The Bandits’ Epilogue (3)

The next morning, a story of the cook spread like wildfire as the whole hideout heard about it.

The second the cook regained his consciousness and felt he could finally once again move his own limbs, he ran outside of his tent, shouting and screaming so loud that all the people in the hideout turned their heads towards him.

No matter what happened last night, whether it was only his nightmare or whether it happened for real, the cook didn't care and told everyone every single thing that happened to him.

He didn't forget a single detail. From the crying that he heard before he fell asleep, to the last moments when a decayed corpse walked over his paralyzed body and shoved its face to his own face.

He told the whole hideout about everything, not missing a single detail as he shared his fear throughout the whole hideout.

"You're actually that scared just because I told a little horror story yesterday?" The man who told the cook about the crying woman incident before said as he listened closely to the cook's story.

"It's just a nightmare, don't make a fuss about it." More people began commenting on the story.

"Did you also wet your bed? Do you need someone to accompany you tonight and change your diapers?"

"I wonder where your balls had gone to, I didn't see you having any right now."

Those kinds of comments were the majority that were thrown to the cook after they heard his story.

They were bandits, and seeing corpses, or even turning people into corpses was a major part of their job, the cook's story just didn't make sense to them. Especially for those of them who never had any spiritual encounter.

However, from the majority that only brushed off the story as if it was only a coward's nightmare, there weren't a small number of people that also took the story to their hearts.

Planting a seed of wariness and fear inside their minds.

The day went by fast as the bandits continued their activity, not thinking too much about the cook's story, even the ones who took it seriously.

However, when the sun dived into the horizon and the forest started to remind people how silent, eerie, and dark it was, those people began to think about what the cook said earlier in the morning.

The ones who were really not bothered by it were really calm and felt nothing.

However, the ones that pretended to be tough but actually paying close attention, and the ones that were actually scared of the cook's story began to realize the eeriness of the forest and something didn't feel right with the forest surrounding their hideout.

They didn't know what had changed from the usual forest that they saw every day.

However, as more time passed and they felt the nagging feeling became stronger, the bandits actually felt that someone or something was watching them from the darkness of the forest.

Remembering all the jeers and mocks that the cook received earlier in the morning after telling the group his story, the people who all felt something wrong with the forest decided to keep their mouths shut.

They thought that they were the only ones who felt something from the forest and decided to keep it to themselves, bringing their wariness to bed.

However, little did they know that the seed of wary and fear that they had in their hearts would soon sprout and take deep roots in their hearts.

Just like how the cook told them, these people who really took the cook's story into their hearts heard the voice of a crying woman when they tried to close their eyes.

The same as the cook, some of them began curling up their bodies, putting their hands to their ears, trying to sleep as fast as they could, doing anything they could to stop their ears from hearing the voice of the crying woman.

Some of them slept peacefully after steeling their hearts and genuinely drove away the fear from their beings.

But most of them couldn't do the same as they all fell asleep with fear rooted deep in their hearts and the crying woman as their lullaby.

Those who managed to drive away the fear slept soundly until morning, but the ones who slept in fear didn't have that luxury.

When the time hits past midnight, all of these people who couldn't drive out the fear in their hearts abruptly opened their eyes at the same time.

They didn't know what happened, but the cook's story instantly came to their minds as they remembered how the cook told them about his paralyzed body.

These people then began trying to move their limbs, but just as they feared, they couldn't move them at all.

Some could move their fingers, but that was it.

Other than being able to twitch their fingers up and down, they couldn't do anything else as their whole body was paralyzed in place.

Remembering the next part of the cook's story, their eyes started rapidly darting around everywhere before they all stopped moving when their eyes registered the dark silhouette that stood somewhere inside their tents.

Some stood on the edge of their tents just like the cook told them, some others stood right beside the bandits, and a few of them appeared floating right in the middle of the tent.

Be it the seed that had sprouted in their hearts or it was just simply the sheer horror that they felt right now, all these people who noticed the dark silhouette began panicking as they tried to retaliate.

Some of them tried screaming, some tried getting up, but no matter what they tried, they couldn't do anything as their bodies refused to listen to their commands.

At first, it was just a black silhouette, but the more they tried to retaliate and the fear and panic in their hearts became stronger, the silhouette became clearer and clearer as they now could see the features of the dark silhouette.

From completely rotten skin from head to toe, bloody appearance covering their whole being, countless wounds on their bodies, even ones that had their faces almost split open, all kinds of corpses made their appearance known to the bandits who had lost the ability to control their own bodies.

They all saw different ghosts appearing in their tents, but they all felt the same horror as they passed out to sleep from the fear that they felt.

And the next morning when the sun shone bright and these people woke up, the news of the horror that they felt would soon flood the entire hideout.