Just read. You already know something's going to happen.
I go and grab one last cinnamon roll before we all head out the door.
Dang, I forgot how cold it was tonight. Well, at least every part of me is covered except my head now that I have gloves. Unfortunately, not all of us ended up that way. We should warm up from the exercise, right?
We each head over to our bikes to unlock them and then take off. Right now, it's about 9:00, and I need to be home by 10:30, so we have some time, but not much. Since Almond Creek Linear Park is across the street from our neighborhood, we end up having to hit a few more crosswalks to get there, so it takes about ten minutes.
"Everybody ready for this?" I call out as we get to the start of the trail.
"HECK YES! LET'S GET GOING ALREADY!" Minerva screams, almost making me knock my bike over.
"Okay, we're going!" I say quickly.
Almond Creek Linear Park is probably my favorite thing about Smithplain, Texas. It's about two miles of bike trails that connect to a few neighborhoods and all the major parks on this side of town. I'd been on this trail a whole ton of time with my family, though I've only ridden/ran the whole thing two or three times. And none of those times have been at night.
Okay, so the only reason we call it a dark run is because we're going at night, which is probably not as big a deal as we make it out to be, but come on, we're sixteen. Let us have some fun with this sort of thing. Besides, it's slightly more dangerous and therefore more fun at night, right?
Anyways, we're planning to do this round-trip twice, maybe three times if we have time, which is plenty of opportunity for something interesting to happen. Honestly I have no idea what to expect, but it has to be fun. And hey, it looks like we got something fun already.
"Who here thinks I can make that jump?" Darius asks us pointing to a plank of wood leaning against a log.
"Me," Minerva calls out immediately.
"Well, I guess..." I answer. "Why, are you going to do it?"
"Yeah. Film it, dude," he says. "Whether or not I make it, it'll be a great video to show to people."
"I guess I can't argue with that," says Azalea; she is pretty agreeable.
I get out my smartphone and get ready to record a video while Darius sets himself up about a hundred feet away. And I don't mean to be racist, but it's kinda hard to see him back there.
"I'm ready!" I shout out to him.
Darius takes a minute to scope out the situation, and then I hit the record button right as he takes off at full speed towards the three-inch wide ramp in front of us. As he gets close, Azalea grabs my hand, I aim my phone at the ramp, now he's hit the ramp, and...he made it. He freaking made it.
"Holy daaang!" I yell, stopping the video. "How the heck did you land that?"
Minerva sprints straight to him while he's walking his bike back and throws her arms over his shoulders. "That was amazing! You HAVE to do that sort of thing more often!"
"I was so scared!" says Azalea. "You were going so fast!"
"Bike jumps: I nail that," Darius says, smiling while I laugh at his YouTube reference.
I let him know that I'll send him the video later this weekend, and then we get going again. Not much happens between Town Park and Lily Park, except for me hitting a small rock and almost falling. When we get to the big hill in the middle of the trail, Minerva is the first one up and the first one down, and we hear her tires skid quite a bit when she hits the turns going down. The rest of our first run is pretty boring, actually, until we start heading back.
I hear a thwack off to the left right after we come back under the freeway.
"Guys, you wanna check that out?" Minerva asks, stopping her bike.
"Yeah, that sounds interesting," Darius answers.
"Wait, what?" I ask.
"Didn't you hear that? There's someone over here in the trees," Minerva says.
"Well, yeah, but what if it's something dangerous? Like a wild animal?" Azalea warns us.
"Guys, come on, if there were wild animals here, they wouldn't put a bike trail here," Darius argues. "It's probably just someone trying to play a prank on us. I'm going over to check it out."
"Alright, fine, but everyone use your phone's flashlight app," I say. "I'll go in about six feet behind you. Azalea, keep an eye on me. Minerva, make sure nothing shows up in any other direction. This is going to be fun."
"That's the spirit," Minerva cheers. I take off my gloves to open up my flashlight app while everyone else does the same. Dang, it's cold out here.
"X, I'm scared," Azalea says, hugging me.
