Things only started to feel real once Rubie had her feet placed in the swaying grass on the edge of the forest. Crazy, this was all just crazy— what teens spent their time doing something like this?

Smoke rose high above the tops of trees, it almost looked like a beacon, taunting them from up in the sky. People their age were out every night; hanging out downtown or running around the carnival, soaking in the Lunaris atmosphere. Rubie was fine with exploring old buildings and urban structures, but something about these woods had always rubbed her the wrong way now.

YV stood to her left, warming up and stretching his muscles as if he was expecting to outrun a bear tonight. Dawn was leaning against a trees. To her horror, just dressed in a t-shirt and jeans in the cold weather. And Mitzi strayed off to her right, wiping off dirt from her lens with her cardigan. Just looking at all of them was enough to set a pit in her stomach. Poking around the woods this time of night was already bad enough, but with these people…?

“Was the giant camera a need?” Dawn cocked their head to the apparatus in Mitzi’s hand, eyes so scornful Rubie didn’t need to look at them to understand how they felt.

“Were the cigarettes a need? Goodness, like we didn’t have enough smoke up in the sky already.” She raised a brow at them, “Besides, if we do end up stumbling upon evidence wouldn't it be wise to, like, actually capture it this time?”

“I mean, yeah. But…” YV stopped mid-stretching his forearm, a funny look on his face. Mitzi picked up on his hesitance immediately, angling her irritation at him instead. “But what?”

“But, like— aren’t you gonna… you know?” He pointed to the camera and shrugged with a sheepish expression trying so hard to remain courteous. Mitzi furrowed her brows. “No. I dunno, YV! Why don’t you tell me.”

It was clear she was agitated, the late hour must have been getting to her. YV mumbled, trying to figure out how to phrase his question in the least offensive way possible, but that was when Dawn cut in with an ear-grating scoff.

“He’s asking if you’re gonna monetize our suffering, ‘Mim-itzi’” 

Rubie stopped trying to tune out their argument at that point, dragged back into paying attention at the sound of an unfamiliar nickname.

“What?? No!” Mitzi blew up right then and there, irritation clear on her face as she sighed. “Do you even know me? This is the only camera I have with night vision, okay? Don't get ahead of yourself. Ugh…”

“Sorry, how are we even supposed to monetize this?” Rubie voiced her thoughts aloud, accidentally breaking the fight off before any of them could think of continuing it. 

“..Oh—” Mitzi pulled her eyes off of the others, almost like reeling herself back to reality. “Oh! You don’t know about my channel, do you? Uh— well I make videos online and stuff, with this camera but…” She gestured to the giant camera slung around her neck. “I’m not recording this for that. We need proof. Hard, clear proof. If we’re gonna make our claims. I… Just thought I’d at least have a recording running tonight… Just in case.”

She cleared her throat, and once again the reality of their situation dawned on her. Silence encroached upon their little group, the type that didn’t constitute nor solicit any further sound or action from anyone. 

“Yeah, uh— that’d be good.” Rubie let her breath escape from her chest in a sigh. “Thanks, Mitzi…”

Mitzi opened her mouth, about to say something, but shut it a second later. Reciprocating her thanks to Rubie with a simple nod instead.

• • •

The further they trudged through the dark, the more it seemed like this entire thing was a lost cause. Absolutely nothing had caught their attention so far and while the pillar of smoke was still there, it didn’t seem like they were getting any closer to finding its source. This entire stupid mission seemed impossible, and it wasn’t really because of the woods anymore. 

“Agh! God- did a bird just shit on my jacket?” YV squealed from behind Rubie, snapping her awake from her daze. “…No, that was probably just residue water from a tree-” Mitzi answered him, the last bit of her sentence was warped into a yawn. “Rain’s been picking up recently… Plus birds don’t really hang around campus.”

“Oh, so you're saying I’m overreacting??” His voice spiked with drama, Rubie had no idea it was possible for YV to sound so bratty.

“Duh. You never know how to just let things be— a bird shat on you, what’s the big deal?” Dawn’s apathetic tone grew louder over the crunching of dead leaves beneath their feet. “You used to walk around with blood on your collar, I know for sure your ass can’t care less about poop on your jacket.”

”Jesus, Dawn— genuinely what is your problem??” YV snapped back at him, going off on a tangent that Rubie personally had none of the energy to keep up with.

