Dead leaves crunched underneath our feet. The brilliant green leaves overhead shielded us from the midday sun as we walked. Flowers akin to those you would give your fiance when you didn’t have much money were mid bloom on every other bush. Botanical life flourished all around us, while zoological life had not even a sign. Phillip was likely the first animal in the first in who knows how long. The tracks we followed were the only spots which were devoid of plants. The lack of greens revealed very compacted dirt, as if whatever made them slithered through there often.

We walked for an hour before Phillip began to squirm in my arms, causing me to drop him. He quickly hopped ahead of us. Then he turned to face us and stood up on his hind legs. When Mallory and I caught up to him, I crouched down and took off my backpack. I looked through it and pulled a small plastic bag full of carrots. Phillip didn’t hesitate to take them from me when I opened the bag.

Mallory giggled and sat down next to us. What she took from the backpack was a few pieces of bread. I took out some sliced meat and combined the two we created a poor excuse for sandwiches. Phillip dug through the pack. In his mouth was a Minor Dragon Fruit, a pinkish fruit covered in either yellowish or greenish scale like skin. Using a switchblade from Mallory’s backpack we cut the fruit up as best we could. The juice from the Minor Dragon Fruit was thirst quenching, and the best part about it was the juice wasn’t sticky at all. Phillip loved Minor Dragon Fruit for its lack of stickiness, he enjoys any fruit that won’t matt his fur.

I looked into the snack bag. What remained inside it was mostly candy, though we did have a few fruits left. I dusted myself off when I stood up. Phillip shook himself. He blinked at me. I took him under my arms again then the three of us continued following the tracks.

Soon the trees became less bright, not much, but I easily could see. The color of the flowers were now muted and the flowers themselves were now few and far between. The plants weren’t dead, just dying. I wondered why as we got further from Cyprianus, the world seemed less alive.

Thirty minutes went by when the relatively straight tracks suddenly curved left. I did a double take to be certain they actually turned. It was then when I realized the trees stopped. A near perfect wall of trees simply ended. I lifted my eyes from the ground to look in front of me.

Ahead of us was a tall chain link fence. The Metallic signs that hadn’t rusted off it were difficult to read. One I assumed read, "keep out!"

Phillip fell from my hands. He hopped up to the fence. I followed suit. My fingers wrapped around the metal chains. I pressed my face into the fence and looked through.

A building, the size of which I had never seen before, stood guarded by the fence. It was made of cement and had very few windows. Two cement pillars towered over the roof of the building.

"What do you think this place is?" Mallory’s voice came from beside me.

My eyes were glued to the building, its sheer size had me in awe. "It’s his nest."

After a moment I heard Mallory move away from the fence. Phillip and I turned to follow her back onto our path.

The tracks were parallel to the fence but soon they curved right, directly into the fence. The gate seemed fairly easy to open, if we tried hard enough at least. A few hundred feet behind the gate was a metal door. Above it were a couple of dusty windows that let us see into the dark building, if ever so slightly.

Mallory approached the gate. I caught her arm and held it tight, causing Mallory to turn to me. I told her, "it’s not the best idea to go in through his front door."

She nodded, "this fence looks old, maybe we can find another way in?"

I let go of her arm. We kept walking, past the gate. A handful of feet after the fence turned we noticed an anomaly. The fence had an entire section of it gone. It wasn’t missing, it was just bent and broken out of the way. Something had clearly slammed through it.

"Whoah," I said, my mouth agape.

"Something was trying to escape," Mallory scowled.

I shook my head, "we should go back home. Someone else can deal with this."

"Who can? Who, Alexander?" Mallory snapped, "everyone else in town is unconscious. You can’t just theorize for the next year about what could possibly be going on here. If we can’t reverse this we can at least find the missing kids."

It stung when she said that. I had honestly spent my time mourning everyone’s disappearance when I could have put in the minimum effort into trying to find them.

I looked into Mallory’s beautiful hope filled green eyes. Within that hope I saw a twinge of yearning and a grain of fear. At the time I thought it was a yearning for companionship and a fear of what could be inside. But now, years later, I know I was wrong.

"Alright, fine," I sighed.

Mallory clapped her hands and squealed with joy. She motioned for me to go in first. Before I could step through hole Phillip hopped in ahead of me.

We walked through a gravel yard up to the cement building. Up close we could see part of the wall was scrap wood, nailed to the inside of the building. The hole that the wood covered was surrounded by rubble. Whatever got through the fence was definitely the reason there was a hole in this wall

Mallory whispered, "how loud do you think it will be if we slam ourselves into this wood?"

"I’m going to guess, very loud," I whispered in return.

