I spent my entire day helping everyone packing up. I’m not really into keeping many things so I didn’t take me much time to have my things properly packed on my trailer. Let’s just say that the crucial part of this process is when we are mounting and loading these trailers to the trains. Our circus has our own train, which makes things like this much easier but hell no, if the crazy ring master wants to evacuate on the next day. Tanya’s animal friends are helping too. Their size and strength has been a significant help whenever we are doing things like this. In the evening, I helped Lea, Serena’s younger sister pack up Serena’s costumes and all. Lea is Serena’s total opposite – kind, gentle and very approachable. While these ladies are not blood-related, Serena has already taken Lea as her own sister and she was a bit defensive about it. Lea’s 16 like most of us and Serena is about 27-ish. They came to the circus as kids- Serena, carrying the little Lea who had just started walking.

About Serena’s attitude, I don’t really mind that. While she may display unwanted attitude to us, I can see her compassion towards helping people – even her face does not show it. As to what I know, Serena was a nomad who was left by her family as a child because they can’t take care for her. She grew up homeless and found the baby Lea on the streets. She took Lea as she was reminded of her loneliness and acted as her mom and sister as Lea grew up. About Lea’s name? a necklace was tied on her neck on the day that Serena found her. The necklace indicated three characters: V-3-7. I am not sure if it’s a joke, but Serena told us that she saw the characters upside-down and assumed the baby’s name was L-E-A. So to cut things short, Lea was called ‘Lea’ because of that characters.

Lea’s ability might probably the most convenient power to have but she has been limiting most of its use as she wants to learn how to live normally. According to Trent, Lea’s ability may have always been restrained but Trent’s certain that hers is one of the most powerful ones that we have in our circus. Apart from having a strong Telepathy, Lea possess the strong power of Telekinesis – if it is trained. However, for Lea’s case, she only prefers to use most of her telepathic abilities more than her telekinesis as it requires less effort than telekinesis. As far as I know, Lea can use her telekinesis but she has limits in terms of the size of the object she is trying to move. Anyway, I somewhat feel envious of her as she was gifted with strong capabilities but she refuses to use it in for her convenience. To be honest, I don’t know nor understand why she refuses to use her telekinesis most of the time but I respect her for that.

“Can you help me on the kitchen after this? I would love to have Ed on the kitchen too if that is okay” Lea said, as she pushed the last box on the side of the container. I nodded as a reply.

“Ed, let’s meet at the kitchen if you’re not too busy. Alright?” Lea announced inside our head. As to what I understand, she can easily link the connection between her and the receiver of her message and recently, she was able to learn how to let us use her as a channel to talk to another person.

We met Ed on our way to the kitchen and I helped him with the boxes that he was carrying. As we are about to walk on the darker side of the compound, we saw a huge man, about 7 feet who is slowly walking towards our direction. Lea halted and politely asked the man if he needed anything but he kept walking to our direction. It felt weird as something looks wrong on the man but he kept walking. As expected of Lea, she repeated her question to the man and even stepped forward even if it’s dark and we can’t see the features of the man. I also felt Ed’s curiosity and so I decided to watch the three.

The things look fine until the man was standing near Lea, which gives us enough light to see what he looks like – His face was rotten, he was missing one eye and his skin was gray. The edge of his mouth trickled with blood and he was heavily breathing. He held a headless body of an animal that looks like a rabbit. I saw his jaw dropped and prepared to attack Lea. None of us were acquainted on what to do in events like this but judging from the looks of that man, his intent was hostile. Luckily, Ed was able to grab Lea’s wrist to pull her back to us when the man lounged to grab Lea. The man’s failed attempt to take Lea face-planted him on the ground.

I would like to say ‘Run’, as it was the first thing that came into my mind but the three of us froze. At this point, the man was slowly standing and his groan gave me chills. In this moment, I know that we need to do something – either to defend ourselves or to run. I looked at Ed and saw him picking up a fist-sized rock from the ground which gave me the hint that he preferred a self-defense.

“With all the freaks we have in the circus, this one can easily blend in and we don’t want that” Lea said.

“Why is that? Anyone can help us if the others are here.” Ed inquired Lea.

“Yes. But he is obviously one of those creatures that Trent warned us about. Can’t you see?” Lea answered.

“So, what should we do?” I asked, looking at the Creature who is now preparing to charge at us.

Lea pushed her palms against the air and the creature flew towards nearby tree. It looked shocked but not pained.

“Can you pin him like that until someone comes to help us?” Ed asked Lea.

“I don’t know, but I’ll try” Lea replied. “Go, Ed! I and Gale will handle this” she added.

With no hesitation or question, Ed dropped the stones on his hands and ran to the direction of the largest tent. I took the stones he dropped and readied myself just in case something happens. After a few seconds, the man groaned and started to kick and punch around even if his back is pinned on the tree. With less experience about making anything float or what, I saw Lea’s hand tremble and by the looks on her face, she started to feel uneasy about holding the man on the tree. A few more seconds passed and the man was free of Lea’s telekinesis. I readied myself for an attack but I made sure that Lea was at my back. A few meters from our position, I heard the rustling of the bushes and with our nonsense luck, there came another man that looked almost the same with the ones that we are fighting.