She tried to focus on the smoke and the budding warm light she was starting to see in the distance, they were almost there. She heard Mitzi sigh a moment later, “If something happens and my recording’s messed up by your stupid argument I’m seriously gonna throw hands-“

“My stupid argument!? Oh, please do not lump me in with this jerk!” YV argued back almost instantly, the barbed edge in his voice growing more and more prominent. 

Dawn laughed, “Yeah, I’m the jerk. Because I totally didn’t-“

“Shut up, Dawn! Shut up! Whatever you’re gonna say I don’t wanna fucking hear it!” YV cut in before Dawn could finish their sentence, raising his hands to cup over his ears. Dawn laughed again, and despite Mitzi’s quiet pleas for the two of them to shut up, they continued to provoke him.

There came a moment where YV had fully stopped in his tracks, ticked off so bad by the incessant noise behind him he snapped a twig and chucked it right at Dawn— Rubie paused to watch it all happen, naturally, but in her exhaustion she could barely care enough to pry them apart like misbehaving cats.

”What the hell??” Surprisingly, it was Mitzi who reacted first. Finding herself stuck between Dawn and YV, the sharp twig had hit her instead. And while it hadn’t nicked her skin the look of irritation on her features was enough to paint a picture of her mood. “Dude, if you’re gonna fight leave me out of it, come on! You two are such-“

But she paused, and just then Rubie caught the second something else took over her frustration. Her eyes went wide, gaze fixated on something beyond them and in the reprieve of silence they’d created in her moment of shock, Mitzi stuck her head out to look further down the path.

“H-hold on.” She said, slipping out from between their friends, the camera back in her hands as she tapped Rubie on the shoulder. “Come on- light the way.” Rubie stood still for a second before snapping to action.

”What?” Rubie asked her, anxiously trying to follow where Mitzi’s eyes were fixed. “What is it? Did you see something?”

“I… I guess? I don’t know, I smell something weird. Don’t you?” She turned to look at her, confused. Rubie shook her head. “N-no, I guess not.”

“Wait—“ YV spoke up, poking his head back into the conversation. Mitzi turned to look at him, all the frustration on her face gone in favour for a curious, if not a hopeful stare. “No, no- it can’t be…”

“What? God— what can’t be? What are all of you being so damn cryptic for?” Dawn complained, practically hissing out their words. “Yeah… YV what are you talking about?” Now Rubie was asking him, and underneath what light had shone from the moon Rubie watched his tense expression shift softer.

“It… It smells like-“

Before he could say anything, all four of them heard something squelch beneath YV’s foot. Loud, unnatural, almost like he was stepping in marinated meat in a puddle on the ground. As she looked down, shining her light on what it was, Rubie had never felt so stupid in her life. 

That smell, that invasive, overwhelming metallic scent. How could she miss that? On the ground, muddled with leaves and dirt, was a crimson red pool of fresh blood. It was concentrated all in one spot, but when she dragged her flashlight higher she realised the pool turned into a trail, one that kept going, and going, and going, and-

They were following the blood frantically now, arguments swapped out for focused silence as they pushed through bushes and trees all in an effort to keep on the trail. Rubie had no idea how long had passed of them, breathless in the woods, running after the blood, but soon something else had caught her attention.

She was still at the head of the group, so perhaps the distant sounds of melodic chants had only alerted her. But she stopped dead in her tracks the moment she recognised those voices— they were loud, like dozens of people had coagulated into some wild choir. And she knew she’d heard it somewhere else before. The hellish glow of the fire was right up ahead, and the blood trail led straight to it.

It was clear to everyone what this was, and for a second it felt like all four of them had been rooted directly to the soil, unable to move. YV managed snapped out of it first, moving towards the fire like a madman.

“Are you crazy?” Mitzi whispered, latching helplessly onto his sleeve. “This is enough— we’ve seen enough! Can’t we just go home??” 

YV snagged his sleeve out of her grasp harshly, but his expression faltered when he faced her. 

“It’s not enough evidence.” Dawn said instead. His words directed at Mitzi. “We all know that blood won’t be enough to verify what we’re gonna claim.” She sighed knowingly, about to argue something back but her voice had fallen flat. In a last ditch effort she looked to Rubie, hopeful that she’d have something reassuring to say. 

