Behind The Locks || ONC 2024

Chapter 20-Four Months Of Terror 1949

People ignored the ominous signs of the library symbols glowing at night and the unexplained whispers that drew audience from passersbys at midnight.

It wasn't until Urka thought that there was something queer taking place in the library, but it was too late.

On the first full moon of the summer of 1949, fog flooded the valley.

People considered it nothing more than an unanticipated turn of weather, but it was way beyond that. It was the dawn of an era of terror.

Urka tried to alert people, but why would anyone give an ear to a person who lived in the streets and could do anything for a half-bitten sandwich?

A family from the southern part of the valley disappeared enigmatically; a mother, father, and two kids, sometime after.

The detective sent troops to fetch them after the fog rescinded, but they were never found. The library watchman too was nowhere to be seen or heard of.

Fog befell the valley once again, but this time things showed up with it; figures marching perfectly with the occupacity of the fog, swaying like ghosts.

Sure enough they were ghosts, or how else would anyone call a moving hilly shroud of fog with a mouth brimming with pointy teeth and eyes glowing as red as the red moon itself?

Once they unveiled themselves, the fog did not fall. Not during the days nor at nights.

They broke into houses and stole people.

In contrast to what most people thought, the ghosts weren't murderers, at least they did not kill a single soul on people's watch, they just took the person with them.

Families that tried to flee were kidnapped by the semitransparent entities and taken to a place nobody knew.

Urka decided to sneak after the ghosts.

After kidnapping people, they turned out to be taking them to the library. That wasn't enough for him.

He delved deeper and went into the library.

Apparently, the night watchman was the imperium; he harbored the entity that lead the colony.

All ghosts assembled humans and the night watchman seated on a kingly seat in the heart of the library devoured their souls by sucking them out.

All that was left of the casualty was a sallow, whitish, soulless corpse.

Urka was able to escape safely, but as soon as he shared the news with the people of Creekbox, the ghosts came for him.

People that tried to go against them were murdered brutally and hanged by the town center for everyone else to see.

Hiding from entities that had abilities to smell even the slightest scent of life was not a smart idea either. They would eventually find you.

Others that were desperate and had lost hope of living committed suicide.

There was nothing to be done but stay indoors and wait for once time to come, it was clear that those were their last days.

Many people had already been taken, when the people decided to bring upon to life twelve spirits of the dead.

The town's ritual avids carried twelve keys and a watch, claiming that through them they would get control over the ghosts they were about to rise for not all of them were warm hearted.

The ritualists went together in a circle that performed yet the biggest ritual Creekbox had ever seen.

It didn't pay off, at least not after a few outsiders attacked and kidnapped some villagers. Twelve ghosts came out of the ritual.

It wasn't easy getting them together while they all had different intentions.

The keys were a threat to them, and only one ghost could work at the strike of a clock, only when the ritual was intact.

The ghosts were forced to work together.

It wasn't a walk in the park. Not even for the ghosts.

They fought like barbarians day in day out, with reinforced strength of the ritualists, they became stronger.

The imperium remained a threat.

The night watchman held it inside and there was only one way to put it to a halt; get rid of him.

The entity could not work as a bodiless unit; they had to perish its body and make sure it invaded not another.

Some villagers offered to kill it with iron spears -which seemed like the only weapons that could transit through its invisible shield- which they did after a better ninety percent of them were on the ground.

They were specially buried.

The twelve ghosts had completed their quest, and they had nothing left to do in the valley.

Ritualists formed a circle like before, but one of them had given up the ghost during the war.

People say that maybe it was because of her absence that the process went incomplete; the ghosts went nowhere. The rituals did not work.

The ritualists made twelve locks in a secret room in the library, and locked in a ghost in each one of them. It is said that every ghost has its moment to visit the afterlife as long as time exists.

The clock tells which one, but as soon as its time is over it comes back.

The keys were hidden where no one could find them.

All casualties were buried in respect and as the same for the story about Twelve Locks Valley.