Chapter nine:
A Griffin and Manticore stand in their way making the man gap in shock and with a scared look.
The blonde glares at the two beasts. "I need to get help for Near!" His broken voice tries to reason with the beasts. "Let us through before he dies!" He slightly chokes on a sob since he has no other tears to cry right now.
The Griffin pauses not looking viciously at them but the Manticore raises it's paw to slash at the blonde.
"Look out!" The man calls seeing what is about to happen. He jumps in the way of the Manticore's attack letting himself get hit instead of the blonde boy.
Meanwhile Rodger and some of the teachers have arrived at the forest heading inside to begin their search for the missing orphans. They call the three's names a they search.
"Mello!" Rodger calls looking at the ground for any sign of anything that may help lead him to at least one of the boys. "Matt!" He tries calling another's name. "Near! If any of you can hear us please come to us or let us know where you are!" He continues his search as their team of search and rescue head deeper into the forest.
After a little bit of searching they come across something.
"Rodger!" A teacher calls Rodger over who quickly goes over to the teacher.
"What is it? Did you find something?" He asks hopefully as he arrives to the teacher's side.
The teacher shows Rodger a camera with blood and dust on it. "I found this. Seems like someone dropped it."
Rodger notices the small N engraved on the camera and his eyes widen. "That's Nears camera!" He says rather worriedly. "Let's hope they stuck as a group and that they aren't far off. Keep it safe for now and we'll review whatever footage it has later." He says turning to continue the search for the three.
"Mello!"
"Near!"
"Matt!"
The teacher's and Rodger's voices echo throughout the forest as they continue searching.
Rodger can right now only hope and pray the boys are alright and at least alive.
"Rodger!" The youngest female teacher calls to him. "We've found another camera! It appears to be Mello's!"
Then a little ways in the opposite direction from Near's camera was found another teacher calls that he found Matt's camera.
All three camera's had at least a little blood on them and were definitely dusty with some scratches here and there.
"We need to find them and someone call nine one one for back up plus at least one of them is obviously hurt. Lets move!" Rodger commands heading off in one direction.
A teacher calls nine one one on her cell while the others split up to keeps searching for the three.
Rodger spots something on the ground that doesn't look normal and he moves closer finding that it is a puddle of blood that is starting to dry and clot. He holds his breath unconsciously upon finding it and he glances around him quickly letting himself breath so he doesn't pass out. He keeps looking still trying to figure out where the boys' could be and what the strange claw marks he keeps seeing are. "MELLO! NEAR! MATT!" He calls hoping that at least one will respond as he keeps searching following the trail of blood to the den. He stands at the entrance for a moment not wanting to scare any of them if any of them are in there. "Hello? Matt? Near? Mello? Are you in here?" He moves inside finding nothing but the spot where whoever's injured obviously had been resting.
There is no sign of them other than that so he leaves going out to look for any other sign that could lead him as to where they could have gone.
"Rodger there's a car parked on the side of the road with its hazards on. It's locked and no one is inside." A teacher informs him through the walkie-talkie.
"Alright thank you. Everyone keep an eye out for anyone in case they have something to do with the boy's disappearances." Rodger says in his walkie-talkie.
"Ten four." The teacher replies back then the search continues.