The Children Cliff

They made their way in desperation as fast as they could, Bell's consciousness revealed for a short moment from time to time and her face contorting in sadness, and the rest of the time she was failing after the boy slowly disturbing his balance.

Their time on the road stood in the hours, although apparently a shorter time actually passed.

It seems that the path is dragging them innocently, not only the circumstances, the entire area of the children's cliff revealed itself to be torn and distorted, like rock waves rising from the crusted ground, it was less clear on the path, but nevertheless, with the wires of the poor plants making on the broken ground the image of the skin of a carcass, the place was a constantly haunting.

The place was open to their unclear glances, to recognize from time to time a fleeting movement across the gloomy shadow, almost covering everything so they could not see anything.

Nevertheless, they didn't seem to encounter any real obstacles on the way, they continued to stumble continuously for a long time, most likely out of his senseless shouting, and therefore it felt even more disturbing to the kid.

It has been a long time since they passed through from the place of his shout, it was likely that since then, every section of road where they passed seemed to stem from another source that drove away the locals, a real threat.

"Wait... not here" He heard Bell muttering to herself quietly in a mess.

"Come on, come on, everything is fine, we'll be there soon" the boy coaxed her softly while panting, as if talking to a little girl.

They were indeed close to reaching, close to reaching the cliff, which certainly does not bode well

The reasonable guess is that they are no longer ahead of the shadow, clearly. It was frightening, but it was probably still the safest place they had, at a rather miserable way.

He thinks about what to do about a time when they meet the shadow, thinks about it and the fields, and the bright flowers in them, again it was clear to him that he was going to sacrifice himself, but now he surprisingly discovered that he was going to miss the pleasant fields who whispered him sweet words and folding in the wind. To them and probably to Bell as well.

In front of them, began to show,in the thick shadow, the outline on the large figure of the huge stone wave, which is known as the Children's Cliff, for being a common destination among the trips that mark the coming of age of children, they arrive as children and leave as adults.

Bell began to pant, and the darkness that had descended was so strong that even the sharp eyes of the boy, accustomed to the darkness, began to have difficulty establishing the correct route and avoiding hitting the stones, which now failed his steps every little while.

When they were standing next to the towering and intimidating presence of the cliff, the boy stopped Bell, who almost began to unsteadily pull back. "Bell, you hear me, because you really should. In case we meet the shadow, just go ahead and run without stopping, I'll try as hard as I can to get his attention, are you listening?"

They made a lot of noise before, apparently even Bell in her condition was aware of this, because as the boy pushed her towards the front of the cliff, her resistance became less inflated and stubborn, while both of them slowed down their pace considerably.

The silence was still around them, undermining every living thing, therefore from time to time a howl of an ethereal wind crept in and was cradled in the bosom of the broken cliff.

A howl that cut them off from their places to cover their eyes to everything around them.

It was possible to feel a certain change in the aura of obscurity that gripped Bell, since it was also the natural shadow of the cliff mixed with the surrounding darkness, it was a darkness with a slightly less strong influence, or one that people were accustomed to, which allowed Bell to easily filter the sharpness of thought between the tremors of vagueness "I almost... regret that I came" he couldn't really reply "honestly so am I" he mumbled back, as mentioned, more to himself.

The cool weather around them thickened the sweat that had accumulated during their long run, and now that they were slowing down they were able to feel it even more strongly, although this combination did not ease the tension around them. Shadows usually make long sounds often, even very often, at least that's what was picked up from the boy's ear from previous seasons of wandering, when he wasn't yet hot headed enough to leave the house in time, but everything was quiet around them, and if the shadow continued to move with its speed this way, it didn't make sense that it wouldn't make a sound every now and then, the shadows should have spread out in the area by now. The only thing the boy could think of that required silence from the shadows was hunting, and he very much hoped that if so, that the pray was not them.

