The Nearing Dusk

"By simply going through that tunnel of light, of course." The taker said, resting his large scythe on one of his shoulders. Shio saw him murmur something to himself as his face suddenly turn all creepy, with another wide grin forming beneath his crow skull of a mask.

"This guy is weird." Shio thought as he stares a bit more at the taker's figure. He was smiling from ear to ear while scratching parts of his left arm. As he was busy rasping his arm, Shio was able to take a peek at the taker's body.

It was fully covered with gauze bandages, carefully wrapped against his skin with some splatters of blood visible at his stomach part.

"Kukuku... All of you mortals should pass through that tunnel immediately. Unless you all wish for your soul to suddenly perish without reaching neither hell nor heaven." He threatened, tracing his index finger with the tip of his large scythe. He managed to get his skin get scathed a little, blood dripping from his finger. The wound soon quickly healed itself, the taker not doing anything to make it heal. It just vanished in a blink of an eye.

"Okay... It just did that." Shio muttered lowly to himself as he tries to hold in the panic that he was feeling from within. His instincts were telling him that the taker was a dangerous person—hell if he is even a person in the first place.

"Why do we need to hurry? Is there something bad that's gonna—" Hyuna, the colorful short-haired woman who was Shio staring at earlier, asked. She was abruptly cut off by the sudden change of color of the sky above them. It was turning orange as if the sun had set in the afterlife and soon were meeting dusk.

"Oh my! Kukuku..." The taker laughed hysterically, making the others be frightened and anxious. He was focused on the sundown as if he was anticipating for the sky to completely display the beautiful night sky. Eyes turned from the taker and onto each other as it was slowly filled with worry and dread. They were nervous, so was Shio, who was backing onto the corner of his cube, trying to get back inside of the odd shelter he was on.

His back had now hit the hard walls of the cube, his hands now wandering off to find the door, but to no prevail, his hands couldn't reach any handle nor any wooden door. He turned around, his back now facing the crowd and to his surprise, there was no more door that was placed in the cube. Horror and dread had gushed on his face as he turns once more to look at taker, who was watching him the whole time with a smirk on his face. "What the fuck..?!"

"Something bad is gonna happen... Something bad is gonna happen..." Shio's mind wandered as panic overflown him, his breathing getting heavier. He could feel it—the eyes that were watching him beside the taker.

"Were you looking for something, Shio?" The taker cooed with his menacing red eyes. He approached the cowering Shio, walking slowly towards his direction. The sky behind him was now turning darker as it completely displayed the starry night. The sun had set and they were hearing wolves and growling from behind the cubes, where there was no light visible at all.

"Ah, it seems you're all too late." The taker said. The crowd had grown more frightened and wary at their surroundings, some were shaking while others were clinging onto someone else.

"What? Why? What the hell does that mean?!" Shio cursed out. The taker turned to look at the whimpering male as he chuckled deeply, his voice was different from before. It was lower, it sounded like it came from someone else.

The taker turned his back on Shio as he wears the hood of his raven cloak. He slowly walked away from Shio and the rest of the people in the group. He was nearing the light coming from the temple when his cloak suddenly became empty, falling unto the hard ground as he was no longer there no more.

An eerie silence had fallen onto the group with few silent whimpering and growling heard here and there. The vigorous noises that they were hearing could be heard from behind the cubes as there was rustling heard there too. It was as if someone was moving with them. Someone, or something, was definitely watching them and moving around them.

"Did you guys hear that?" The man, who had called taker a grim reaper, asked. His question made the others cower more in fear as Shio was stuck frozen in place, the taker moving far away from him and headed towards the tunnel at the end of this symmetrical pile of cubes positioned facing each other with a pathway in the middle of two opposing sides.

"What was it?"

"Was there something you've heard, young man?" An old woman asked. She was looking very weak and fragile, her body slumped down as she held on to her cane to support her body. She seemed calm and gentle, even if she looked so scared at the situation right now, she remained collected.

