Lifting her sweater wasn't easy. While Nick removed the first aid kit from his backpack, Judy lifted the top. The blood was clearly visible on the bandages. From the kit, Nick removed the scissors and asked her to turn her back on him. The bandage had been secured with duct tape and, to avoid further pain, the scissors would be needed. After cutting the tape, the painful uncoiling of the bandage made Judy close her eyes tightly. When the entire bandage was removed, Nick's already very high fury, fired at an unidentified level on the normal scale. Silence fell on both. Nick disinfected the wounds and put the bandage back around them. If they continued like this, he would lose her. After he was finished, Nick put the first aid kit back in his backpack and Judy put back down the top.
"We have to leave this village and fast!" The fox's voice was steady. Already on his feet, he stretched his paw to help Judy get up. "I guess our story will have to wait a while."
"We'll lose readers."
"I fucking don't care about the readers now. One more tug or fall and you die!"
Shocked, Judy blinked several times at the fox's angry reaction. It was the first time she saw him lose his temper in those extreme. But, in a long sigh, he was right. The newspaper could wait. Her health came first.
"We will go back. I'll alert Alisha and Jack."
Judy took one of her paws to the walkie-talkie in her belt buckle. She removed the device, synchronized it and, by clicking a button next to it, brought it closer to her snout.
"Alisha, Jack, I communicate!"
On the other side there was no answer. Judy insisted again and again. The silence was the answer.
"Damn!" replied Nick, pawing over his head in frustration.
Judy tried again and again, but the answer remained silence.
"Did something happen?"
An hour earlier...
"I told you it wasn't worth it!" With her arms crossed, Alisha hit her foot furiously.
It was already the third house they had tried without any results.
"There's gotten be a damn door that opens!" Jack's patience had also reached its limit.
Suddenly, two crimson butterflies passed by.
"What?"
Confused and surprised to see something alive without being them there, he started to follow the butterflies.
"Jack?" with a confusing expression, Alisha uncrossed her arms and stared at the rabbit walking.
With no sound response, Jack just lifted his paw, signaling her to follow him. Still incredulous, she didn't question and followed him closely.
The butterflies led them to a house deep down the road. Although thousands of years had passed, it was a house that time had forgotten. The fence where she was near, had also passed through the years without being noticed. Next to the house, was a small wooden gate where the butterflies led them.
"Don't go in there, do you?" Alisha hesitated.
"Better to follow them," Jack continued.
He opened the little gate and went in. Even though she hesitated, Alisha decided followed him. Better with him than alone in that end of the world. They found a small garden. Two large trees in each corner of the end of the fence hid a small lake with no fish. But the water was clean and very crystalline.
"Each thing we discover, is another thing that gives me the creeps!" said Alisha, looking at the water like it was something made of evil.
"And there are no more butterflies!" Jack sighed deeply.
"What do you mean, there are no more butterflies?" Vixen's blue eyes met Jack's grayish eyes.
"They disappeared that way!"
With his finger stretched out, he pointed at a small window with railing. Alisha rolled her eyes. Another dead end. Curiously, he approached the small window and, on tiptoe, looked inside. Surprise, an empty storage room. Returning to his original position, and disillusioned, he straightened up again to talk to the Vixen. But what he saw made him petrified.
On the stairs, Judy gave up trying to communicate with his friends. Without any answer, she put the device back in her belt and looked, with disappointment, at Nick, who sighed. Panic was present. What could have happened to his friends not to respond? Before putting back the walkie-talkie, Judy found that it had a net.
"We'll come back to them. Maybe they forgot to turn on the walkie-talkie."
He knew it was a lie. He had given them the device himself. He had double-checked whether it was working properly. But losing their cool at that moment would only disorient them even more. Backpacking, Nick asked Judy to give him the paw. He wouldn't even let her walk alone again. After what had happened, he would be more cautious. Suddenly, an insistent tlim tlim began to sweat in the distance. Their attention was put on their fronts. The sound was coming from the other side of the bridge.
"Nick?" with an alarmed voice, Judy's claws stuck firmly in his arm. Without knowing why, an overwhelming fear haunted her.
That tlim tlim was the sound of the staff hitting the ground repeatedly. A melody began to form. That melody was a horror in Judy's ears. A tremendous horror that she didn't know what it meant, but she had the feeling that it wasn't good at all. The drastic change in the expression and figure of the bunny, put all of Nick's senses on alert. Without the light from the flashlight, the moonlight was not enough to recognize what was coming.
"Hide!" Judy's trembling voice whispered to him.
"What?" he turned his attention to the side to meet some violet eyes trapped in the infinity of the darkness, but with a look of fear that he had never seen in her before.
"I don't know, but please, hide."
Without questioning her, he obeyed. Making an effort, he pulled her up and ran up the stairs, thinking that they would reach the top and find a hiding place. But the stairs had no end.
DAMN!
He cursed all the holy gods and furiously sought a place where they could hide without being seen. When he saw some shrubs on his left side behind a stone. It would be the perfect hiding place for the moment. Without delay, they would hide behind the stone. The tlim tlim was nearby. Thick voices echoed a pleasant melody in Nick's ears, but terrible in Judy's ears. So much so that the poor bunny had to carry her paws to her ears, pressing as hard as possible to cover her ears so as not to hear that thing. It is in vain when someone cries out in terror. A crying for help, that made her ears wriggle and her violet eyes witness a vision she didn't even want to see in dead.
The pain overwhelmed her. Her eyes began to open very slowly, until her vision became a little clearer.
"Ouch!
The word escaped her lips. One of her paws, went instinctively to the place where it hurt. When she removed her paw from her forehead, she found that she was bleeding. She did not remember. All she remembered was seeing Jack with his back peeking out of that little window, and suddenly it all went dark.
A tinkle alerted her to the echo. The little candle in a far corner, was the only source of light. The darkness accompanied her. Alisha tried to move, but something held her back. Sitting on the stone floor, she took her two paws to her ankle, recognizing that she had been chained by one of her feet and to a place she couldn't see.
"What the hell!"
Trying in vain to free herself, she decided to look, with eyes to see, where she really was. It was big, she knew it. With each noise, the echo would take time to disappear. The whole place was made of wood walls and ceiling. Only the ground was different. Cold stone. Windows didn't even exit and the only way out and in, was the big red wooden door with two locks.
Where the hell she was? Where is Jack?
Frustrated, she hit both fists on the floor. She hated being alone, and even wishing for all the gods not to stay behind, but fate made things a little different.
To be continued…