But despite these concerns, they arrived at the threshold of the road leaning against the cliff, the place where it all broke and became cracks and fissures that stretched into caves, but there was one fissure that pierced all the way into the undulating cliff , and created a steep road full of rocks and obstacles.

It seemed that Bel was almost unable to position, or attach her arms or legs to herself, the boy sighed, he would have to continue carrying her by her arms, here right on his back.

He lifted her to lie on his back with a silent sigh and began to move himself slowly upwards, making a path between the rocks protruding from the walls rising to his sides, and the piled stones on the sides of the path.

It was frustrating, and lasted a long time, but the boy managed to muster up his strength to continue. The walls eventually got higher, even though the slope of the path remained as it was, the boy began to pant. "Hey" Bell muttered behind him "What happened?" "I think, a stone from above, on top" the sentence stood idly on her lips, but it was clear, and to him it was even clearer, landslides do not usually occur on the cliff at all, something follows them silently from the top of one of the walls. the shadow.

A horrifying scream pierced the howling of the wind, they literally heard the hunger and the creaking of his distorted steps on the rock. He didn't freeze, it was his turn to throw in order to save, he swung his sister from his back and threw her down the road "Do what I said, come on, hurry up"

She froze in place for a moment, both of them raised their eyes up, a short distance above them, on the slopes of the wall to his right, something moved, in a line between him and Bell, he did not see the body itself, he only felt the movement there , he returned to Bell, who remained frozen, at a loss for a moment, "Come on" he tried to convince her, the shadow was almost there, she didn't move, the only way to shake her was to scare her, he concentrated all of his energy and cleared everything from his throat, a cry of a shadow a horrifying sound emanated from him a second time, again robbing his voice. Bell jumped from her place from the urge and began to run away from him with surprisingly good speed, a few moments later, the shadow landed.

He landed a very tiny distance from the boy, his outline still escapes his eyes, but one way or another, it is evident that the shadow's attention is not focused on him, interestingly, for unclear reasons, he focused on Bell.

The boy tried to shout at him, but nothing but air bubbles and chirps did not come out of him, the shadow remained frozen for a moment, then shot out of place, a shadow is faster than a human apparently, he will catch up with Bell, he will kill her, It couldn't happen, the boy had a moment, a second before the shadow got out of is his reach, he jumped on him.

Throwing himself with all his might in the shadow's direction in desperation, he hovered in the air for several moments, pulled almost in an unnatural way to the onrushing shadow. He held on to the shadow with all his might, trying to slow down the shadow's movement. It seemed to him that he succeeded, and it was real for a moment. But it seemed that urgency grabbed the shadow, a tremendous shake went through his body and the was tossed away from him, he only managed a quick glance towards the wall that was rapidly approaching him, then to the floor, then one more moment to Bell and the Shadow, who would close the gap in a few moments.

.....

Pulsating pain was evident in the boy's head when he woke up, he gathered his memories from the blur that held him.

It took him a while to fully digest his situation, and there was a clear reason for that, at first he thought that one of his eyes was fatally injured, but after processing things for a moment, he found something even more uncomfortable. With one eye he saw from his body which was being carried loosely on the shoulder of a tall stranger in a brown leather jacket whose face he could not see, and whose light footsteps trampling the stone could be heard in his right ear alone. From his other eye he saw a thick night standing in the midst of a thick forest,

at least that's what it seemed from the silhouettes moving in the dark.

"You woke up, very beautiful" he heard the stranger begin to call him while in his other ear sharp gasps began to be heard cutting through the howling of the wind "What reason do you have to come here? Who are you?" A young, choked voice was heard from the panter, apparently, and at the same time the stranger opened with words before him as well, "So, what is your name?" For a moment the kid got confused between the surroundings and lost his words, but finally he was able to reply, he didn't know why said that but he could hear himself saying "I... I am the dusk" as soon as he got any words out of his mouth his head started throbbing painfully again, the words became blurred, and he lost consciousness.