this damn place

is it a dream? , ray wondered if he was suddenly 7 again, he was drawing in his old house he looked up,

he cleared his eyes across the big dining table in the kitchen he saw her mother.

she was the very embodiment of beauty she had white hair, ray inherited his height and white hair from her.

He went up crying ' mama' with a cracked voice of a 7-year-old with tears flowing down in bursts he went and hugged her,

her mother sat down and wiped his tears she was about to ask him what happened but before she could the main door of the house opened and it was none other than his dad.

he is a muscular man with a beard.

it took ray no time to figure out what was happening it was that same ungrateful day.

Again like last time ray's body froze even though he knew all he saw his mother die in that very painful way, he again saw his brother get stabbed in the eye it was all like last time after her mother died.

his father came after them And very soon his brother tossed him out of the window.

he was experiencing the fall in a long manner just then he woke up with a flash, it took him a while to come back to his senses he then realized he was still on the bus to Salem.

"huh, this again " ray talked to himself these nightmares have stopped for almost 3 years now but he was seeing them again since the day he knew about the place in Salem.

, it was a while for his stop to come so he took out the map and started reading it again.

the place marked was located 14 kilometres inside a forest outside Salem.

the bus was not much full there were only 12 other passengers with him in this while the bus stopped and the conductor declared the final stop of the route.

he came to know that Salem which was once a great state was now nothing but an abandoned city the only thing for civilization was the very little town the place where the bus was right now.

ray got off the bus and tried to stretch out his body it has been a long day for him.

he had been travelling since three in the morning and now it was almost 5 p.m.

he did not have any gadget with him besides a compass and the watch of his mother.

he went to take the look inside the town.

it is really small the entire population would have been around 3000.

Ray took a look around and saw that the town is extremely remote and not at all a happy place

he went further inside and asked a bakery owner for directions.

the owner told him that the place to "explore ' is inside a dense forest, a forest so thick and scary, the bakery owner also mentioned that there was no sense of day and night in the forest there was always a dim bright light in there.

"the light comes in and gets trapped in the day" the shopkeeper added.

ray said thank you to the shopkeeper and as a token of his appreciation ray bought a piece of bread, sure it was rough but he didn't complain.

the road to the forest was 6 and a half kilometres long, it was a long and lonely road that was not even properly built there was nothing but little gravel on the road.

just when ray was headed that way he saw something in the corner, it was pitiful

5 boys that were possibly a year or two older than ray were bullying a 9-year-old small girl! Ray looked at her and walked but just he was about to he heard the girl scream " no! Please leave him ',.

" no can do sugar ' one of the guys with a hunched back said to her while holding a little black puppy up in his hand, the girls took a big stone and went for the hunched guy's hand even though he went back she was able to hit his hand and get the puppy out of his hand, she grabbed the puppy but just then she heard a voice

" damn mirio you are useless' a tall guy that was supposedly their leader stepped out and kicked the girl on his head and said " you know I don't like this and now your friend will suffer ' he said that and grabbed her little puppy from his tail and began to spin him and threw him just when the puppy was about to hit the ground ray hopped and grabbed the puppy in mid-air.

even though he ended up hitting his head up he didn't let a scratch get on the puppy,

it took a while for the ray to stand properly,

ray went and walked beside the five of them to the little girl who was still crying,

he gave her his puppy back with a smile, the little girl was bleeding from her nose, he wiped her nose and gave his puppy nd the bread he had bought and said " it's all right now ' .to that little girl with a warm smile,

the smile that no one had ever shown him since his mother just then the owner of the bakery came looking for the girl.

the owner said thank you to him and invited him to tea at his house.

all five of those boys were watching one of them tried to rush at him but the big one whose name was mitch grabbed his arm and said "not now lemin '.

after ray went to the bakery owner's house for the tea.

while they were having tea the bakery owner whose name was born told him about those 5 boys from early " they are nothing but a bunch of thugs from here this whole town is infected from people like them '.

after they had tea ray left his house and headed for the way out of town at the exit place he saw those 5 standing there their leader mitch stood beside him and said " hold it right there u white bitch ' with saying that he went and took a run at ray, he tried punching him with his right arm ray was shorter than him or rather this mitch fellow was long.

Ray dodged his punch and went back a little, mitch tried to hit him again with a punch this time ray blocked his punch and tossed him right to the ground by locking his right arm " ah' mitch screamed his back hurt by getting struck by a rock when he fell to the ground.

ray stood up and took his pocket knife and kicked him in the guts.

suddenly ray had a scary note in his personality

" any of those who come back at me now I will do more than just kick your guts ' ray said while unsheathing the knife the reaction on his face was so intense it scared all the remaining four of them in an instant.

Ray saw them run in fear after that he went on and told mitch " you are a sick bastard '.

he said that and started walking towards the forest after he reached the forest he sensed someone standing beside him "I know you are following him for a while now you never learn do you ? ' ray said it and turned back " wh- what are you ' ray said it with a scared expression on his face.