At first, seeing the Dreadlands at night doesn't seem that different from what it was in the morning, I thought as I peered through a window. That is, until Mave stopped us in our tracks, just before we open the door, that I assume would lead outside.
"Wear these," She handed us both a pair of masks and goggles to match. The goggles looked like swimming goggles but sturdier and bulkier than most, it's a black color with the lenses a tinted shade of black. The masks, wrapped around the entire face, covering the mouth and nose, there was something like a vent to the side so we don't suffocate to death. She then handed us a weird disk and told us to wear it as a necklace. "It always rains at night, the intensity varies. I can assure you though that the intense heat and toxins in the soil, plus the acid in the cold rain, it's basically a death sentence to be out there."
She gave the two of us a meaningful look, something that says that we shouldn't look forward to even finding, Hayden alive. I looked back up to Anthony, who didn't look bothered at all and was just determined, his katana strapped onto his torso.
Mave sighed, "Let's go, the disks are designed to protect the wearer from any sort of precipitation, so we should be good." We stepped outside, and the gadgets that we wore activated themselves, instantaneously. The goggles gave out night vision and the mask didn't even feel like it was there, I was still breathing perfectly fine. Mave leads the way, keeping us in the shadows as we walked alongside the cliff. From where we were, I can hear an increased amount of shrieks and rasps.
From afar, I saw a humanoid being come out of the ground, it was writhing and twitching like the rest of them. But there was something different about him, he looks a bit shiny."HIDE!" Mave pulled us behind a stone pillar, the shrieking continued as if it had two voices. Only when it faded into the distance, did we had the courage to come out. "Wraiths, we don't know how they mutated to be like that but they have incredibly sharp senses, which means, yes, they can see." She looked around before continuing, "They projectile vomit, the toxins in that will melt your skin off in a split second so be very careful."
"Wait, won't these disks protect us from..."
"Nope, the toxins are strong enough to destroy that invincible field."
With the new-found knowledge, I planted my feet on the ground, not sure if we should continue with this in the first place. Sure, Hayden saved us and all but is it really worth it to risk our lives like this for him?
"Having second thoughts? We could go back in now and-"
"Nope, I'm looking for him and that's that." I looked up at Anthony and was a bit choked back by his determination, but nonetheless, I gulped back a tiny bit of my fear and nodded to what my brother said.
"No, I'm good, Let's go find him." Mave rolled her eyes with a frown as we continued onwards with our journey. Weirdly enough, we passed by little metal huts that looked like they served as houses, but they had holes in them, dozens of holes.
"When people started getting exiled, those served as their housing in this hellscape," Mave said as she looked at one of the metal huts, they were triangular, and there were only one every 10 feet. It's like these people liked to live in seclusion. "But they eventually found out that it isn't so safe, the wraiths attacked them and nothing's left of them now but bones."
I averted my gaze quickly after hearing that, making sure to stick to the wall as much as possible as we traversed the rocky landscape. Finally, after quite a bit of walking, I finally had it, to think that it had to take this long. "Where are we headed exactly?" The two of them both stopped in their tracks, our attention slightly went to the wraith a few meters away from us.
"Well, I didn't expect him to have gone too far, I thought we would've found a body by now."
"He's not dead," Anthony said stoically, not looking towards either of us.
"We don't know that,"
"Well whatever condition he may be in, is there any way we can search for him or are we just gonna walk around till we drop dead ourselves?" We've been walking around for who knows how long and we haven't come across anything, and these wraiths aren't showing signs of going anywhere.
"Well, we can't just give up," Anthony said.
"This trench is just one straight path so we'll come across him eventually," Mave said, seemingly positive for once. In silence, we continued forward, dodging wraiths and merged, and deformed, creatures on the way. Finally, after what felt like hours of aimlessly walking forwards I was just able to barely see the end of the trench a steep wall that's leading up to the surface.
That's when we heard it, The screams and the plea of none other than Hayden himself, add the growling and rasping of a creature of some kind. Anthony full sped forwards, leaving me and Mave to chase after him, and we came upon the sight of Hayden aways above the trench situated on the wall where there were about ten to twenty of the toxic creatures, all trying to reach up to him. Hayden crawling upwards a bit from how his arms were trembling, I'd say he was tired and is about to just fall. Anthony surged forward slashing at everything in sight, the creatures he cut freezing and shattering upon contact with the floor.
Mave and I stood by as Anthony hacked at the creatures with no second thoughts, I looked up at Hayden as he just stared down in awe at what was happening. Unfortunately for us, the noise attracted the attention of a few straggling wraiths behind us and they were heading towards our location with beady eyes, and mouths dripping with acid.
"Alright, it's about time you use that flashlight boy," Mave said moving backward and away from the oncoming wraiths.
"Well, how the hell do I do that?" I pulled out the flashlight from where I kept it, dodging to the side as a toxic spit went past my head and hit the floor behind me.
"Just flash it at them!" She said and I did as I was told, with trembling hands, I turned the flashlight on and pointed it towards the four wraiths advancing towards us, the light was so strong it made it look like it was daylight. Under the intense heat of the light, the wraiths burned and melted, their ashes mixing in with the toxins of their body leaving a mess goop in front of us. I turned of the flashlight and stuffed it back into my pocket, fearing that I may end up like those wraiths.
We turned back to Anthony, who was just finishing up the las of the creatures, leaving a pile of frozen body shards on his feet, as he sweats from the exhaustion. Hayden slides down slowly from the top, he eyes puffy and red as he looked up at Anthony,
"Thanks," He said is so quiet that I almost wasn't able to catch it.
"You are an idiot, What made you think that going out here on your own and just casually spend the night was a good idea?" Anthony said with a poker face, Hayden was looking away now, his eyebrows furrowed.
"No, I just-"
"whatever," Anthony walked away with me following right behind him, I looked back and saw Mave urging Hayden to come with, the latter hesitated but soon followed Mave as we went the same path we came. Nothing was uttered between the four of us, the awkward silence only filled by the noises of the creatures that we pass by. I occasionally heard people screaming on the surface, but Mave just waved it off and said that it was nothing. They did say that curiosity killed the cat, so I pushed it to the dark recesses of my mind and did my best to forget about it.
Anthony didn't look too pleased even as we got back to the base, he left the three of us and went ahead to wherever he pleased. The three of us who were left went ahead to the main house, silently, just like how the rest of our night went.
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