Little Nightmares II: Three's A Crowd

Chapter 22: Darkest Hour.

*Warning! The title says it all, please be careful with this.*

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Walking the wet streets, the boy with a mop of black hair atop his head was currently glancing back and forth along the street as if he were keeping an eye out for something. Making his way down the street, his grey eyes finally caught sight of where he had been trying to get to for the last couple of hours, the rain not doing him any favours as the constant downpour didn't give any indication of stopping soon. Picking up the pace, the grey eyed boy didn't forget to check around him as he moved, an unsettling feeling taking root in him now that the cracked streets were completely desolate. No one had been outside for days, and whenever he went to check on people he knew at their houses he'd only be met by the sound of a muffled television. Nobody ever answered the door anymore, but even more unsettling was that the only people he ever saw outside were the kids from his school. The only reason he found that unsettling was that he'd only ever see them on their way to school..........even though the school had shut down for maintenance for a whole month now. But that wasn't his main priority at the moment.

His brother was missing, and he had to find him.

Although, he'd be lying if he said he didn't have an idea of where he would be, the only reason he even considered him missing being the fact that he hasn't returned home in a whole four days now. You'd think, 'surely they phoned the police', and they did but the only problem with that is that no one answered. All contact with the police was cut off for some weird reason, adding more fuel to the fire that was their crumbling society. But he couldn't think too much on that right now, he had to focus on getting Jason and getting back home to Mum, she's waited for him long enough. As Jason made it to the other side of the road, he found himself right in front of the store named 'Father Time', the place always effectively giving him the creeps.

Taking a look at the front door, the large 'closed' sign made it obvious that the owner had closed up shop early for the day, but judging by the leaves building up on the front porch nobody has been out front all day. Banging against the front door as hard as he could, he tried his best to try and get someone's attention so that he could check inside the store, but after a full five minutes he decided to stop his attempts short. Letting out a frustrated groan, the boy began to bite at his nails as he went deep into thought in an attempt to find a different way in. Eventually, the grey eyed boy decided that it might be a better idea to see if the back entrance was open, the boy running down the porch steps before turning down the alleyway next to the shop. Rounding the corner, he noticed the state of the alleyway wasn't anywhere near good as large shards of glass littered the path and made the boy avoid stepping on them in case they managed to pierce through his shoes.

Once down the alley, he was quick to look around the area behind the shop to see if there was any way inside, but found that the only way in seemed to be a open window that was too high up for him to reach. Realising this, he quickly searched the immediate area in an attempt to find something that would be able to boost him up enough to climb through. His search didn't take long as he saw a dumpster not too far away from the wall for him to jump across the gap between it. Not wanting to waste anymore time, the boy quickly made his way over to the dumpster before quickly climbing up the side of it until he was standing on top of it. Taking in a deep breath to compose himself, the boy ran across the top of the dumpster before jumping at the very edge of it, the boy kicking off the wall he jumped to so he could boost himself up to the window. Now with a firm grip on the window frame, the boy pulled himself up with little effort until he was perched inside the opening of the window, dropping down and inside the shop.