11 Hide - and - Seek

Laven got a clear view of the cat, his new resurrected pet. Unsettling thoughts were lingering in his mind.

At first, he thought that adopting the pet would be a simple cheese macaroni, but now, that seemed complicated.

"You look like lost in thoughts," Bora glanced back.

"I don't think Aunt Shelly will believe me," he was in deep thought.

"So, you're a liar?" the cat stopped and turned facing Laven.

"Maybe, if I tell her I found a cat in Mama and Papa's room," he slowly met her gaze.

"Or if I say that they threw you down from heaven for me," he continued.

Certainly, both statements would be counted as gibberish the moment Aunt Shelly hears them. A cat in his parents room would mean that she has basically been starving for almost twelve years, which is impossible. On the other hand, if he were to say that she fell from the sky, it would sound insane.

"You can tell her that I can be your babysitter," the corner of her mouth curved upwards. It was shocking to see a cat smile for the first time in his life.

"I think that role is supposed to belong to me," he furrowed his eyebrows. No way was he going to let Bora babysit him before confirming whether she was sane enough to be fit for the position.

"I guess you're actually considering it!" Bora turned away and began walking.

Laven tried to deny it, but he knew that she had won the fight. Though, he can't use that excuse to his aunt.

The stairs surprisingly didn't drain Laven's energy. Running down was easy but ascending it was undoubtedly tiresome.

While walking, he noticed where they were heading. The chatter of the Incendors were heard again.

His pace slowed. Bora however, walked in front of him calmly.

"Get ready to meet some delinquents," she warned him, unaware of his awareness.

He trailed behind her in silence.

"Young Master, you came back!" a lady at the end exclaimed, gathering the attention of others.

As he approached their area, the place was lit up again with the fire on their tongues.

Bora tensed up a bit while sneering at Everett . Laven was in an awkward position now, but he could sense the tension between them both.

The leader glared back at the black cat, unsatisfied.

He didn't feel scared now, but he would have appreciated it if they had their bodies with them.

There's yet more to come and he was a hundred percent sure of it. A disturbing thought came into his mind, probably these are just the least terrifying things that are supposed to serve as a warm up for the upcoming tasks, or in other words, forced adventure.

"Little Devil, long time no see! What name did you get this time?" his tone sounded a bit funny. Bora approached the head slowly.

"BO-RA" she smacked his cheek with her tail.

Everett let out a hearty laugh. "You never change do you," he said with a mock stern look.

"Granny is here," one of the man couldn't hold in his laughter. He looked a bit older than the others.

"Says the grandpa!" she snapped back.

"But you're an ancient creature," he didn't stop laughing.

"Oh boy. Now that they're both not hibernating anymore, all of us should bear with their squabble!" another woman let out a tensed sigh.

"Papa, we should respect those who are elder than us. You taught us that!," the woman continued.

The old man frowned.

"Tadron, did you forget, that I'm young forever and everrr," Bora scratched the wall.

His body wasn't with him. If not, her claws would have pierced through his skin.

Tadron didn't reply. He continued doing his part to light the place up without paying attention to her.

Bora looked the other way, her head high.

"Young Master, you have released the wrong creature," Everett noticed Laven being very still and quiet.

"Why?" Laven smiled.

His pet looked surprisingly at him. She didn't expect Laven to be this brave, since she didn't know that he had already met with the Incendors before reviving her.

"Never fall for her cute face. Her powers can cause a calamity," he spoke seriously, before winking.

"It would have been true if Master spent more time with me," she sounded hurt.

Laven kneeled down beside the cat and gently patted her head.

"Well, now she has someone to spend time with. I'm going to shower her with a plethora of love," he smiled widely.

"Then, what about us?" he pouted.

"Oh, I'll visit you guys," he replied, unsure of his words.

Even he was surprised by his courage, but he could sense the change in his body, as if it became a lot more stronger than before.