Phillip looked up at me. He tilted his head then pointed his antlers at the wood.

"If you have an idea go ahead."

Phillip cautiously hopped up to the wood. I heard faint scrapes coming from his direction. He was eating the wood! He chewed away at the wood just enough for Mallory and I to snap the wood with very little noise. We had to crouch to get through the small hole we made.

It was dark inside, luckily we brought flashlights. Mallory retrieved them from our supply bag. I switched on my flashlight, illuminating the thick cloud of dust. After a wave of my hand we could see miles of conveyors standing at waist height, while a forest of metal support beams reached the ceiling. Sometimes there were staircases connecting to a platform that was a bridge over a few conveyors. We walked deeper into the building and noticed thick large hooks hanging by chains connected to the ceiling. We kept tip-toeing our way through the building.

Phillip hopped into the light from our flashlights. His antlers pointed at something.

I switched my flashlight off and Mallory followed my lead. In the darkness we could see a dim orange light. We kept our guard up as we approached.

The light came from a cheap lamp. The lamp sat on a wooden desk which wasn’t as dusty as everything else in that building. Littered around the lamp were scraps of metal. A notebook and a pen lay not too far from the odd tools. I had half a mind to pick it up and read it but I decided against it. My eyes kept scanning the desk. A magnifying visor was the second thing that caught my attention. I found it odd that it was nearly in pristine condition. Next to the visor was a thin sized silver band. A possibly thick bronze band stacked onto it, followed by thick silver, bronze again and finally topped off by another thin silver band. It took me a second to realize it was a ring. Now this is what called to me. My hand reached for the ring. I stopped myself, was I really about to touch something that belonged to The Scarred Man? I turned to see what Mallory would think.

Mallory wasn’t paying any attention to me. Thewebbing between her thumb and pointer finger was in her mouth. She had taken the notebook, flipped through it, and had found a page that was possibly entertaining.

Well, I thought, I might as well. My fingers took the ring. The interior was solid silver, mostly. Odd symbols were engraved into the metal. I turned the ring in the light for a better view. It slipped from my fingers and landed on the floor with a metallic twang. It rolled towards a staircase before settling on its side.

When I picked it up I noticed the cement floor we were walking on earlier was now sheet metal resting on the framework. I straightened my back and looked up. The ceiling made of rotting wood no longer was unreasonably high, and was now the height of the average living room. I looked around the dim area we were in. I wouldn’t call it a room per se, more, of a work area. A table stood opposite the desk. It was covered in dried blood, my heart skipped a beat when I saw it. Ontop the dried blood was a pile of first aid equipment. A nearby knife was stabbed into the tabletop. I was more than unsettled by this. I needed to make sure Phillip agreed with me. I scanned the floor for the golden brown fur ball. When I found him my uncomfortableness became fear. Phillip aimed his antlers at a metal door. His usual attack pose somehow felt disingenuous when compared to this one.

Has that door been there all along? Obviously yes. But why is Phillip ready to attack?

Moving my eyes between Phillip and the door I noticed a trail of blood leading into the door. Or arguably worse, from it.

I held the ring tightly in my fist. "Mallory, I think we should go," I managed to choke out.

She looked up from her reading. After looking around for a moment she smiled at me. "There’s more to the building, can explore for a few minutes then head out?"

"I don’t feel safe," my heart pounded in my chest like the day before.

The rattling of rusty chains screeched through the building. Mallory, Phillip and I froze. A portion of the building’s wall that was facing us suddenly raised about a foot. It was a door! Yellow sunlight flooded the place through the open roll up door. Muddied work boots cast a shadow onto us. The rusty chains screeched again and the roll up door revealed overall covered knees.

Mallory and I whipped our heads to look at each other. I began to panic and I could see in her eyes she was close to crying. Her eyes widened. She pointed to the metal stairs near us.

I understood immediately. Not wanting to depart from the ring just yet I put it on my left ring finger. It was oddly warm, as if it was recently removed. The ring also seemed to shrink in size to fit my finger snuggly yet comfortably. I didn’t have time to think about that though. I quickly took Phillip in my arms then Mallory and I ran up those stairs as quietly as we could. The stairs led up to a wooden door with a window. Through the door was a cement room. It was difficult to see, despite the plethora of holes in the floor allowing for lamplight and sunlight to get into the room. I could barely see a mattress on a bed frame pushed up against a wall. On the wall opposite the bed was a metal locker, and dirty clothes were piled near it.

We heard the chains screech a few more times. After a moment the sounds of heavy boots hitting the cement floor echoed throughout the building. Soon the sounds came from underneath us. I let go of Phillip and he proceeded to hop onto the bed. My chest came to rest on the floor and I looked through one of the holes in the rotting wood floor.

