X-Marks: Hiding Shadows

Seen

The red light was blinking with the kind of urgent pulse that let me know, we had only moments to leave.

"Guys," I said, a sour feeling churned in my gut again.

"You can't just call everyone stupid Mat, just because they don't agree with you," Ocean whispered.

"Guys, listen to me," I said again as an uncontrollable grip of fear shook my words.

"She doesn't have to not agree with me, to be stupid," Mat replied.

"Listen!" I said louder.

Too loud.

I turned the device and watched the others stares dim blacker than the night above.

Ahead two stark headlights bounced down a hill and towards us.

"I think," I said and paused, "I think we need to go."

And without another thought, we fled.

We raced through the cluster of trees and vines. I tried to keep the sound of my breath silent, but my awakened heartbeat fueled my rising chest with every turn.

Ahead, Evee and Nate scrambled into a bush and cover themselves with branches and leaves.

I waited beside a wide tree. On its other side, Mat began to climb up its trunk and towards Ocean who had already made her way up.

"Get up here," Mat whispered and reached for my hand from a high branch of the tree.

I extended my arm as far as it would go and felt the inner strings of my arms muscles pluck one by one.

"I can't," I whispered back.

Ocean reached her long arm out to me, "Valen, you need to try, okay."

I jumped higher and hoped I could hook my hand on either one of them and make my way up. I turned away from them and tried to search instead for a lower branch on the tree. Something I could use to start my climb.

Behind heavy boots stomped onto the dry weeds of the forest floor.

"Spread out," an Ally's deep voice said in the distance as the massive steps continued to trample towards.

I knew their flat voices well, knew how cold it could turn my blood.

I laid against the bark of the tree and heard no other sound. Not from the sleeping woods or the others tucked safely in their hiding place. I heard nothing but the boots inching closer.

The flash of light hit my arm, its vibrant white light stung my eyes as it danced over me. I ripped my arm back and listened to the stoic words close behind me.

"I will take the left perimeter. You will take the right until you are ordered to return," a woman said.

"Understood," a man replied.

Under my feet, I could feel where the forest floor was disturbed by their walking. One moved further away the other kept pacing closer me. Panic rushed through me. My only choice was to stay still and wait to be seen.

Under the strobe of light, I saw the faceless Ally man. He had stopped at a stream of water near his feet. He was wearing the Allys men's typical uniform of all black with straps and silver buttons across his high neck jacket. He wore pressed black pants with ankle laced black boots.

In the curtains of the darkness, I saw him do what I had thought was impossible. He took off his faceless black mask to take a sip of water from the stream at his feet.

He was pale skinned like me with mousy brown hair. His jaw was slight and made him look more like a boy than a man in uniform. He was older than me, but not by much and at least seventeen.

The Ally boy brushed away his hair and there in the middle of his forehead was the faded etch of something that was more recognizable to me than anything else, even in this darkness.

It was the mark of an "X."

"My whole grade went missing," I remember Ocean said.

"But where did all the children go after?" Abe said the night we arrived at his home.

The sharp edge of my nail dug into the fleshy palm of my hand. I had just found out what neither Ocean or Abe could. I knew what happened to all those children, and just what could have happened to me.

The shout of another Ally sounded in the distance. The Ally boy turned his strobe away from me and continued on in the other direction.

He hadn't seen me.

But I had seen him.

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Couldn't wait t get this chapter up for your all! Such a big reveal! :) Did anyone see this coming? Have any theories? Please be sure to keep voting and commenting below and let me know.