Bora placed a placed a paw in his hands, showcasing all her teeth. Later, he would have to talk to her about that.

"Looks like you grew up," she scrutinized Everett's head.

"I'm not a boy who you can bully anymore," he smirked.

Now, Laven knew the reason behind the way they talked to each other.

"There's a problem!" he was quick to distract them. He didn't want to see them fight, especially when both of them look dangerously talkative.

They cocked their heads, in confusion.

He explained to them about the unsettling thought that kept on pricking his heart. There might be a lame excuse that he can use to persuade his aunt but now that he noticed it properly, it was impossible for Bora to be considered a cat. She was humongous.

"What do I look like?" Bora tried to figure out an excuse.

"A panther, tiger or maybe lion," he tried to think of any creatures that are similar to her.

Everett arched an eyebrow. His answer was ridiculous. Tigers and lions aren't black in colour. Panther was close though.

Bora seemed unhappy.

"What is a panther, tiger and lion?" she asked.

He heard gasps behind him. She knew taxonomy, but she didn't know that those were type of animals!

"Perhaps, I should hide you first. I don't know what to do with you, them and whatever that's in store for me later," he lost his mood.

"Didn't Master tell you, about your responsibility?"

"Where's your mum?" Bora intervened.

"My parents... They're no more," he stood up looking at the ground.

"What?!" everyone around him exclaimed in unison, causing the whole passageway to black out for a moment. They were quick to go back to their duties, while eagerly waiting for an explanation.

Bora stood on the tips of her paws. She was looking for any sign of humour in his face.

"It's just me and Aunt Shelly..." he felt snakes turning about in his stomach.

"That human didn't protect her?" Tardon bursted out in anger.

"That crazy woman, I warned her! He is not strong enough to fight them! He has no powers. I would have done better in shielding her from evil!" Bora looked furious. Cat's showing expressions through their face is bewildering but Laven couldn't think about that. His cat's words were keep on rewinding in his mind.

"Homo sapien species!" Bora let out a low growl.

"How long has it been? She took care of me like her own son before abandoning us here," a tsunami threatened to escape Everett's eyes.

"Somewhere around 12 years," Laven said plainly. This wasn't the perfect moment for him to cry.

"She didn't even say bye!" Everett shouted before his head moved past him into the dark, where the Incendors' light couldn't reach.

Thousands of doubts were arising, but Laven had to bitterly swallow them for now.

"Tardon, we can talk about this later. Let that kid calm down first. As for this kid, we have some procedures to finish. Phlentine wrote some instructions for him to follow in the letter. I believe there's more and delaying it would do no good. He needs to get stronger fast," Bora sounded serious.

"Now that we've awoken, we can help too. But our requirements must be fulfilled for the survival of our race. Or else, there would be no other option besides hibernation. If that happens, we won't be able to help," Tardon replied, his voice dead serious.

Laven stood there frozen until Bora requested him to go out to the room. He was confused but he didn't want to know the answers for now, it was too much for him to handle. He couldn't understand whether this notion of not wanting to know more about his parents was considered as love. Learning about them would just make his heart ache, which he had no desire to o experience.

"Normally, sorcerers learn to enhance their powers from their parents. No one else knows the way to make a sorcling or pre-sorc stronger, or teach them about their powers," Bora talked softly.

"You are a sorcling without a person to guide. And worse, your mother was about to turn into a pre-sorc, before she ran away with me," disappointment was evident in her tone.

"What do you mean by sorcerer? What am I supposed to do now?" he was puzzled.

"You would know soon. There are only 9 of them in the world. But you're not a sorcerer, your mother isn't either. That's the problem now," she explained, which Laven still couldn't comprehend.

He opened the bedroom door, thinking of a scene he could set up to bring Bora into the house permanently. Secretly, he wished he had watched dramas or read dramatic novels, which would have helped him set any stage on fire with chaotic expressions and actions.

.