“Oh no” Lea whispered. I felt her grasp on my arm tightened and we slowly walked backwards. Just as everything was about to fall silent, the man from the bush screamed and ran straight to us. With my reflex, I threw the stone in his face when he was near and luckily hit him. He fell on the ground and started shaking. That signaled the other one to run towards us but this time, Lea made some of the stones, about the size of my hands float then telekinetically threw it on the man. He seemed unaffected and continued running so I held Lea’s arm and started running, pulling her along with me. However, Lea resisted and reminded me of the ‘situation’ about the freaks.

“Yea, I know. But what do we do now?” I asked. The panic starts to disrupt my thinking most especially that I know that I don’t have anything to protect myself unlike Lea, who has her powers.

“Someone’s coming!” Lea shouted, pointing in the direction where we came in this area. It was Blanche. She was carrying some moving boxes. We shouted for her helped and luckily, she saw us right away. We ran towards her as fast as we can. She saw and understood what’s happening so she signaled us to split up, and so we did. Blanche knelt then touched the ground with her two hands. Shards of ice spiked up from the ground; it’s not much as it was only about a foot high but it slowed the two creatures from running. The other one’s foot was impaled by a thin shard. He bellowed in response.

Lea pushed the two away from us to keep the distance but they managed to hold on the ice, as if they were really thinking. I heard footsteps at our back followed by a familiar-sounding shout.

“Cover your ears!” Trent shouted. With no second thought, I know what will happen next so I did my best to cover my ears with my palms. Lea and Blanche did the same too. I looked at Trent and saw Serena, Tanya and Ed next to him. Serena took a deep breath and screamed. Her scream was so strong, that It feels like the air around us are ripping. Even though my hands are at my ears, I can still feel the pain on my eardrums. I turned back to see what’s happening to the creatures and saw that the shards of ice where they used to hold on was shattered. They were too stunned to move, giving Tanya a chance to whip her lasso around the two. With one strong pull, Tanya’s lasso pushed and tied the creatures together.

“Blanche, freeze their legs.” Trent commanded. Blanche ran towards the two and touched their legs. While Blanche did her thing, Trent checked us and asked what happened. I told him the story, and before I finished, I saw Serena hugging Lea. I smiled as I saw the siblings, but after they hugged, Serena pinched Lea at her ears and started nagging. Well, as expected – typical Serena. She’s been obsessing with Lea’s safety as we grew up so this moments are quite normal to us. After the fussing and all, Trent told us to go back to our places while he and Tanya cleans up. By means of cleaning up, they will wrap these two in strong ropes or whatever and probably throw them away or kill them any time before we go tomorrow morning. Arthur and Flint came to help Trent, Tanya and Blanche with the clean-up.

“We will talk about this tomorrow. For the mean time, I want you all to take a rest and be ready for tomorrow’s departure” Trent said.

“With these, do you think we can just lay on our mattress and rest like nothing happened, Trent?” Ed started to argue. It the first time that I heard Ed talk like that.

“Edward-“

“No. I can’t. Tell us what is happening” Ed interrupted. “I am tired of all these things that you don’t tell us, and you know that you can’t just keep things like this way. Right?” Ed looked around us. His expression showed that he was looking for some support. I stepped in and went beside Ed. Screw this, I want to know too. With my surprise, Blanche, Flint and Lea went to our side too – their faces are mixed with curiosity and determination.

“Trent, maybe it’s time. You know we’re all in this together. After all, we are family.” Arthur touched Trent’s shoulder.

“But the odds...” Trent replied.

“Odds of what? C’mon Trent. You can rely on us. We are not kids anymore, and we all deserve to know what’s happening.” Ed said with conviction.

Trent closed his eyes, took a deep breath and looked at us. His face is full of concern.

“We’ll start things by cleaning these two up and we will meet at my room. Would that be a good idea?” Trent said. All of us nodded and so we decided to help them with the cleanup. Arthur helped Tanya wrap the creatures and asked Blanche to freeze these ghoul-like men all over so we can throw them on the nearby cliff.

As we were about to go off, we heard another rustling in the scrubs and readied ourselves. Slowly, a figure of a lady came out. As the light touched her skin, we saw that she was normal – I mean, not like the creatures that we just freeze. The lady was on a tattered white patient’s gown. A huge, red logo of an eye was drawn on the right chest of her gown. Her feet were bare and blood was trickling from her forehead. In the absence of a good light, I can still see her green eyes sparkling and right away, I felt something – something that reminded me of that eyes.

She didn’t talk but she stared while she walked towards us. She looks tired and is about to fall. Probably with her last strength, she opened her mouth then she collapsed.