Through the hole I saw scraggly black hair atop the head of The Scarred Man. He opened a drawer in the desk and rummaged through it for a few moments. Whatever he was looking for wasn’t in there causing him to grunt with frustration and slammed the drawer shut. He walked towards the table, which was difficult to see from my hole. I lifted my head in search of a better view. To my surprise Mallory also had her chest to the ground. She looked up from her hole and waved me over. I quietly crawled over to her. The hole we looked through was in the perfect location to view The Scarred Man. He pushed the first aid materials around making them even more of a mess than before. He pounded his fist on the table in frustration. After a moment he turned his head in the direction of the metal door. Though his face was oddly angled I could sense he was pondering something. He shook his head as he sighed. Then my heart stopped. He had turned his head to look at us. Mallory and I quickly rolled out of the way, hoping we were not spotted. Shit! Did he see us?

The sounds of heavy boots echoed once again, this time it sounded like they were heading towards the stairs. I bolted up, Mallory doing the same. I noticed she still had the notebook and I aggressively pointed at it. She moved her lips and made a face that one does when they suck in air through gritted teeth. Mallory swiveled her head before noticing Phillip. She tossed the book on to the bed, just barely missing Phillip. Then, she scrambled to hide under the bed. I almost joined her, but I realized Phillip wouldn’t be able to fit due to his antlers.

The sound of boots hitting concrete became the sounds of boots hitting metal. Knowing he could see me well enough I pointed to a spot on the rotten wooden floor. He understood almost immediately. Phillip hopped off the bed and onto the spot. I grabbed the pile of clothes and threw it onto him, perfectly covering Phillip. Now that Phillip was hidden I joined Mallory underneath the bed.

The wooden door slammed open. It was difficult to make out but I could see The Scarred Man’s boots standing in the doorway. A flick of a switch was heard followed by hot white light blinding us for a few seconds. I swear I could hear Mallory’s heart pound. I put a finger on my wrist and surprisingly I still had a pulse, odds were I was hearing my own heart beat.

The boots walked up the locker and unseen hands opened its door. I heard a cluster of things being rummaged through. Then, the sound stopped. A familiar sound of pages being flipped through caught me off guard.

Suddenly a loud thump made Mallory and I hit our heads on the metal bed frame. A book now lay next to the muddied work boots. Growls came from an unseen mouth. The work boots started to kick furiously at the metal locker as grunts of rage filled the dreary bedroom. This monster terrified me.

The kicking stopped as quickly as it had begun. A sigh filled with melancholy escaped his lips. The unseen hands were seen for a moment when they picked up the book. At that moment I saw many scars on his arms. Ugly scars caused by someone violently ripping at his skin.

A moment later the lights were shut off and the sound of boots and metal colliding was audible once again, clearer this time. Soon the boots collided with concrete. Eventually the sound stopped but it was quickly replaced by the rusty chains rattling again, quicker this time. Something large and made of metal slammed against the concrete. The mild brightness of the outside died and the building returned to its dim lamplight.

We dared not move for a half hour. Once we were sure he was actually gone we crawled out from underneath the bed. I removed the clothes pile off of Phillip and took him in my arms. Mallory took the notebook off the bed and we sprinted out the now open wood door. Down the stairs. Through the shitty workplace. We ran back to the part of the building we broke in. Through the gravel yard and hole in the fence we ran. When we reached the main gate we continued to run.

Following the tracks back into the forest we still ran. We ran for so long that eventually I had to stop moving all together.

I sat down near a bush that was a few feet from the tracks. Phillip was on my lap and I could feel his little heart pumping. I looked at Mallory. She was filled with a wretched terror making her even more pale than natural. A terror that is felt when you are trapped in a corner like a God damned animal. A terror she never wanted to feel again. A contorted look on her face asked, "what the hell did we get ourselves into?" I wanted to console my friend, but I wasn’t faring any better. I felt terror as well, the kind you feel when your friend almost get killed in an accident. I never wanted to feel that again. After that day I would have done, and actually did, anything to prevent harm from reaching Mallory.

When Mallory noticed that I had been staring at her, concern washed over her, causing her pale face to be an offputting ghostly white. She was on the verge of tears, yet she managed to smile with a gleam of hope. She stuck her hand out and I held it whole heartedly. Phillip hopped off me before she pulled me up off the ground. Her soft and cool embrace helped alleviate some of my worry. Mallory then pushed me but kept close. Her hand came to my cheek. She smiled with worry before wiping away my tears.

Had I been crying the whole time?

Next Chapter: We Know Next to Nothing