The Bandits’ Epilogue (1)

'What the hell was that sound…'

The cook was now fully awake and alert.

He didn't even need to perk up his ears as they currently heard the voice of a crying woman loud and clear in his ears.

It didn't sound like the woman was near as the crying was distant, but the cook could somehow still hear the distant sound as clear as day.

He continued hearing it despite having shaken his hand, clapping his own cheek, and even closing his eyes.

'No way… No way… No way….'

The cook tried going outside of his tent to see where the voice had come from and to see whether he was the only one who heard it.

But after stepping his feet out of his tent, the crying voice abruptly stopped and only the sound of other bandits could be heard doing their own activities.

The cook stayed rooted in his place with one foot outside the tent. His eyes darted left and right, looking at the walking bandits, their tents, and also the dark empty forest all around the hideout.

The forest was absent of any light, the faint light that the moon and stars gave off wasn't enough to break the illusion of the forest being enveloped in complete darkness.

To make sure, the cook scanned the whole hideout once more, including the edges of the forest with his ears focusing on every little detail he could pick up.

However, no matter how hard he looked and how attentive his ears were, he couldn't see or hear any woman or even any crying.

The cook took a gulp of his own saliva and closed his eyes.

'I must be hallucinating. There's no such thing as a ghost.'

The cook then returned inside his tent and sat down.

'Ghosts didn't exist.'

'Ghosts didn't exist.'

'Ghosts didn't exist.'

As if it was a chant, the cook repeated the line inside his head three times before lying down and trying his best to just close his eyes and sleep to pass the night.

However, just like before, the moment he decided to lie down and close his eyes, he heard it again.

The distant voice of a crying woman.

Having heard it before, the man was sure that his ears did pick up the voice of a woman crying.

However, different from before, the cook didn't try to get up and find the source of the sound or even open his eyes at all as he just wanted to sleep.

'Ghosts didn't exist.'

'Ghosts didn't exist.'

'Ghosts didn't exist.'

Repeating the chant in his mind, the cook wished that the sound would soon go away.

But the chant didn't work at all as the crying stayed in his ears.

With nothing he could do, the cook just decided to close his eyes even tighter and curled up in his sleeping bag.

Closing his eyes tighter won't get him to sleep faster, but at least the cook had tried to do something instead of just staying silent.

With his eyes closed tight and his body curled up like a ball, the cook repeated the same chant again and again, more than three times as he tried to drive away whatever it was that made him hear the crying voice.

However, the result often betrays your effort. And that's exactly what was happening with the cook.

Even with the chant, the eyelid that he had shut as hard as he could, and his curled-up body, the voice of the crying woman didn't go away at all and in fact, it had gotten closer instead.

The more the second passed, the sound of the distant crying became clearer and clearer as the cook heard the voice getting closer to him.

The closer the voice got, the harder the cook closed his eyes and chanted.

'Ghosts didn't exist.'

'Ghosts didn't exist.'

'Ghosts didn't exist.'

He chanted very aloud in his mind, trying to cover the voice of the crying with his own voice.

And it did work, for only a split second that was.

No matter how hard he chanted it, the crying was now so loud and close that the cook felt like the voice was now right beside his ears.

The sound of a woman crying her heart out was now filling the cook's ears and head as if he was surrounded by the voice from all directions.

The cook didn't think of getting out of the tent anymore as he was even afraid of opening his own eyes.

He exerted his utmost effort to keep his eyes shut and fall asleep, trying to ignore the crying that he was now sure wasn't just a simple hallucination.

Fortunately, the result didn't betray his effort this time.

The cook could finally fall asleep, leaving the sound of crying behind as he went into dreamland.

Half a dozen hours had passed ever since the sun set and the bandits ate their dinner.

Right now, it was in the dead of the night when all the bandits had gone to bed with the exception of the few who had been tasked to do nightwatch.

All the bandits were sleeping comfortably inside the sleeping bags in their tents, without no one as the exception.

However, one of them was about to have that taken from them.

The cook slept soundly despite the disturbance that he had before he fell asleep.

But when it was past midnight, the cook's eyes suddenly jerked open.

His body was still lying in the sleeping bag peacefully and it didn't move one bit.

However, his eyes were fully wide open.

He didn't have any dreams before, so it just felt like he had suddenly woken up from his sleep without any reason whatsoever.

The cook looked at the familiar feeling of his tent and decided to continue sleeping since no light had entered his tent.

However, the second he tried to turn his body sideways to adjust his position, he realized that he couldn't move his body. At all.