2 James Charter

Runesdale. A town like any other. It had infrastructures such as road paved by stones, a guild hall, religious institutions and a water supply system. This town, however, was underdeveloped so it was not as fancy as the other towns. On the good side, this town was surrounded by a thick forest filled with life. Since all of this happened a long time ago, you can see clearly that the town was built out of wood and its mode of transportation were horses and carriages.

In Runesdale located an unnamed orphanage. The town folks just referred it as the Orphanage. In the Orphanage lived children ageing between 6 to 12 years old. Anyone older than that will be sent to join the labour forces under the custody of the town's guild. However, sometimes, the orphans may be lucky that there were families who would adopt them as their own.

On one particular Saturday morning, the children were playing hide and seek.

"Ready or not, here I come!" said little Stephanie. She turned around and started running around the vicinity. Her heavy footsteps were heard all over the place. "Are you here?" she flipped out a neatly folded blanket to find there was no one underneath it. "How about here?" she pulled the wardrobe door to find there was no one there either. She ran and took a sharp left turn and slammed into a hard pole. Stephanie messaged her forehead to try to ease the pain of her clumsiness.

"Are you okay?" asked James. His figure towered above little Stephanie. "I'm okay," embarrassed, she quickly stood up and ran past James. Within James' hand was a few blocks of neatly chopped firewood. He walked down the corridor to the fireplace. He arranged the blocks of wood neatly on the hearth.

"Achoo!" a loud sneeze came from the cupboard behind him. James walked towards the cupboard and open it slightly. A boy was inside. His name was Jonathan. When the boy saw James, he put a finger in front of his mouth, pleading James to not reveal him. James closed the cupboard and resume his task.

After finishing the task of restocking the firewoods, he walked past one of the rooms and saw an unfolded blanket scattered all over the floor. He went to fold it. As he was folding, he saw a pair of legs underneath the bed in front of him. He looked underneath the bed and a girl, Linsey was underneath. She was covering her mouth.

Thud...Thud...Thud..."Found You!" James could hear a jubilant Stephanie.

"Oh man," said the boy who was discovered.

Thud..thud.. thud. Stephanie ran off to another place. James continued folding the blanket while ignoring the girl hiding underneath it.

The bell rang from the grandfather's clock and it's dinner time. "Haha! Stephanie, you lost! You, John and Steven, are going to clean the dishes!" said the children who were not found by Stephanie. The door creaked open and the children all flock towards it. James who was now holding a sleeping Linsey in his arm went there as well.

"Welcome home, Father and Sister!" said the children. "Hoho! I am home my little darlings!" said the Father as he pats the head of all the children.

"We bought some snacks for everyone!" said the Sister

"Yippee!" cheered the children and they all ran excitedly to the dinner table.

After setting out the plates, all the children gathered around the long table.

"Stephanie, would you lead the prayer?" asked the Father.

"Yes, father!" Stephanie put her hands together and everyone followed. "Brothers and sisters, let's pray." Everyone closed their eyes. "Oh Lord, we thank you for the food in front of the table. We thank you for the shelter we lived and we pray that You will continue to bless and guide us in our journey in life and we pray that You forgive our sins for there is nobody greater than You. Amen."

"Amen," said everybody and everyone started to eat.

The food was great. The children stacked their dishes and took it to the sink where the three Chosen one were washing it. At the meantime, James and the Sister were in the Father's room for a brief meeting.

"James, my boy, how are you feeling today?" asked the Father. His black dyed hair began to show signs of whitening again. His face wrinkled up as he smiled. Despite having those sign of old age, he was still a vigorous man.

"I am doing great! The children played hide and seek today and they had fun," said James. "So how's today meeting with the mayor?"

The Father took down his spectacles and rubbed his eyes. "The situation is getting worse. First, it was the livestock that was missing and now even the residents were reported to be missing. The mayor decided to implement curfew and set up a patrol team. The orphanage is near the jungle so our security will be tight. Despite the town's effort, I have a bad feeling about this new case."

"Father has sent you to join the patrol team. We would be patrolling the orphanage." said the Sister.

"I can do that."

"I pray to the Lord that the culprit will be arrested as soon as possible. This incident has brought unrest to all of us. Oh my, you should look at the face of those victims when they plea to the mayor to do something about it. I pray that our children will be safe from the fangs of this incident," said the Father.

The meeting ended and they retreated back to the dorm.

It was at night and the town was dark with only a few small lantern light moving here and there as the patrol team was checking the town's perimeter.

Sister Maria, that's her, was walking back to her dorm after seeing all the children went to bed. She was holding onto a small lantern and the candle from it was the only source of light. She was walking but she could feel an eerie feeling behind her where the children's room was at.

She stopped and felt her body had goosebumps rising. Something did not feel right, she thought. Her instinct was firing at her to turn back and check out the source of her discomfort feeling. After a few deep breaths, she turned and walked back to the children's room.

In town, James was walking with a group of young men to patrol the town. Everyone was tired but James was surprisingly awake. He looked up the sky and it was a full moon night. He heard the howling of a wolf from afar. So far, they did not see anything suspicious. Not until James heard a faint whisper of a prayer. He stopped abruptly. The other men looked at him.

"What's the matter James?" asked them.

"Ssshh, did you guys hear that? It's very soft but pay attention."

Everyone was listening. Again, James could hear a faint whisper. "There it is again,"

"I don't hear anything."

"Me too. Are you okay, James?"

James looked at them and was wondering if he was hallucinating.

"I can hear it, it sounds like a prayer." As he was saying this, he began to find a hint of familiarity with the voice that he was hearing. He was trying to make sense of it.

"Hey, let's take James seriously for now. He does not seem to be a person that lies about this type of stuff," said one of the man.

"Is this related to the recent missing case?" asked another person.

"I think so."

A strong wind blew out their lantern light and the surrounding was swallowed up by the darkness.

Then, the whisper came again.

"Help, please... We are here..."