother, after a few minutes she can no longer hear his breathing. She turns, her flash light not reaching him. She couldn't have moved that far from him in that short amount of time. “Ben?” She calls.

    “Hurry back,” a faint voice calls back.

    Tilly continues, everything looks the same, just a long tunnel. After another few minutes a small light appears ahead. Excited, she moves quicker. The light getting brighter, she shuts off her flashlight, she doesn't seem to need it anymore. 

    The tunnel ends with a large roomlike cavern. Tilly squints looking around. Two large containers sit in the middle surrounded by people in long white coats with clipboards. She watches as one of them pulls out a tube of a light green liquid from a pocket and dumps it into a cup of brown liquid causing it to bubble over and spill all over the table.

    Tilly watches in aw as the white coated people continue to do small experiments until a large door slides open. A man in a grey suit leads the way of six other suited people into the cavern. 

    “Dr. Morris,” he calls. One of the white coats hurries over to the man and shakes his hand.

    “How may I help you?” Dr. Morris asks.

    Tilly watches as they move into a glassed off room in a corner, while they are talking the other six people move around the cavern. Before Tilly knows it all the lights in the cavern go out. Screams from below and a lot of movement drowns out her gasp. 

    A glowing blue light appears off to one side and slowly grows. The screaming slowly stops as more people notices it. The light turns into a solid glowing figure almost human like. The blue figure stands and seems to look around, inspecting its surroundings.

    Tilly screams right along with the rest of them as the creature darts forward to the closest person. The person dissolves into a blue liquid and it sucked up into the creature. 

    Tilly moves away from the cavern and back towards her brother. Not turning on her flash light until she is far enough away. “Ben,” she calls. “Ben, we need to go back now.”

    Ben doesn’t answer and he’s nowhere to be seen. She’s sure this is where she left him. Her light goes over the area and stops where a large area of dirt was disturbed. Yes, this is where she left him. “Ben, where are you?” She calls.

    She moves closer to where they started and Ben is nowhere to be seen. At the end of the tunnel, the pit that they fell in is empty. Ben is gone!

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    Molly finally reaches the end of the forest and is relieved that she made it to the right place. Her house is just up the little hill, she runs to the house, “Dad,” she yells. “Dad, Ben needs help, he fell down a hole.” She reaches the house as her father comes to the door.

    “Where is he?”

    “In the woods, Tilly is with him. We need to hurry.”

    “Why did you go into the woods,” he grabs a rope from the shed and follow Molly back through the forest. This time following the path.

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    Tears roll down Tilly’s face, she’s lost her brother. “Ben,” she calls again. “Answer me, where are you?”

    A faint voice from the tunnel calls back, “Tilly.”

    She runs back down the tunnel, the beam of her light bouncing around the walls. 

    Another, but louder, call brings her to a slower run. Her light beam more controlled as it lands on her brother. He’s laying on his side, she must of ran right past him. How did she miss him?

    “Ben, we need to get back.” She reaches for him to lift him from the ground. “Come on, we can’t be in this tunnel.”

    He allows her to lift him from the ground and together they make their way back. 

    “What happened?” He asks. “I heard you scream, I was trying to come help but then you ran past me. I thought something was chasing you. There was this glowing blue light, I thought you found someone to help.”

    “What was the light?” Fear in her voice makes him stop. “Did you see anything?”

    “No,” he answers. “It was faint and it went away so fast.”

    They reach the cave that they started in and sat against the wall farthest away from the tunnel. 

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    Molly leads her father to the hole, the first thing she notices is Tilly’s gone. “Tilly?” She calls. She scans around the area.

    “Molly, I fell too.” Tilly calls from the hole.

Her friend is in the hole. She looks down the hole but it’s so dark she couldn't see anything. “Tilly, are you hurt?”

“No, but Ben broke his leg.”

Molly’s father ties one end of the rope to a tree and lowers the other end down the hole. “Tilly, tie this around Ben the best you can. I will pull him up.”

He drops the rest of the rope down, hoping its long enough. A slight tug tells his it reached. 

“Okay,” Tilly yells back up a few minutes later. “You can pull him up.”

Molly’s father slowly pulls the rope. Ben finally reaches the top and allows Molly and her father pull him onto solid ground. They untie him from the rope and he falls to the ground, breathing hard from the pain. “We need to get you to a hospital,” Molly looks at him.

Ben is covered in dirt, his leg looks like it was broken in multiple places and his eyes are glossed over from the pain. 

Molly’s father lowers the rope again for Tilly and calls down, “Let me know when I can pull you up.”

It takes Tilly a little longer but after a few minutes she calls up that she was ready. He pulls her up and as she climbs out a bright blue glow quickly surrounds her, pulling her back down into the hole. Her screams fade away quickly.

“Tilly,” Ben yells.