399 In the trees

They found a small covering, it looked like a dent inside the mountain which made it nice for cover, but it didn't go in two deep. They stayed here while one person would keep watch on the entrance. The reason why they chose to do this, was just in case Quinn would soon be out after them, but as time went past, it was becoming more apparent that he might not be coming out anytime soon.

Still, everyone thought it would be a good time for them to rest before setting off again. They had just gone through quite a draining experience, after all.

"So, the castles and everything, this really is the vampires' home planet?" Layla asked.

"Yeah, looks like it, and judging by the size of the city, it seems like there's quite a lot of them as well." Vorden replied, as he stood just outside the small exit of the cave watching the entrance where they had come from.

"So what is the plan?" Cia said, sitting and leaning her head on Layla's shoulder.

"It might be possible that Quinn has already left through another exit." Logan said. "Although we could wait for him, he did say to go and try to find out as much information as possible. The mountain is quite large and as soon as he leaves, he might also head straight for the vampire settlement. We're only wasting our time here if we stay any longer."

The others sat in silence as they thought about it for a while. They honestly all knew what they needed to do, but still they just weren't quite ready for it yet. Judging by how Quinn had been acting in school and this whole time here, he was recently trying to rush through everything. The others couldn't really blame him for this either, as they had a month in total to find out where Fex and Peter was, come up with a plan to save them, and safely return back to the school.

It sounded like a lot of time, but it really wasn't at all. Especially when they had no starting point and no information to go on. They were in the unknown.

Using the tools in Logan's backpack, he was able to give out some blankets for the others to sleep in. They took it in turns as they slept. It looked like for now the mountain area was quite safe. At least the outside area of it. So far they hadn't seen any signs of life, including beasts or a sort that came close to it. But they couldn't say the same for the forest as they had yet to enter.

"Okay everyone, have your spray bottles and masks ready." Logan said. Apart from Layla, the others took out the spray bottles with the red liquid inside. Logan demonstrated giving two sprays to himself, and the others followed. To them, they could smell no difference.

Layla also couldn't tell the difference, which meant it was most likely an ability that only the vampires possessed. And was not part of the subclasses abilities.

"With the masks, just keep them on you for now. It's okay if they see your face, we are not here to cause trouble anyway. But if something happens, we get split up, or anything of the sort. Then we will be able to communicate using these." Logan explained.

"Did you have to say that?" Layla said. "You know you just jinxed us, right?"

With everything packed and done, the group took one last look at the cave entrance they had exited from, hoping Quinn would be there, but still, there were no signs of him. Closing her eyes, Layla could still faintly feel him, so she decided to continue walking forward, knowing he was okay.

As they entered the forest, just like when inside the cave, they were on high alert. This in itself was mentally draining. Perhaps a large snake, or maybe even something worse than the wendigos were in here, but they knew it needed to be done, so they carried on moving with caution together.

As they continued to walk, they saw plants that they had never seen before, strange large multicoloured mushrooms. Trees that bended and twisted in strange ways. It was similar to a beast planet, but for some reason, they just felt like everything looked ten times scarier.

"The city shouldn't be too far ahead. Do you think we'll get in okay?" Vorden asked.

"From what I saw, there didn't seem to be any gate or anything of that sort situated there." Logan said. "Perhaps they are confident in their strength, or maybe this is the first time their base has even been found without them knowing about it."

"And, what happens if they find out we aren't actually vampires?" Cia asked as she took a gulp.

"Taking a guess, perhaps we would be put in a class container like the last one." Logan replied. "Fed to some creatures or pets the vampires own. Maybe our blood will even be used for food. I wonder if my blood tastes good?"

"Would you please stop going into details." Layla replied seeing Cia was now feeling a bit woozy.

"Maybe we shouldn't ask questions, we don't want to know the answer to." Vorden replied.

Just then, the sound of leaves could be heard rustling behind them. In an instant, they turned around, but Vorden chose to not draw his weapons out. This was because the sound wasn't just coming from one direction.

The rustling of leaves were coming from multiple directions. As they looked at what was happening, all they could see was black figures moving from tree to tree at an incredibly fast speed, and when it finally reached them, each of them was ready for a confrontation. A few seconds later though, and nothing happened.

The small black shadows that could be seen from the trees continued heading forward, heading towards the city.

"What were they?" Cia whispered to Layla.

"I think it's best if we stop talking about our situation now that we are getting closer to the vampire settlement." Vorden said. "We all know how good Quinn's hearing is, there are others who could be the same."

Vorden didn't say it outright, but Logan understood why he had brought it up. It was a good chance that the things that were moving about in the trees, were vampires.

The group continued to walk forward for a little bit, this time not saying anything to each other, but then, the rustling of leaves sounded again. When looking behind them, only with two of the trees this time could they see the leaves rustling from one onto the next.

They were heading towards the group and Logan continued walking while signalling to everyone that they should do the same.

"I told you we would be late!" A voice shouted out loudly. "I can't believe you wanted to try to look for something better."

"It's not my fault. When we all go in like that they all run away, well hopefully this is a nice enough gift for our first day." Another male voice said.

As the two boys jumped from tree to tree, a certain smell managed to enter one of their noses, when looking down they could see a group of kids.

"Hey, do you think they know what time it is?" One of them asked.

"What, walking at that speed, of course not!" The other replied.

Suddenly, in front of the group out from the trees, two figures dropped directly in front of them. Both of them were male and looked to be around the same age as them. One of them was black-skinned in color with a crew cut named Fred. While the other had long wavy hair that split both ways, going down to his shoulders named Snow.

They looked like an odd pair of friends, but that didn't matter right now.

"Hey, do you know what time it is, if you guys don't hurry up you're going to be late." Fred said.

The others didn't reply to it, knowing that if they said something wrong or suspicious, it could become troublesome. Hence they decided to leave it to Logan instead.

"Late…" Logan said, and nothing else.

What he was pleased about, though, was it seemed like they hadn't been found out and the spray had worked.

"Yes late, they'll kill you if you're late!" Snow shouted, looking concerned.

The others standing at the back were getting more frightened by the words. "Kill".

"Yeah, the teachers will kill us!" Fred said. "It's the first day of school after all."

****

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