Rachel Stanton and The Darkest Night

CHAPTER 9: MATILDA'S PLAN

9. MATILDA’S PLAN

“WHAT ARE THOSE?” I asked Augustus as the clouds with different colors (they looked like fireballs at first) disappeared from the entire night sky. The smokes had formed a huge propeller first before going into different directions. I stared in the directions where they vanished, and with a curious look, I glanced in Augustus’ face. His expression was blank that speaking didn’t seem to be in him by now. So after gazing at him, I didn’t bother to ask the same question anymore.

After a moment, I heard some sounds of creaking trees inside the forest. They were in every direction, I thought. But I could hear them more on my front, left, back and right. The sound grew louder every second now.

When I was watching the wall of the circle, there were four different colors fading into them. In front of me, there was a color of red with a slight mixture of orange and yellow—it looked like a fire after all. The others were cyan, white and green.

I had no idea what was all about this.

We were surrounded by a fog after a moment had passed. The colors on the wall of the circle had been distinct now. I could just wait what was inside the forest to figure everything out. And everything became clear as the clouds I saw in the sky a while ago emerged and swirled around us.

“Protectors,” Augustus said calmly, watching the clouds continue to swirl around us. It was for a second before the clouds halted and they slowly phased into their human form. They were floating three feet from the ground.

The green cloud was a man wearing a leafy green robe. There were few swirls of other colors of green around his clothe. I cocked my head into the next one on my left hand side. It was a woman, and she wearing a robe with colors identical to the sea. I figured she was the cyan cloud a while. The red cloud was a man wearing a handsome robe with designs like the flames. And the last one was a man with a robe designed like the sky—blue, white and gray.

All of them were glowing like Augustus. Their glow determined them by the color. It was the same with their smokes, and I was so amazed by the time I noticed the glow that had turned into an attractive aura. They had lightened a few feet around them . . . just like light bulbs lighting only the area below they covered. I stared at them one by one in amazement. Four different colors. Yet four different identities.

“It’s nice to see you again, Augustus,” the man in red spoke, bowing his head to him.

“It’s nice to see you too, Job,” Augustus replied to him with a flat tone, bowing as well. “I will have something to tell you that Matilda’s power has increased these days.”

I was frozen in my place, but I listened to them intently so that I could know what was happening to me. My eyes turned into the humanlike creatures around. They paid much attention to Augustus rather than thinking what I was doing here. Yeah. What was I doing here?

“We are aware of that news, Augustus,” said the woman in cyan robe, throwing Augustus an “I know that” look.

“Well, I dueled with her these past nights, Daisy. Her power was, I think, stronger than mine already.”

“Of course,” said the man in green robes, “she has killed forty-six Sprounds since she broke out of Polantern. She should be stronger than one of us.”

“And she’s still killing Sprounds, Samson?” said the man in white robes to the man in green.

Augustus was the one who answered. “She still does, Almirante,” he said to the man in white robes.

Augustus’s eyes shifted to me. I wasn’t aware of that. But I knew what he was thinking inside his head. “I have someone here, my friends, to introduce to you.”