Episode 2 | New Companions, Part 3

The next few days were relatively normal.

Dianne didn't know what she was expecting. More black shadows showing up? More lives disappearing? She wasn't entirely sure, but she had a feeling that something was going to happen soon, really soon.

But until then, she could care less.

Kylie and Dianne spent the next week or so in each other's company and helped out with the daily housework. The New Year was arriving, and Dianne wasn't sure what the connection between the holidays and Giselle's adopted kids was, but even if she did, it didn't help with the overcrowding and excessive work.

Chelsea visited her often and a week after she moved into the condominium, the manager brought her to retrieve her recurve bow and arrows. The kids were all exhilarated and wanted to see her shoot an arrow so they had to bring them and Giselle in Dianne's private van and went to Dianne's practice gym.

The kids' excitement to see her with her bow and arrows made her wonder if this was how her parents felt when she stood in the open field of an Olympic stadium. Or were they expecting something these kids weren't?

After their detour, they went back to the condominium and continued their preparations. There was so much that if Kylie hadn't decided to pitch in, she wouldn't have been able to complete them.

Kylie…

There was so much she didn't know about this girl, only that there was something off, something familiar. It kept bugging her, frustrating her to the point that she wanted to just clench her hands into her hair and yell out in aggravation. The answer was only at the tip of Dianne's tongue, yet the words refused to form in her mind. The whole ordeal was simply irritating.

Perhaps it had something to do with Kylie's lack of that black creature she would always see in Giselle and the others. It didn't even help that she would see the dark-haired girl doing some meditation – or yoga, Giselle corrected her when she asked about it – every early morning and evening. The other day, the amber-eyed archer even asked Kylie jokingly if she was secretly a monk.

All she responded with was a "maybe" and a knowing smile.

Kylie was silent, to begin with. And if she wasn't talking to Dianne, she was just sitting in a corner and observing the people around them. There were times that Kylie would stare intensely at Giselle, but whenever Dianne asked about it, she would just smile and shake her head.

Then, just when New Year had ended, Kylie just up and disappeared.

She was gone without a trace.

Giselle naturally panicked and started making calls to child's services and even made one of those "Missing" posters, pasting one on nearly every traffic pole at every intersection that Dianne had ever come across. She was somewhat shocked, of course. Who heard of a girl showing up at an orphanage and then leaving a week afterward? It was unorthodox, it was… unexpected.

Dianne couldn't help but feel a little sad though, and a bit disappointed. She guessed all those questions would never be solved.

She pushed those pondering thoughts out of her head as she tried to fall asleep, but to no avail. It was the middle of the night, and the moonbeams seeped through the cracks in the blinds, casting crooked lines of white directly over the side of her bed. Dark silhouettes of soundly sleeping figures were apparent, and an occasional snore could be heard over the still silence. She slowly got up, and to the best of her ability, soundlessly made her way to the window and creaked open the blinds slightly.

That was when she saw it.

Normally, she wanted to get a glimpse of the moon on sleepless nights like this one. The surrounding foliage loomed overhead, and wherever the moonlight laid down its path, the roads glistened. Dark clouds spread over the grey heavens and all was eerily silent, the moon still in its regular position in that great dark sky, but the moon wasn't what her eyes were focused on.

There were glowing lights, and they were growing ever larger as they moved closer and closer to where the condominium stood. These glowing lights weren't supposed to be as tall as the building itself but she was sure she was not hallucinating. Their figures soon emerged, and it took all of her willpower to not scream in terror-

There were at least a dozen or so black creatures. Each of them was holding a torch in one hand, and a 5-foot-long spear in the other. All of their illuminated faces were bent up, scarred, and just plain ugly, with large sharp horns protruding from their foreheads. The only difference was their height: standing at a minimum of a thousand feet.

Even worse, they had this whole place surrounded.

Dianne stumbled away from the window, catching her breath that she didn't realize she was holding. A million thoughts were going through her head as her heartbeat went on hyper-drive.

What was I going to do? she started to ask herself as she stared at the window wide-eyed. Should I wake the others? No, it would only make matters worse. They would panic and could end up getting hurt or worse. Waking Ms. Lewinsky was definitely not an option for the same said reasons as the kids. Oh, by the heavens, what was I going to do?

She peered through the blinds again and saw that the giant black creatures were now clustered closer together, mumbling to themselves. It was only a few seconds later, that all of them started to head towards the edges of the building, their weapons raised.

Then they brought it down against the condominium.

The whole building shook as if being hit by an intensity 5 earthquake. She glanced at the kids she was with first to see if any of them were awake from the noise. Some of them shuffled slightly in their sleep but were asleep nonetheless. Those things were going to knock the whole building down for who knew what...

Wait a second… could it be that it was only her who can see them?

Dianne knew that she could see black smoke coming out of the people she comes across. But she never imagined she would be able to see so many of the fully turned ones like these.

There was only one solution she could think of, despite not being sure of its result:

She was going to use herself as bait.