"Can't believe they actually made us pay for this," groaned Ryan as he placed his back-pack onto the side of a bed.
"Dibs on the top bunk," I said, climbing onto the front.
Ryan chuckled. "Fine by me," he said, looking at the bed, "That thing looks like it's gonna fall to pieces."
I glanced at the top bunk. Its rickety wooden poles were indeed shaking, and they looked as if they were going to collapse at any moment.
"Hey, at least it'll fall on you," I laughed, heaving my bag on top of the bed.
After we had lunch in the main cabin, the guides took all of us on an extremely long guided nature hike through the woods. But these were not woods like the kind they have in parks; these were proper woods. Colossal trees that blocked out the golden rays of sunlight, stacks of leaves and fallen tree trunks, as well as howls and chirps from unknown animals.
There was a slight fog, too, a sort of pasty blue haze all around us. The nature guide pointed everything out to us: the various types of trees we were passing, the insects inside the rotten logs on the trail, and the marks of deer and bears in the woods.
As we headed back to the cabins, it started to rain. The storm was incessant, pouring down from the darkening sky in great, heavy sheets that soaked our clothes and the trees. Thunder clapped louder and louder as the cloud cover grew thicker, and I began to get worried. Lightning flashed every few seconds, and the forest was starting to get pitch-black.I pulled on my rain-coat and drew the hood up, but my jeans and sneakers got drenched by the time we arrived at our cabins.
By sunset, we all gathered inside a clearing for a campfire. Luckily, by then it had stopped raining. The wooden benches around the campfire were still slightly damp, but we tossed our jackets on top of them and gathered by the fire, toasting s'mores and eating hot dogs. The woods were so dark that you couldn't see anything around you, and if you'd look up you see a multitude of stars in the sky; gleaming pin-pricks amidst a black canopy.
It was around midnight when me and Ryan headed back into the cabins, exhausted and sleepy. I fell asleep as soon as my head made contact with the pillow.
But the sleep didn't last very long. About an hour after I fell asleep, I heard a rustling sound coming from outside. I waited until my eyes adjusted to the darkness and then the hairs on the back of my head prickled. Someone from outside spoke my name...
"Gabe," the voice whispered.
"W-who a-are you?" I asked. I climbed down from the bed, walked towards the door and opened it.
Nakia Bahadir was standing outside, holding her backpack in one arm, and fully dressed in jeans and a puffy jacket.
I let out a sigh of relief and asked, "What do you want?"
She set down her bag on the grass and replied, "You need to come with me. Look, I know about those dreams that you've been having."
I raised my eyebrows. "How do you-"
"Because I've been having them too." she interrupted. "Which is why you have to come. Meet me at the dining cabin in ten minutes. You can bring Ryan too..."
I woke up Ryan and we both headed over to the dining cabin. It was dark, and both of us were sleepy, so it took us a while to cross the gloomy pathway through the forest.
We stepped inside the empty room, with buzzing lights and mosquitoes flying everywhere. Nakia was seated at a table in the very middle of the cabin. Her fingers were pressed together, and her eyes narrowed. "Take a seat," she said.
Me and Ryan sat down.
"When Mrs Lorraine said that I had "trouble adjusting", she didn't just mean bullying. Ever since I was a child, I've been having these dreams. Weird dreams."
"Yeah, I know." I said. "But how did you know that I did?"
"That day at school. The fire." she replied."I saw him too. I saw BloodLust."
"BloodLust?" I asked, confused. "Is that his name?"
"Yeah. It means the desire to kill or to see people killed. Pretty fitting if you ask me." she said. "He killed my mother when I was ten. That was when we moved from New Jersey."
Ryan stared at us, with an extremely confused expression.
"Um, who exactly are you both talking about," he asked, perplexed.
"There is this person, w-we've both been seeing in our dreams..." I explained.
"What does he look like?"
"He wears this black armor..." I said.
"Which has- like- these glowing red cracks," Nakia elaborated. "And he has no skin."
Ryan's eyes widened.
"I'm sorry, what?" he exclaimed. "What do you mean he has no skin?"
I looked down at the grungy wooden cabin floor. "It looks like his skin burnt off..."
A roar of thunder blasted outside. The storm had started again. The cold wind blew through the windows that were open, and I could hear the droplets hitting the closed windows in an almost deafening roar.
I then looked up at Nakia. "In the letter," I said, "You said you met someone who can help us."
"Yeah she should have... Oh wait, she's here!" Nakia started waving her hands at something behind us at the cabin door. I turned around. My jaw dropped.
"Mrs Lorraine?" Ryan asked incredulously.
"Hi," Mrs Lorraine waved at us cheerfully.
Stunned, I watched as she took a seat next to Nakia.
"Nakia said that you can help us." I told her.
"Yes, she told me about the dreams... I recognized the signs..." Mrs Lorraine responded.
"Do you have these dreams too?"
"No," Lorraine said, seriously. "But I knew BloodLust."
"You knew him!?"
"Yes." she responded. "It began at my brother's funeral, July 1993."
Chapter 3
Start from the beginning