But Rubie froze. She knew that whatever was awaiting her at the end of that blood trail could not have been good, but curiosity pawed at the inside of her chest. Her mind had always been her enemy, and this time around, things weren’t so different. It was no longer a question— she needed to see what was on the other side, if not for her own curiosity then for the chance to pin clear evidence on their conspiracy. She mumbled an apology before she took a step forward, watching the colour drain from Mitzi’s face in dread. They had to do it. They just had to.

The view was starting to get clearer, she could see more now that they were inching ever closer to the main attraction. The scorching heat of the flames burned the autumn air hot as she quietly tread across the forest floor. The smell was unbearable, like a mix of rotting flesh and urine.

The chants were the exact same as the ones they’d heard on Opening Night, that much was clear, but there was something different about them now- the myriad of voices rose and fell to a tune, the intonation in the way they all spoke almost made it seem like they were singing, hooded individuals circled around the bonfire and it didn't help that off to the side Rubie could see something else— a group of figures banging on drums and shaking bells. 

All of this couldn’t have looked less staged. It was just too bizarre to begin to understand- this stuff only ever happened in movies and books. What was it doing here? What was it doing out in Willowfield?? 

The more she undressed the scene with wide eyes, the worse it became. By the fire, perched up on stakes, were the dead and severed remains of a forest deer. Its torso was cut open, guts hung across stakes like party banners, hooves chucked across the ground in trails of its own blood, and for all to gawk at was it’s perfectly preserved head, so harshly shoved onto a pike that the tip of the wooden stake broke through and out of its skull. She couldn’t have been the only one to believe that in that very moment, the deer’s black eyes were staring straight at them.

She couldn’t help but feel the urge to scream, to turn back and start running— to do anything else but stay put and stay quiet. But the sounds of 2 figures close by had repressed all human impulse. Two men within earshot had crashed onto a fallen tree trunk, using it as a makeshift bench. She cowered back behind foliage, praying to every God that this was all a dream.

“—Recent wishes have been so mundane, haven’t they? When was the last time something interesting happened around here” The first one said to the other, who shrugged. “Opening Night was pretty interesting. Those kids looked horrified.”

Rubie had to force herself to bite back a reaction of any sort. Knowing damn well who they were talking about now.

The first one laughed, gleefully, almost. “Oh god! The looks on their faces! Oh, I felt so bad for them. If only kids these days knew about all we do to keep Willowfield safe.”

“Oh, totally. It’s horrible what came of Ataraxia, huh? We have to hide ourselves just to continue existing.”

”Well, it's not like it went any better the last time the town found out we did something they found weird.” The second one paused, silent for a moment. And Rubie held her breath. “When was that?” He asked, and the other tilted his head.

”Wait— that’s right! You weren’t there, were you? The last time we offered up a mortal vessel for Mother was when the Michaud’s gave up their daughter. So many people got on her case it forced the Captain to reassess it-”

After that her mind went blank. It felt like an eternity before she mustered up the strength to move.

Her mind couldn’t listen into any of it anymore. Something was wrong. Rubie knew, she knew, that the Michaud’s only had one child, one daughter. ‘Kiana Michaud, their angel, their saviour.’ It was written on her headstone— what did they mean by ‘gave up their daughter’? Rubie’s stomach churned, uneasy.

“Kiana…?” 

A soft whisper, barely audible from her left. YV’s voice was as wrecked as her mind was. There was fear interlaced with the way he spoke, green eyes wide with deceptively soft panic as the distant fire lit up the dread on his face.

“But she’s…Kiana’s-”

Dead. She died 6 years ago.

They all looked at eachother, miraculously all four of them had acted at once, in time, in the pace of their joint heartbeats. Kiana Michaud was a name none of them ever wanted to bring up again, and yet now the very mention of it had driven them all to the same breaking point. She couldn’t hear anything, she couldn’t smell the blood and smoke, she couldn’t even feel the heat of the nearby fire pounding on her skin anymore. All she wanted in that moment was to erase the image of the lost little girl that had her mind in a chokehold, so at the very least she wouldn’t be slowed down by the gut-wrenching memory of her.

She only woke up from the grips of her own delusion the moment she saw something hit Dawn on the back of their head. She watched as they bit back a scream of pain, turning around to the source of the pebble that’d hit them only to go wide-eyed at whatever it was that they saw. Someone was behind them. And for a second she felt her heart drop. 

Trouble. There was trouble right behind them. They were all bound to die here weren’t they? They were going to be next, sacrificed or whatever to the group of people they’d just uncovered. They were-