Stuck in an abandoned place, home to a notorious cannibal who probably knows every crook and nook of the place put a lot of pressure onto the heart. Any second, you might find yourself face to face with hazel eyes, that indicate that you're about to become the meal of someone. That was the type of situation Cloey and Peter were in, though Peter handled it more calmly than Cloey.

They thought that it was impossible to escape from the place, until they heard a sudden vibration.

Peter gaped. The sound was all too familiar to dismiss it as something irrelevant.

"Tell me that a rat got stuck in your pants, and I will eat you alive," he growled.

Cloey stared at him for a few seconds, he didn't look like the mad person he used to. She understood the meaning behind his sudden change of persona, for she was too careless to forget such a vital fact.

Her phone was with her all along.

Whether it was some kind of paranoia or phobia, she did not know, but she had always made sure to tie her phone with a special strap she had invented onto her leg. This was somewhat a safety measure that she had considered, in case she caught the eyes of someone who would do no good. However, she had never thought that it would come to use so soon.

A sheepish line spread across her lips as she bent down and took the phone out from the strap. "Perhaps, I have forgotten the feeling of a leg without burden," no other plausible reason came into her mind.

She looked at the phone, the black screen seemed polish. She could see the reflection of herself on it. Her hair was messy, some stains on her face presumably blood and she looked like an exhausted 400-metre runner. Now, she looked like a mad person too.

Her carelessness shocked her to the point that she ended up staring at her phone's screen in awe, it looked like a majestical item that would save her from any harm.

"What are you waiting for? Call the police," Peter furrowed his brows.

"Yeah, I will," Cloey realized that every second was precious and if she wanted to rethink her memory loss on something so useful, she had to wait for the correct timing.

Her fingers swiftly tapped on the screen.

The call didn't go through.

Blood drained out from her face.

"There's no signal," she stated. As expected, Peter was disappointed. However, he soon burst into a fit of laughter that was loud enough to scare anyone in the building.

"I guess it wasn't meant for us to leave this building so early. Besides, we haven't even explored it yet," he said in a cheesy tone.

"Most of all, we should at least greet 'her' once and bid a polite farewell when we decide to leave. In that way, we would appear more like polite guests."

"You would do a great job in exposing us to the monster," she frowned upon learning of the nuts that seemed tight in his head had actually been an illusion, he just proved that they were loose all along.

"This place isn't in a remote area like the middle of a dessert or an inhabited island, but it's in the vicinity of a city. The only problem is that this vicinity has very little population I guess," she was trying to come up with a plan.

"In that case, this room might be the problem," Cloey concluded. She quickly dismissed the thought of shouting for help. That action would lead up to being found by an unwanted person.

"How do you know that we're in a city?" Peter cocked his head.

"Well, that's another guess," she replied.

"Let's roam around. I hope we will be able to locate a spot with strong signal reception, or even better if we find a secret exit route," she let out a sigh of grief.

"Awesome, just like hide and seek!" he squealed, earning a look of surprise from Cloey.

"But in this case, we have to do both, hide and seek," he continued.

She just shook her head and they both wandered into the dark, with the help of her phone's flashlight.

"And if we loose this game, our punishment will be death," she muttered under her breath.

They got a better view of the place. Their eyes widened, it was impossible to travel through the concrete maze in the dark. If they didn't have any source of light, they probably would have ended up roaming around blindly at the same place.

"I can't imagine that someone would actually spare this place of industrialisation. It would do well as a haunted house or museum of the dead," she mumbled.

"Awww.... this place is beautiful, it would suit as a shopping mall," Peter chimed. His taste for landscape was way off from normal.

"Shopping mall for funeral items," she let out her anger.

"I prefer cosmetics," he replied.

Cloey shot an eerie glare at him. They walked for a few minutes and realized that they ended up in front of the same room for the fourth time.

She stopped, analyzing every single thing that just happened. Peter stopped too, but only because his friend came to a halt.

