CHAPTER 4: WE'RE OFF!

The pages began to glow, and Sebek was washed away within its light, calling out all the while.

"SEBEK!" Malleus cried, but he was soon lost as well.

Jill felt a powerful tug on her body, like she was being sucked up by a vacuum. Grim tried to hang onto her, but he was drawn in too. She heard the cries of Azul, Jade, Vil, Epel, Jamil, Leona, Riddle, Trey, and even Idia as they were forced into the book one by one.

At last, Jill herself vanished, and the book closed once more, fading away once it hit the ground. While there were several bystanders to the event, no one knew what exactly had gone on or what they could do about it.

The Night Ravens were placed entirely at the mercy of the book.

"A-Auggghhhh…" Grim was the first one to wake up. He blinked and glanced around, finding himself in the middle of a vast, lifeless forest. The ground was dry and had deep divots that swirled and curled around the land in twisted patterns. The trees were a light-brown and equally dead; there were no branches, leaves, or creatures around. The sun was setting in the sky, casting everything in deep shadows that unnerved the fiery little direbeast.

"Gah!" Grim cried. "When Jill told me all about this place, I thought it'd be more fun! Or at least, less creepy…" He looked down at himself to find that he was wearing a black little suit with white gloves and a bat-shaped bowtie. "Huh? Ain't this what that Skellington guy wears?" he asked.

The other Night Raven students slowly picked themselves off the ground and looked over themselves. Like Grim, their attire had changed to something more suitable for Halloween. They all wore black, old-fashioned suits and makeup, though each boy had details that differentiated from the others.

"Wh-What are we wearing…?" Trey asked, staring down at himself. He had a pinstriped jacket, black pants, and dress shoes, along with a fedora with a vintage band with both spots and stripes.

"We seem to have taken on new attire to match this world," Riddle said. "This isn't the first time it's happened to me…" He wore a similar outfit to Trey, though his jacket was more like a coat, and he had a black lacy hat.

"Strange, I wonder why the book would choose to dress us," Jade noted. His hair was slicked back, and he had some Spiral Hill badge on his suit, a detail shared by a few other students.

"Speaking of the book, is it still in Foothill Town?" Epel wondered. "What if someone takes the book? What would happen to us?" His jacket was more open in the center, revealing a grayish suit that made him look like a butler.

"Valid questions, Epel," Vil conceded. "But at the moment, it seems like we can't do a thing about that." His attire was a lot like Epel's, though his jacket ended at his midriff, and the purplish highlights in his hair had turned gray.

"This is bad… I was looking for Kalim when I bumped into you guys!" Jamil cried. "That means that he's still wandering about in town! What if someone tried to kidnap him?" The Scarabian stared up at the sky, and then down at himself. He had a large black coat over his shoulders, white gloves, and a hat that had Jack Skellington's face as an emblem.

"Calm down, we must keep our heads," Azul cautioned. "Riddle and I survived one of these books, we can do it again." His black suit was closed up, with a matching tie and pinstripes on the arms and lapel.

"After the whole Playful Land incident, I can't trust Kalim alone for five minutes!" Jamil shot back. He reached into the pockets of his coat. "Oh no… don't tell me my phone disappeared!"

The boys took a second to rummage through their pockets. To their dismay, while they still had their magic pens, their phones had gone missing.

"This can't be happening!" Idia wailed. "I need tech! I can't stand talking to people!" Beneath his black pinstriped jacket, he had a gray suit with spiral patterns, and his hair was slicked back as well.

"This happened back at the island, too," Riddle remembered. "We got our phones back once we escaped. Furthermore, although we spent days at the island, little time had passed when we made it back to school."

"So time passes differently here?" Jamil sighed. "I hope you're right. In any case, panicking won't do any good—we need to find a way out of here."

"And give Gazelle a good grilling while we're at it," Leona growled. "If it wasn't for her, we wouldn't be in this mess!" He had a long coat like Jamil's, as well as an eyepatch over his scarred eye.

"I agree, that human has caused us no end of trouble!" Sebek said. "And what's worse, she defied Malleus's wishes!" He wore skeletal gloves, a top hat that matched his dapper suit and coat, and also sported a mini-Jack head on the hat band.

"Speaking of which… where is she?" Malleus asked. He had an elegant dark suit with a pinstriped tie.

The twelve students looked around the dead woods, but Jill was nowhere to be found.

"Mya! She was sent into the book with us, right?" Grim asked.

"She might have been sent a good distance away," Riddle said. "She does constantly talk about her bad luck…"

"Oh, her luck's going to get a lot worse when we get ahold of her," Vil threatened.

"WAIT!" Grim snapped. "You're not gonna punish her, are ya? Cuz as boss, that's my job!"

"She dragged us into this mess, she deserves consequences for that," Leona explained.

"But she didn't mean to do it," Grim said. "Ya know she wouldn't bring ya here on purpose!"

"And that makes it okay?" Idia retorted.

"Grim may have a point," Azul said evenly. "Out of all of us, Jill is the most knowledgeable on the legend of the Pumpkin King. So she would be the most familiar with this place—like it or not, we're in her element."

"And what would happen if you all ganged up on her and scolded her? Why, the poor little thing would just sit and cry. And she'd be in no shape to help us," Jade said. He grinned viciously. "Let's wait until she leads us back home, and then we can punish her."

"Works for me," said Jamil.

"I wouldn't punish her," Malleus said. "But if you want to lash out at someone for making a mistake—someone who's helped all of us multiple times at this point—be my guest."

"Hey, we can bicker later!" Epel cried. "Let's move before the sun goes down!"

The Night Ravens took out their magic pens, using them as flashlights as they sought their missing classmate.

Little did they know that she wouldn't be alone.