"Well, I just heard footsteps rustling coming from there." He answered, pointing to the direction where he had heard the footsteps. It was coming from behind one of the cubes and it was close to the grandma who he was talking to earlier.

As Shio's eyes followed the direction the guy was pointing out, he began to notice that there was another pair of eyes glaring from the darkness. It had red eyes, like the ones from taker, with its mouth formed into an opened smile. It showed its large fangs and canines, its saliva dripping from his mouth.

This had caught Shio by surprise and instantly shouted, "Look out! There's someone lurking in the darkness!"

Before he could say that, the creature had already come out of its hiding and had its claws hit someone's body.

"AAAAHHHH!!!"

Blood poured everywhere from the person's stomach as the monster took a bite from the wailing person's face, scraping off a part of his skin as blood continued to gush from his face and body. This had caused the others to flee fast from the scene, causing a major stampede that had trampled those who've tripped from the rushing swarm of people.

They were desperately trying to get to the tunnel of light, where the only source of light was coming from, only to realize that the tunnel was slowly closing its doors and limiting the light passing through it. Shio continued to stare in horror at the man who was being eaten by a large monster, its face looked like it was a deformed head of a pig with several stitches visibly running through his face and through his body as well.

He watched the man, who had been screaming before turn silent, as he was slowly eaten by the horrifying monster. His insides getting torn apart insight as the monster continues chomping down on its intestines, eating it as if it was a noodle or a pasta.

Shio was brought back to his senses when he had felt a violent shake to his shoulders by Hyuna. "Come on, we need to get out of here."

Hyuna took ahold of his wrist and pulled him as he starts to run by her side, catching up with the others' pace of running. She didn't know why she pulled this guy with her or help him, somehow, she just felt like she needed to.

They were both running endlessly towards the tunnel of light taker had told them to go through. He said that it will determine whether they will be placed on either heaven or hell, but what if they still wanted to live? What if they yearned to go back to where their friends and family were? Would that even be possible, then?

"Who are you?" Shio asked as they were both running away from the monster that was now finished gulping down one of them. The image of it eating someone in front of him couldn't waver off his mind, he kept thinking about it to the point where he couldn't remember the girl's name anymore. He can't even remember starting to run away from that freak.

"Huh? My name is Hyuna. Though, I-I've said... Huff, it before." She said, breathing heavily as she was getting tired from running. It was purely unfortunate that they just had to meet right in the middle of this pathway, which was far from the tunnel of light. It would probably take a while for them to reach it if they had walked, but with running they could manage to meet its entrance in less than, at least ten minutes.

But, of course with this stampede, running is a bit of a problem.

"How about you? Huff, huff..." She asked, pulling onto Shio's wrist, signaling to stop for a while. He had been running ahead of her now, her hand still intact with his wrist, considering how Shio is a track and field athlete.

"It's Shio. Just Shio."

She breathed loudly through her mouth, feeling her lungs burning against her chest as her heart was pounding loudly as it will break out of her. She was never the type of person who enjoys outdoor activities, she was more of an indoor person despite being an ambivert.

Hyuna placed her hand onto her knees as she tried to gasp for air. Sweat was dripping down from all over her body, especially to her forehead. Shio, on the other hand, was not that sweaty compared to her.

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah... Yeah, I'm fine. Let's get going." She replied, holding onto the hem of his green t-shirt. She was feeling all shy as to how she had suddenly grabbed him by the wrist all forceful.

They started to jog towards the tunnel of light, almost nearing towards the end when suddenly more of the monsters appeared out of nowhere. All of them were looking differently from each other, but there was something similar to all five of them—they reeked of the smell of blood.

"AAAHHH!!! SOMEONE HELP ME!"

"AGGHH!"

The monsters began to attack the others as their once hope-filled eyes turn dead. They were being ripped apart, Shio could not help but feel all terrified from the amount of gore and blood he was seeing in just a day.

And it wasn't from any movie. This was really happening.

Shio suddenly felt the tight grip from the hem of his shirt loosen, making him alarmed. He turned around to see Hyuna being snatched away by the mutilated pig-looking monster.

"Shio..!"