CHAPTER 13: Through the village.

He slowly got off the cold, stone ground of the cave and walked up to the object he had spotted. A piece of pink fabric had been placed under a rock, just out of plain sight.

Theo carefully pushed the rock away and picked up the fabric which in fact was a scarf. It still caried some of his mother's scent, though it had faded in the past few days out in the open.

But this meant that at the very least his parents had been here.

He faintly smiled and bound the scarf around his neck so he was sure that he wouldn't lose it. he figured that he should look for more traces of his parents in the mourning. This way he would not wake the others up.

After a few hours Timon took his turn to stand watch and after a few moments of restlessly moving around Theo finally managed to fall asleep.

The moment the first rays of golden sunlight shone through the vines in front of the cave Theo was already trying to wake the others up.

Gwen who had fallen asleep during her turn of standing watch lazily rolled over while completely ignoring Theo's actions.

Getting quite annoyed with Gwen Theo went outside and broke one of the smaller branches of the nearby trees of. This one actually still had some leaves and was still wet from the rain.

Once he got back, he shook the branch above Gwen, what in turn made all the left-over raindrops fall on her.

"What was that for!" she cried out. "I can't even remember the last time I wasn't tired. Just let me sleep for a moment."

"Stop whining. All of us are tired. But in case you forgot. You were already supposed to be awake. Be grateful that all I did was splash some water on your face and not kicking you out of the cave."

"So what? It is not like anything happened. Why do I have to be awake when you clearly already are."

Theo sighed and turned around to put the few things that had fallen out of his bag back in it.

While Theo was busy reorganising his things Timon helped Gwen to get up.

"We need to move this early since everything is still wet outside. This will help to hide our scent from… them."

Gwen bit her lip and stroke some locks of hair that were annoyingly in front of her face to the side. "I know, it's just… I'm sorry. I shouldn't have fallen asleep."

"This time nothing bad happened. And we will make sure that it doesn't happen again. As long as you understand that what you did was dangerous and stupid its fine by me."

Gwen crossed her arms and boldly replied. "And even if one of those things managed to climb up here. Theo would probably have heard it and woken up. So, isn't it pointless for us to stand watch anyways?"

Theo pulled her legs out from underneath her causing her to fall backwards. "I am not your guard dog, dipshit. And who says that I will wake up in time if one of these things comes this far? Until we reach the Greenhunter mansion we can't take risks like that."

"Fine, I already told you I'm sorry." Gwen mumbled while getting up again. "So, are we going or what?"

The small group quickly packed the few things that they had with them and apart from the arrows placed the stuff from the cave back where they had found it.

Even if Theo did not possess a bow at the moment, he felt like he should at least have some arrows at hand in case he came across one again.

After this they made their way out of the cave.

It took them roughly half a day to reach the closest village. Theo had only been there once and all the other information he had about this place came from his parents. But both Gwen and Timon seemed more familiar with this place.

But now there was a poorly build barricade around the village. A lot of doors and windows were broken open.

They walked through the empty streets. their footsteps echoing over the stone road in front of them.

"What happened here?" Timon asked while Theo's hears kept twitching around. He smelled the strange rot like sent along with that of blood all over the place, but it seemed old, and he had no idea where exactly it was coming from.

"Isn't it obvious? Someone saw these things a few hours before they reached this village. And managed to tell them. the people living here tried to keep them out but failed due to their lack of preparation time. And I guess you can kind of put together what happened after that."

They continued walking. Now watching their every step.

"How for is it to the mansion?" Theo whispered in Timon's ear. The smell was becoming denser, and it would not take long before they came across one of these walking corpses again.

"It is just outside of the village. once we leave the last street you should be able to see it in the distance"

Theo nodded and slowed his pace so he would walk at the back of the group.

When they neared the last street, he heard some movement coming from one of the houses. He reached out to Timon and Gwen and spoke on single word. "Run!"

Immediately they all started to run. Gwen couldn't help but look behind them for a single moment. Only to see two twisted figures crawling out of a window. they let out their tortured cries as they managed to reach the streets and started to chase the trio.

Gwen's face grew pale, and she continued to run. Finally, they passed the last house. But to their horror they found more people between the trees. They snapped their neks in their direction and joined the two who were already following them.

Now with no time to waste they perused their run. With every breath they took the twisted figures following them seemed to come closer.

Theo noticed that one was already at arm's reach of Timon. He turned around and pierced the eye of the thing with one of the arrows. It wailed in tormenting pain before it inevitably fell.

Theo had no time to take the arrow back as the horde was quickly approaching. He managed to effortlessly catch up with Gwen and Timon. And finally, the wall around the mansion came into their sight.