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(Continuation from Chapter 8 part 3)
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"So did you guys find anything else?" Helen asked, turning their attention away from Neville, to ease him from his embarrassing predicament, and Neville looked at her gratefully on having their focus averted from him.
Bellamy nodded at her, "We did. Just a few canned food left behind and some abandoned medical jars that Neville and Luna got them all magically packed into their bags. It's not much but adding the new ones into our supply stock on hand, we have enough to last more than a week or two."
"That's good to hear. And I presume that the entire perimeter is completely clear of anything when you checked around?" Draco inquired seriously about this so that he wouldn't feel any more wary and tense than he already is, and they relaxed when the four of them confirmed that everything is all clear and it's truly safe and secure for them to stay in this abandoned building. "Oh, good. By tomorrow, I think we should all discuss and plan about hunting out there back in the woods again, for food in case we need to or not."
"Wait--go back out there?!" Neville cried incredulously.
Draco glared at him like he's completely turned into an idiot. "I said plan--I'm not saying we're going back out there and try to face against those giant mantis monsters again anytime soon."
"Oh..." Neville said and sheepishly blushed again in embarrassment upon overreacting from Draco's statement when he heard it.
Draco shook his head with a soft sigh then he turned to look at Bellamy and Murphy seriously and asked, "Did you find any transport for us as well?"
Bellamy and Murphy disappointed the blond mage and the others when they shook their heads in a negative as Murphy said, "No, we didn't find any abandoned vehicle or anything that could help us get out of here when we need to leave again after a week. And I used to work in these kinds of warehouses part-time back in the past at my time, so I hate to admit but I'm surprised that there weren't any truck or trailer left behind."
"Well, obviously it was because the monster apocalypse happened, didn't it?" Octavia dryly said to Murphy with a raised sardonic brow at him. "I'm pretty sure all the people who used to work here, had to use all the vehicles to get home to their families or use them to escape, right?"
Murphy would have snapped and retorted back at her sardonically too but surprisingly, he held his temper because he knew how overprotective his friend Bellamy could be, when it concerns his family, especially with his only sister sibling.
Draco sighed and refrained from throwing his hands up in the air with frustration. "Well, that's just bloody great!"
"Maybe we'll get lucky if we try to scout around outside the perimeter later to check if there were any abandoned vehicles?" Luna offered her idea.
Draco looked at her like she's gone mad or went even crazier this time and asked incredulously, "Outside? With those monster mantis giants still on the loose out there? What makes you think that's a bloody brilliant idea?!"
Luna shrugged as she explained, "Since the monster apocalypse had happened before--chances are, some of them might have gotten caught by the monsters, and we, mages, might be able to repair them back to normal once we find one and use it for transport in the future."
Draco would have argued more against this but then he considered Luna's idea more thoughtfully and also thought that this also has good merits and such. "Huh...you might be right on that one."
"I'm always right, Draco," Luna smiled knowingly and said smugly, even though she tried to not mean it.
"Alright then, now that we settled these matters into being. I think it's time for all of us to rest for the night and then deal with the other matters tomorrow then as the morning comes," Helen said.
Draco and the others were surprised, except Helen and Luna, upon noticing that it's already nighttime and way past their dinner time. Luckily, Helen can whip up a quick good meal for them to eat before they go to bed and rest. However, they are not going to put the magic tent back up again since they're now inside a building, so the only stuff they'll bring out from their magic bags and set them up is just the comfortable sleeping bags and cots.
"So, who's on guard-watch for the night shift?" Helen inquired.
"I am," Draco and Neville said in unison. Then the two looked at each other with Neville in surprise and Draco in trepidation.
"Hey--is it okay that Octavia and I pair with you guys on night-watch?" Clarke asked nicely.
"Yeah, both of us are too wired for sleep," Octavia agreed with her friend, instantly offering in wanting to volunteer too.
Bellamy gave a protesting negative look at his younger sister, not wanting her to stay up late for the whole night into doing this, but Octavia decided to be rebellious and ignored her brother because she needs something to do, other than just staying behind and being a sitting duck doing nothing, despite that she contributed much good into looking out for her group back then when it was only her, her brother, and the two others until they met up with the mages' group.
"It's fine. I'm sure Draco and Neville would appreciate the added company," Helen said, nodding gratefully at Clarke and Octavia for offering and she gave a reassuring calm look at Bellamy that his sister will be fine with Draco and Neville, and then she gave a pointed look at the two boys to not argue about this. "Four pairs of eyes are better than two."
"I side with Helen on this one too," Luna agreed in a wise knowing tone, that seems to tell the others that there's some sort of dispute or tension if you leave Draco and Neville alone together, even when it's the guard-watching duty or something.
Clarke and Octavia didn't think much about it when they were relieved upon being accepted to be allowed into the guarding shift to watch out for their group.
But after the others had the quickly-cooked dinner meal Helen made for them, which is delicious as always, and the children woke up from their sleep to take it too and they easily returned to their slumber like they're not surprised or disturbed that they are at a new place and went back to whatever fun dreamland the kids are having, and after the dinner plates were cleaned up, they all settled to sleep onto their spread out sleeping bags and cots.
Except for the four people in the group who will be taking on night shift watch duty.
And when the time passes during their guarding chore at the time, both Clarke and Octavia are going to find out and discover the reason why Draco and Neville should never be alone together, even if it's for a survival duty or task.
