Chapter 15

While Luna and Johnny Evans were having their scenes - Johnny feeding off Luna's blood, healing her with his vampire blood, and finally Luna transmuting to a bloodsucker; Tristin and the others navigated through the most deserted, haunted and most coveted place in Moore's creek.

Tristin and the seven other folks in his team tiptoed into the deserted place. It was a part of Moore's creek which looked even creepier than described. Eerie sounds from birds that were not exactly visible, strange noises flying around, back and forth, leaves of trees which appeared to be growing every second.

"Dude, there is no way I'm moving any step further" Harold said to Tristin.

Everyone was freaking out already, including Tristin, who wasn't doing a good job in hiding the fact that he was frightened.

"What was that?" Tristin asked, calling everyone's attention to whatever it was that passed right above their heads, making a very unpleasant, scary noise.

"How should we know, Tristin? You got us in here, and now you're asking questions about some creature who nearly fell on our heads?" Aidan protested.

Tristin was as scared as everyone, he could not say anything to Aidan because inside of him wasn't exactly chill.

"Dude, I'm stepping out of this creepy place, right through that frigging gate" Harold repeated.

They had not made much progress, so it was pretty easy to turn back, since they could still see the gate they passed through to enter this deserted place.

"Perhaps, we should all go back" Tristin suggested.

Everyone's jaws dropped as they saw brave Tristin turn into a scared little boy.

"How do we find the treasure if we leave?" Juliana inquired.

"Screw the frigging treasure Juliana! Let's head out" Tristin shouted.

Everyone turned back in a hurry, in attempt to leave through the gate in which they came from. Tristin went ahead of them, so he could open the gate for all to pass through.

"Guys, its not moving" Tristin notified.

"Huh?" Everyone asked.

"What's not moving?" Aidan asked.

"The gate. I just had to push it with my legs for us to enter, but now I'm doing just that, and it won't even budge"

"Oh shit, this can't be real. No no" Harold cried.

Aidan walked up to the gate, to understand what exactly was going on.

"Move aside. This thing has to open. We can't stay in here" Aidan said, as he used all the strength he could muster with his legs, thrusting right through the gate, which didn't still open.

"For fucks sake, move!" Aidan's frustration got the most of him. He banged at the gate, used his whole body to push the gate, did all he could to get the gate to open, but well, nothing still happened.

He fell to the ground, after noticing the gate didn't open, and wept bitterly.

"I can't die in here. No I can't. I haven't even told my parents I'm gay or bi or whatever. I haven't even had sex before. No no" Aidan lamented.

Tristin saw that he shouldn't show his weakness just when his team needed him most. Fine, he was just as scared as everyone was, but expressing it would ruin the others.

"I know this may not seem encouraging enough, but we have to do this. Truth is, I'm just as frightened as y'all are, but we can't do anything about this. Only thing we can do however, is get back up, figure this shit out, as a team! And who knows, we could find the treasure, and get the hell outta this creepy place" Tristin motivated the whole team

"You're right. We can do two things, lose our faith, and wait for some creature to eat us, or get back on our feet, and figure this crap out" Aidan stood up, and wiped off his tears.

(Someone claps behind them)

"Bravo Tristin. Bravo" Carlos said from behind.

Everyone turned back to see who it was, and were actually relieved it was a human, even better, Carlos - Tristin's best friend and contemporary.

"Dude, you almost reaped my heart out with those hands of yours" Harold said, sighing.

"What are you doing here?" Tristin asked.

Carlos, and his team, stumbled into the same clue, and it led them to the deserted. Only difference was, they came in here ealier than Tristin and his team.

"I could ask you the same question" Carlos said.

"Yeah we could. What are y'all doing here?" Shane verbalised. Carlo's team was behind him.

"Well we saw a clue"

"Yeah we did too!" Shane yelled.

"So...what's next?" Aidan asked everyone.

"You do your thing. We got this. Or you probably shouldn't bother coz we are going to find the treasure before you dumb asses" Shane mocked.

(The strange noises becomes even louder)

"This place is creepy man. We got to work together, at least if we do, we might have a shot at making it outta here alive" Tristin advised.

Shane laughed out so loud, making fun of Tristin.

"No man, we are not on the same team. Y'all could go fuck yourselves"

"Your dick-ish self is going to get you killed man" Aidan warned.

Shane giggled again, and danced around the place, playing with the leaves.

"Fear is for assholes like you. I'm not scared" Shane said.

The instant he made that statement, the leaves he was playing with, grew in length, so much that it wrapped itself around Shane's arms.

"Let go of me you fucking leaves!" Shane ordered, trying to pull away from its grip.

The leaves continued to grow until it covered the whole of Shane's body, leaving only his head out.

"Guys, little help here. Your boy Shane is over here stuck in this godforsaken leaves"

The leaves grew again, covering part of his face, causing him to realise that the leaves only grew when he said nasty things about it.

"Alright leaves. I'm sorry okay. Just let me go, will ya?" Shane asked, in a slightly polite manner, but nothing happens.

Everyone got even more scared, they looked at each other in pure fright, signaling to each other, that they needed to stick with each other.

"So we're all a team, yeah?" Carlos said to everyone.

"Yeah sure, we all are!" Tristin agreed.

They all walked slowly, in search of the treasure.

"This place is so vast. We are never going to find the treasure" Aidan verbalised.

Or maybe we already have!" Tristin pointed out.

He walked some steps further, and stopped at a box lying on the ground. No traps, it wasn't buried. It just sat on the ground, waiting for who would find it.

"It can't be!" Harold exclaims.

"Guys. It says Hampton Hunters. It has the words Hampton Hunters inscribed on it!" Tristin mentioned.

Everyone rushed to have a look, it really did have those words inscribed on it.

"Basically, the treasure we've spent more than 17 hours looking for was just tossed on the ground, in this deserted place. Almost too good to be true" Carlos said.

"No not exactly. We've been through a lot already right. Getting past those traps, and finding a clue, and finally getting here. I think it's pretty much fair that it was easy to find the box of treasure lying around on the ground" Tristin explained.

"Yeah I guess so. Grab it, and let's head out. This place irks me!" Carlos suggested.

Tristin grabs the box, surprised it was easy to pull, and also light in weight.

"There might be a problem in getting out of this place" Tristin told Carlos.

"What do you mean?"

"We're stuck"