CHAPTER 9: Twisted figures.

While he ran back to where the others were sleeping, images of what he had just seen flashed through his mind.

He'd seen a person. Or at least what was left of it. The dirty, torn clothes of this human loosely hung onto its mutilated body by a few threads. The body itself was broken, twisted. Like someone had tried to stitch together a mass of corpses without knowing anatomy. Chunks of flesh were missing and the skin that surrounded it was covered in its own blood.

The skin was dry, pale, and cold. The face of the creature was lifeless, motionless like a mask. The cloudy bloodshot eyes had sunken deep into their sockets and blankly stared into a distance it could not see. The mouth was opened and revealed the broken bloodstained teeth that still remained. The creature had already bitten off its own tongue.

But the worst thing of all was that it still moved. With muscle missing and limbs barely hanging onto its body it still moved. It fell over, stumbled, and proceeded to crawl forward. Despite having lost the function of its eyes the thing still managed to crawl towards Theo's location.

It knew where he was. More pieces of flesh fell off as it pushed itself forward far beyond what its body should be capable of. It let out a terrible wheezing cry when it lost a part of its leg. The thing could still feel pain, but it wasn't hindered by it. Not at all. In fact, this only seemed to drive the creature forward even further.

Theo reached the others. "Wake up! Now!" He screamed. The creature already knew their location. There was no need to stay quiet.

Gwen hazily opened her eyes. "What's wrong? It's still dark, can't this wait until tomorrow? I feel like I'm exhausted from sleeping too hard."

Theo furiously grabbed her arm and dragged her up. "We can't wait until tomorrow; we need to go immediately."

He started to move again, this time dragging Gwen along. Timon also woke up and already had an idea of what was happening. He quickly stood up and followed Theo and Gwen.

They ran as fast as they could over the cold forest floor. In the darkness all the trees looked the same while their branches closed in on them. Theo could hear twitches and snaps from all directions. Some were caused by animals, while others carried this weird rotting scent. They were everywhere. More than once did he see one standing behind a tree. Often, they would turn their heads as they passed by. Wide open mouths full of broken teeth and blind eyes followed their every step.

Some of them had their guts spilling out, while others looked fine. Almost completely human. but there was always something wrong. Their movements were random and shaking. And all of them seemed to be in great pain.

But there was no time to gaze upon these twisted figures. They had to go on.

Eventually, after running for what felt like hours, they had to stop. Timon leaned against a tree to catch his breath, feeling like his legs would no longer be able to carry him.

"Are… they have gone now?"

He asked, still trying to breathe at a normal rate.

"I hope so. At least there aren't any close to us right now." Theo looked in all directions, ready to pick up any sound that could signal one of these things coming close. "Do you think that you can move again soon? I don't know when they are coming back."

Timon nodded and pushed himself off the tree. "Yes, I think I can go on."

"Good. The more we move the lower the chance that they catch up."

Since there were none of those people nearby at the moment they decided to just walk. If they kept running all the way, they would only burn up their energy. Still, they had to be wary. They weren't exactly sure how the creatures were able to know their exact location, so they had to try to be as least noticeable as possible for now.

Sadly, Timon and Gwen couldn't climb from tree to tree, so that wasn't an option. But the good thing was that they were now getting into a more familiar territory for Theo. He was able to point out where they could cross a relatively wide river. This would also make it harder for the creatures to follow them if they were simply following their scent.

They still had a long way to go, but now Theo believed that they were relatively safe at the moment. He had killed some small animals on the way and had let himself fall down on the soft grass. He had given a few ducks and squirrels to the humans and was now eating one of the few that he had kept for himself.

He was even more exhausted than them. Apart from running and walking almost nonstop he also hadn't slept in quite a while.

"You know, we can cook it if you want to."

Gwen said while poking Theo with a stick she found along the way.

"No thanks. I'll pass."

"You sure? I don't understand how you can bear the smell of blood after what we have seen. But sure, go ahead."

She threw the stick at Theo. Since he was barely awake at the moment, he could not dodge it and was hit by the projectile.

She walked away and sat down next to her brother who was trying to cook the meat above a small campfire. Theo had advised them not to do it, but they insisted that they couldn't eat the meat raw. So, he just figured that if those creatures showed back up, he would no longer drag them along. He was almost home anyways.

He let out a deep sigh and stared at the sky above him.