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And that became the understatement of the century.
From what Clarke Griffin and Octavia Blake had ever known, they had never seen such a dynamic duo, when they paired up with the two 'brotherly' boys, that are Draco and Neville Black, while they are on late-night guard shift to watch out for their sleeping group in that magically fortified abandoned building.
"Okay, I spy with my little eye...something covered in white, hard and round," Neville said as he suddenly thought of playing the Mundane game 'I Spy' as a way to pass the time so that they don't get bored during their night watch.
Draco sighed exasperatedly and just answered in a deadpan tone, "A snow-covered boulder--basically, a big snowy rock?"
"Oh wow! You got it correct again! Ooh--want another turn to break the tie-breaker between us?" Neville asked excitedly like he's loving this kind of game.
Draco, on the other hand, does not as he snapped at him. "Oh, here's a brilliant idea--how about we play the game 'BE SILENT' for that bloody matter?"
Neville blinked as he tilted his head and remarked in confusion. "I never heard of that game?"
"That's because I made it up just now," Draco said sarcastically.
'Oh wow! And I thought the Blake siblings argue and fight at one another was the worst. These two...officially tops them over the edge in the most discerning way.'
Clarke thought in her head as she watched the two guys go at it, with Draco trying to intimidate Neville to stop with his antics with a sharp dangerous glare but the stubborn boy refused to do so because he's attempting to lighten his blond brother up so that he'll get a sense of humor too. However, Neville doesn't really know that Draco already has one but he's not showing it to others.
Draco was on the verge of becoming truly annoyed and really irritated at his 'brother' Neville when he tries to push his buttons for him to react but Octavia spotted something and got the others' attention towards what she had noticed and seen--and mentally, both Clarke and Octavia were relieved that Octavia noticed it, to somehow break the ensuing argument or fight that might have broken out between Draco and Neville and ease the tension.
However, Draco did not drop down his guard when Octavia pointed out what she spotted and he brought out the binoculars swiftly to look through the scopes and his eyes narrowed staring intently at the 'thing' that Octavia noticed. He tensed, even more, when he saw a faint snowy dust cloud from a distance and it's slowly forming and turning into a big kind of cloudy misty trail, looking like it's heading towards their direction.
"What is it? What did you see?" Clarke asked, almost demanding anxiously as she tried to hold back the urge on grabbing the binoculars from Draco but Octavia didn't as she tried to snatch Neville's when he is also looking through his pair and he dodged her advances from doing so.
"Survivors," Draco replied blandly like he's not pleased on seeing more of them, coming into view on their sights.
Even though he begrudgingly accepted the four new ones into the group fold upon being outvoted back then, the blond male is still not pleased that there are more of the living survivors they're going to be encountering already at the time right there and then. The only reason why Draco is being like that is that it's too soon to tell whether they are good ones--or the very bad and hostile kinds of survivors.
When the view of the unknown survivors is getting a little closer and the snowy dust cloud started to fade into clear sight of them, Draco and Neville saw through their binocular scopes that they are two vehicles driving in the rocky-like bumpy terrain on whatever path they're on and traveling through. And both of them also saw that the kinds of vehicles they're driving are different--with one big Winnebago motorhome trailer and the last one is a medium-sized slightly smaller SUV van.
But it looks like either good or cruel Fate decided to intervene in the survivors' path as they drove towards the abandoned building that Draco and his group are holding up in, that is also magically secure, and that's when a horde of small-sized kind of monsters came swooping and flying in to attack the new group of survivors, sending the two vehicles into swerving and careening in panicked driving, nearly skidding in the slippery snowy road they're on and almost sending them to a car crash.
"Oh no...it looks like they're in trouble!" Octavia cried when she managed to grab Neville's binoculars and see through them.
Draco held back his sarcastic comment 'You think?' back as he looked through his scopes and sees closely what kind of monsters that are attacking the new group.
Fortunately, they are of the small-sized kind and less dangerous types, but when you're dealing with a horde of these particular monsters, you're going to instantly wish to be able to run away and escape to a safe secure place to hide away from them.
These small kind flying monsters are known as the 'Night-Sky Terrors', which they were dubbed and called in terms of that by Luna and Helen when these two female mages discovered them back then, sometime long ago in the beginning of the monster apocalypse.
These monstrous creatures are similar to bats but only larger and their eyes are eerily blind in deep black dilated irises but they have very big pointed round ears, thus showing that their strengths are reliant only on sound, besides their wings of flight, sharp teeth, and very sharp-clawed talons. The only weakness among them is that they cannot stand very high-pitched hyper-sonic sounds that will agitate their keen hearing senses, and that they can be easily dealt with if they don't flock into a large horde.
Fortunately, it looked like that the horde attacking the new group of survivors in those two vehicles is a smaller one, ranging about twenty to thirty of them, circling the vehicles and trying to get at them but all they do is bump against the sides or scratch on the glass from front pane to window sides. However, these bat-like monsters are making a problem for the survivors to drive straight and see-through clearly with such difficulty as they all flock and block their way into going where they needed to go for safety.
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AUTHOR'S NOTES:
** '' Night-Sky Terrors ''--small bat-like flying monsters, similar to the creatures from the 2019 Netflix movie ''The Silence''
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