Upon reaching what Leo assumed to be halfway, Kaira suddenly stopped and looked around.

‘You alright?’ Dorian asked, adding his eyes to the search party.

‘I … I don’t think so. Can you guys hear that?’

‘Hear what?’ Bailey asked, looking at them.

‘Exactly. I can’t hear a thing. Even the wind chimes aren’t making any noise.’

Leo looked up the hill and strained his ears. She was right. The entire hillside was now covered in an eerie silence. Not even the wind seemed to be moving as they stood statuesque in the middle of nowhere.

‘We’re sitting ducks,’ said Dorian.

‘Let’s just keep going. We’re nearly there,’ Leo whispered, continuing up the hill.

‘We're also nearly home,’ Bailey muttered.

Black shapes seemed to move in the areas their eyes could not see. Their heavy breathing only worsening as they tried to control the only sound amongst the utter silence. Time itself seemed to stand still as the four of them wandered alone, their only friend being the moon that guided them, but even that started to desert them as clouds drifted in and shrouded it in their misty grip.

Leo looked at his friends as he walked, and though none of them dared to say it, he could see fear in their eyes.

‘You guys know you don’t have to come with me. You’ve all come far enough.’

‘Like we’re going to leave you out here alone. Let’s just get this over and done with so we can get back to bed. Tonight, I’m sleeping with the light on,’ Bailey said without slowing.

A fallen gate half blocked the entrance to the land around the windmill, and the rotting wood crumbled at the slightest of touches as they navigated it.

‘Well of course there's fog,’ Kaira sighed, holding her hands up towards the last leg of their journey.

A faint white fog had rolled in to shroud the fields around the windmill. In the absence of the wind, the fog hung in mid-air and swirled around their ankles as they stepped through it.

‘I don’t want to say it, but …’ Bailey started.

‘I feel it too,’ Leo interjected.

They stood back-to-back, their eyes covering every angle around them. Though none of them said it, they all knew that they felt the same inescapable feeling.

Something was out there.

Something was watching them.

‘We're nearly there. Let’s go,’ Leo almost persuaded himself, as they were only a hundred feet or so short of the windmill.

As Leo stepped forward, the wind picked up, producing delicate clinks from the wind chimes. Each of the hairs on Leo’s neck stood on end, as if trying to pull him back towards the safety of the house. But they carried on towards the uncertainty of the windmill.

A noise came from the sky above, but upon looking up they found nothing there.

Their pace quickened, as did the urgency of the clangs from the chimes as the wind blew harder, forcing them to use their arms as shields as they broke into a run.

Slowly, swirls of fog began to rise from the ground as the mist rolled like waves either side of them, causing the path to become apparent.

Another sound broke through the air above, and as Leo peeked above his guarding arm, still nothing came into sight.

‘What the hell’s going on?’ Kaira called, holding out an arm and brushing her hand through the banks of fog.

‘I’ve no idea. We just need to get inside!’ Leo shouted as he ran to the door.

Leo immediately tried the flaking golden handle, his heart hammering against his chest. His friends pounded their fists against the wood as the wind got even harder, forcing them against the door.

Suddenly, the wind withdrew and a howling came from behind them. Leo looked at his friends and saw that they were thinking the same as him. Whatever had been watching them, whatever had been flying above them as they climbed the hill, whatever it was, was here.

‘Look,’ Kaira murmured, nodding at the door.

Leo followed her gaze. Amongst the flaking white paint were more scratched markings. The word Libero had been etched into the door in both large and small lettering, covering almost every inch.

They had found it, Leo thought to himself.

As he went to say something to his friends, Leo found that they had already turned around, each of them petrified by what they saw. With great trepidation, Leo began to turn one foot at a time until he faced the same way.

Fog covered most of the ground in a sheet of white, though it was broken up in the centre as it swirled and rose towards the sky.

Leo reached out and held onto Kaira’s hand as he followed the direction of the spinning fog to be greeted by an all too familiar sight. There, floating in the sky above them and glowing from within the darkness, were those unrelenting yellow eyes.

Gradually lowering towards them, the eyes were fixated upon Leo, except Leo was distracted by something he had not seen during their previous encounters. This time, he could see how it was that the creature could move so swiftly and hold itself so steadily when inside a tornado. For reaching into the sky behind the eyes were a pair of large, white feathered wings.

Gusts of wind blew in their direction as the thing beat its wings to hover mid-air, causing them to raise their hands to protect themselves from the dust and mud that flew towards them like tiny bullets. Rhythmic claps came from the choir of wind chimes around them with each beat of the creature’s wings.

Leo watched as it brought itself to a controlled landing. With a final wingbeat, it sent the fog back into the darkness, and the wind chimes crashed together one last time.

Only able to make out the outline of whatever had just come from the skies, Leo tried to piece it all together in his head. White wings. A head. What looked like arms and legs as well.

Leo shook his head in disbelief.

It could not be.

‘Welcome, Leo. A long time coming it has been. My name is, Devolo Aldwyn.’