"Isn't it weird. This building's structure... we've ended up here again," her chin was resting on her knuckles.

"Hui, really? We're supposed to be looking for a way to escape. I don't see anything oddly familiar," he raked his hand through his hair.

Cloey didn't waste her time talking. She grabbed him by the arm and pushed him into the room.

Peter's eyes widened in terror when he realised what was happening. It was the same room they were in earlier. What he couldn't digest was the fact that they didn't stumble upon any stairs. There were a myriad of rooms, some dark and some with only a ray of light that was insufficient to light up the whole room.

Earlier, they decided to not venture the rooms there because confined places exerted more eerie vibes. Instead, focusing on finding an exit point seemed more beneficial.

They were clearly not on the first floor. Anyone who peers out the window without even peering down would be able to tell that.

"Impossible, what possible explanation can be there? We just saw rooms, how did we end up here when there's no stairs?" he asked, freaking out.

"I don't know," Cloey closed her eyes shut, thinking hard. Eventhough they didn't enter the rooms, she made sure to flash some light into each one of them to make sure if nothing peculiar lay hidden there. She was a hundred percent sure that she didn't notice any shallow opening in any of them, a fleet of stairs can't be that small to escape her phone's flashlight.

"Or maybe we were careless," that was the only reason that came to her mind.

Peter managed to calm down.

"There might be a secret passageway," he spoke slowly.

She cocked her head.

"Hey, we're running out of time. Look," she pointed at the open window.

The sky turned into a light shade of grey, indicating that the sun was about to set. Once night falls, even the room that they were in would turn dark. Cloey was surprised, time flew by fast. She thought that it must be somewhere around five now, but given the scenery outside, it was nearing nighttime. Her phone was switched on and the screen showed that it was currently 7:45 p.m.

"Let's go now," she urged Peter to hurry up.

Instead, he went to the corner of the room and set down there.

"Come, let's eat," he pulled out a packet of chips from his pocket.

Cloey was astonished and wore an expression of disapproval.

"You see, when I bought the snacks, the plastic bag wasn't enough. So, I kept this one in my pocket. Just a simple deed to save nature," he shook it in his hand.

"But I guess we have other important tasks to do," she emphasised the last word.

"Before you came, I spent my entire time in darkness. The sun's gonna set and we won't have enough time. I guess, there are way more footsteps heard then just now at night. But they don't sound like shoes.... Let's just find a safe spot to spend the night," he gave an honest opinion. He wasn't sure about the time he described because before this, he couldn't differentiate between day and night in darkness.

Cloey wanted to dismiss it straightaway but she eventually gave in after she heard a rumbling sound. It was Peter's stomach.

"Fine," she mumbled and ate the snack with Peter.

However, Cloey scrutinised the room and adviced him to sit at the corner that isn't opposite the door. In that way, if the killer passed by, they wouldn't be easily spotted.

"Switch off the flashlight. We have to preserve the battery," she had forgotten to switch it off.

Night did come soon. The two of them sat in utter silence. The room wasn't entirely dark due to the moon. Coincidentally, it was the full moon's phase. It was beautiful, but at the time, it just creeped out the two teenagers even more.

Suddenly, footsteps were heard.

Cloey and Peter exchanged horrified looks.

The footsteps approached the room they were in. It sounded like shoes, contrary to what Peter described it.

At this point, they held their breath, not daring to make the slightest squeak of sound.

Cloey's face turned pale and Peter squeezed his neck, they made sure no air escaped their lungs. If someone saw them, they would think that they had escaped from their coffins.

The sound stopped soon. Without blinking, they slowly relaxed their muscles. Cloey let her breath out first, followed by Peter.

All this left a big impact on her mental stability. She opened her mouth about a plan she hastily came up with, but shut it tight when a tall black figure entered the room.

*** This chapter is an extraaa long one. Thanks for reading and remember to vote yeah. Your support is dearly appreciated.