"Don't worry, Azalea, we'll be fine," I say, waving my flashlight-phone around. "Look, we can blind anything that attacks us." Phone flashlights are surprisingly bright.
As soon as Azalea starts looking like she won't start crying or anything, Darius starts slowly wrestling through the branches and bushes to the left of the trail, shining his flashlight in every direction. I go in a few seconds later, securing the area behind him with my own flashlight. Wait a minute, I think I saw something shiny...
There's a knife stuck in a tree.
Suddenly, I hear something going on near Darius.
"GET HIM OFF ME! HE'S GOT A KNIFE!"
I aim my flashlight at Darius and almost drop it. Some kid, probably twelve or thirteen years old, is pinning him to the ground, with Darius barely holding the kid's hand with a knife in it away from himself.
I run straight up to them and kick this murder kid off of Darius as hard as I can possibly kick him. Then I grab Darius's hand and help him get up before the knife kid does.
"HOLY ****! What's going on?!" Minerva yells.
"GO GO GO!" I holler back as Darius and I come sprinting out of the trees, with me almost tripping on a branch. We all shove our phones in our pockets and ready our bikes to get the heck outta Dodge, except I don't have a kickstand, so I take an extra second. I zoom off behind Azalea (who seems so wracked with fear she can't ride straight at all)...until my bike skids to a sudden stop and I topple over to my right and hit my head.
I look up, ignoring my head injury aaaaand murder kid from hell threw a knife and it hit my back tire.
"X!" screams Azalea while I look up at psycho knife murder kid who's ten feet from me and then at Azalea who's stopping her bike FIFTEEN FEET FROM ME AND THEN BACK AT...the stranger in the black cloak?!
As Azalea helps me up, I know this isn't brain damage making me see things. The figure of the cloaked lady is wide enough that I can't see murder kid anymore. She points a yellow, spiked weapon at us.
"You should leave here now. I'll take care of your bicycle. Good night, friends."
I put my hand over the lump on my head and run off with Azalea. As she gets back on her bike, I'm about to look back at the stranger and see what she's doing to murder kid from hell when I notice a small glow coming from downwards...but when I look down, there's nothing there.
"What happened? Are you alright?" Minerva asks frantically when we catch up to her and Darius. "I swear, that kid, I'M GONNA-"
"We're fine, he's gone now," I tell them. "Someone saved us. My tire's flat but she said she'd take care of it."
"I hope it was the kid's mom," Minerva says angrily. "I hope she grounds him for life. I hope she beats him and yells at him and gives him-"
"Honey, it's fine," Darius assures her. "The important thing is, we're all okay. Right?"
"Yep!" I say.
"Can we go home now?" asks Azalea worriedly. "I don't want something like that to happen again..."
"Sure," I tell her quietly, "let's go home. I'm feeling tired anyways."
We keep going, slowly because I don't have a bike anymore, until we get to Lily Park, at which point we go out onto the street sidewalk where we feel safer (though normally I wouldn't because there's nothing but a curb between the sidewalk and the street). By the time we get to Azalea's street, it's 10:20.
"You two go on ahead, I need to talk to Azalea alone for a minute," I tell Darius and Minerva, who happily say good night, and ride off into the night.
"Is this about the person who saved us, X?" Azalea asks.
"Yes," I tell her. "You know how she was bothering me at Zeze's?
"I think I remember that.."
"She came up and talked to me. She said that I should meet her at Town Park at midnight tonight."
"Really? Why would she want you?"
"She said she heard us talking about Undyne. Just thinking out loud, but what if she's...?"
"...A monster?"
"Yeah, I know there's no way, but-"
"Hey...she could be. Right after she saved us, I thought I saw something glowing on my chest..."
"I think the same thing happened to me. You wanna come with me to meet her?"
"Sure...but do we have to go through the trail? I don't wanna almost die again."
"Of course, we'll do whatever you want. I'll bring a baseball bat just in case."
"Thanks so much. I'll be ready in an hour or so. See you later!"
"Bye Azalea!"
I turn and walk home. The night's not over. The worst of it is.
Now can you tell who she is? Cause next chapter, we're gonna find out!