Welcome Back

The trio exited the bus, stepping onto loose rocks and dirt. The bus stop was nothing fancy, a single bench and yellow sign was all that indicated it was a bus stop to begin with.

Peering around, Blood saw nothing of note — no buildings, no people, nothing to signify this was a place people settled.

Emile and Emma started to walk down the road, walking beside the street itself. A half hour later they arrived at a junction in the road, taking a right, they continued walking until a lone silhouette of a building appeared in the distance.

It was a two story house — white with light brown trim. It had two enormous trees in front that shrouded the house in shade and a white picket fence that encased the home completely.

Emma walked ahead, unlocking the fence and then similarly unlocking the light blue wooden door. Stepping inside, Blood noticed Emile and Emma removing their shoes and placing them beside the door.

They haphazardly tossed their backpacks onto a dresser as well before the two of them went their separate ways, Emile climbing up the stairs and Emma diving into the couch in the living room.

Blood followed Emile up to his room — a sizable space, clean and orderly with posters of stars and trees littering the walls. Emile collapsed into his chair before sliding himself under his desk and pulling out a leather-bound notebook kept within one of the desk's drawers.

Flipping open the notebook revealed a slew of different drawings: human figures covered in intricate tattoos, beasts with multiple heads, and plants Blood had never seen before.

Emile pulled out his black box from his pocket and, after fiddling with it for a bit, soft music began to radiate from the box. Hours passed just like this, with Emile drawing, and occasionally humming to the song, all the while Blood stood behind him — still aghast at what was happening.

Then suddenly, loud thumps traveled from beyond Emile's shut door. The thumps grew louder until solid banging erupted against his door.

"Emile!" Emma's panicked voice bellowed, "Cookie just ran out the back door! Help me catch her!"

Emile sighed, closing his eyes while he took a controlled deep breath. He placed his pencil inside his notebook and succinctly closed it, his pencil saving what page he was on.

He grabbed a sweatshirt from beside his door before traveling down stairs where he found Emma standing next to the open back door, shouting Cookie's name into the green abyss that was their backyard.

Meanwhile, Blood followed behind him, curious as to what 'Cookie' referred to. They ran into the brush, running with high knees as they toppled over uncut grass towards the tree line in the distance.

Blood looked around, making sure to take in his surroundings as best he could. The first thing that caught his attention was the changes in the sky.

What was once blue has quickly turned pink, or orange, an array of colors reflected in his eyes as he stared at the sky. The sun was nowhere to be seen, apparently having moved from when he last saw it.

Emma sprinted ahead, bursting over the bushes that separated the trees and the grassland before Emile quickly followed suit. As they entered the densely populated forest, the light receded and the subtle warmth from the sun vanished.

Blood felt like they were running in circles, constantly maneuvering around trees and ducking underneath overgrown branches. Before he knew it, they were running in darkness and it was growing more and more difficult to track Emma and Emile.

Suddenly, Emile and Emma stopped. They looked around, worry slowly creeping up on their faces before they had a conversation about what to do moving forward.

They couldn't find their way back — it was too dark — and at this point there was no chance of them finding Cookie. Emma sat down, her back leaned against a curved trunk of a tree.

She closed her eyes and began to rest, sleep taking hold of her rather quickly. Meanwhile, Emile remained awake.

His gaze never faltered as he stared into the darkness.

Blood still stood beside him — just as alert as Emile. This was a new place, who knew what kind of monsters lurked in the dark?

A branch snapped to their right. Then another, this time much louder. Blood stepped away from Emile and approached the noises, he followed the sounds of branches snapping and as he turned the corner of a tree he was met face to face with a meaty mountain lion.

Its fur ragged and golden, its teeth brilliantly white and glistening from a fresh coat of saliva. The cougar tip-toed around the tree.

Its paws delicately pressed into the dirt, barely displacing any leaves or mounds — the select few branches it landed on being a result of bad luck more than anything else.

Eventually, the cougar made its move. It pounced towards Emile, ready to claw and devour the unequipped boy. Emile grabbed Emma's arm and threw her to the side before ducking beneath the cougar's lunge, but the beast's claws still tore at his back, ripping his jacket and coating it in a thick layer of blood.

Emile and Emma blindly sprinted further into the forest, trying their hardest to escape the onslaught of the cougar hunting them. Blood followed closely — sticking between the cougar and Emile so that he could watch the movements of both of them.

He tried to manipulate the blood from Emile's back to no end, all the while wondering why Emile and Emma didn't turn on the beast from the get-go.

The cougar was laughably slow and its teeth and claws were more bulbous than serrated — it was a beast, but it was nowhere near the common dangers found back home.

Eventually, Emile and Emma ran into a crater; the two of them blindly stepped off the edge and plummeted into a sandy pit. The cougar refused to follow — opting to instead growl at the two humans escaping and running around the crater, trying to find a way to get to them.

A few more hours passed and the sun once again invaded the sky, its beautiful blue color returning and its soft warmth gently kissing Blood's skin once more. Emma ripped up Emile's jacket and tried to cover his open wound and then shoved his dislocated shoulder back into place.

Blood watched closely, inspecting Emile's body up close since nobody knew he was there to begin with. Emile's wounds weren't healing — they always healed, that was his thing: healing.

Shortly after the two removed their clothes and cleaned themselves in the pond before ultimately trying to climb the stone walls that surrounded them.

For hours Emma attacked the walls, each time she got stuck she'd slightly move over and try again, searching for the best holds to escape the crater. With the sun directly above them, Emma finally made it out.

Emile told her to run back and get help, he wasn't interested in climbing out like she did. Shortly after Emma left Emile laid back in the sand, he closed his eyes and slowly fell asleep.

Another few hours later and Emma returned — her voice screeching through the tree line as she screamed Emile's name. Emile shot up, his eyes immediately darting around the crater's edge.

Before he knew it, he saw Emma running along the edge — the mountain lion charging behind her. She jumped into the crater and dove into the water, the cougar stopping moments before falling in itself.

But as the cougar looked away from Emma, it noticed Emile and the hunt was quickly resumed. The cougar ran around the crater's perimeter before eventually finding a suitable place to drop.

Watching the cougar descend into the crater, Emile sprinted into the water after Emma. Before he could reach her, however, the water started to shift.

What started as a soft pull on them erupted into a swirling vortex, sucking and pulling the two kids underneath the water. Watching from beyond the pond, Blood witnessed the two of them get sucked underneath.

Meanwhile, a radiant light began to manifest from within the depths of the pond. The light tugged at Blood, acting similarly to the vortex itself. Against his will, Blood was pulled into the water too before being completely submerged and blinded by the ghastly light.

Before he knew it, Blood felt and saw nothing. He tried moving his limbs, wiggling his toes, but it was like he didn't exist and was merely an apparition of thoughts in the great expanse.

Suddenly, something clicked back into place and Blood's eyes shot open. Before him laid an exhausted Emile, his body weak and shaky as it hovered above Blood's.

Blood recognized his teeth were sunk into Emile's neck so he awkwardly pulled back, an audible pop sounded as his teeth slid out.

Emile gently shook, he stretched his limbs and twisted his neck, cracking all of his stiff and sore joints before looking at Blood with watery eyes.

He parted his lips and with a weak smile looked at Blood, "Welcome back."