"Is this the direction to the village," asked Liam.
"Yes," replied Oliver, with google maps open. We were likely that we were written up with disturbance
of peace and not trying to figure out more of our job and the best way to do it. Well in our eyes
anyways.
"We better park somewhere close but far enough that they don't hate us" Ezra chimed in, opening up
the snack bag.
"I don't think they have roads made for cars," mentioned Sophie.
"What do you mean," Liam wasn't really paying attention when we briefly went over the town.
"They have really old roads," Sophie told. "Plus, there is high chance that there is no road to get there."
"Right," Liam sighed. Well, it was going to be a very long hike there, but that is the least of our worries.
"Are you sure," I piped up.
"Yes," she said. "Plus, we used the drone to find the path so we can mark it on a map."
"Oh, okay," the confidence I have in their way to the village was not there. The others join me in the
uncertainty of the path. At least we will find out soon., hopefully. But Sophie did say she marked the
path on the map, and she does know maps so my fear shouldn't be this bad. Then again, what could
await us there? All of us grew up on stories about this village, and they were mainly used to scare us as
they were made up of rumours about it. Though we did grow out of that fear, there is still a fear of the
unknown, since we barely or must I say hear nothing at all about this village on the news. The only thing
that comes out of there is a horse-pulled cart. I don't know where this cart goes though.
A scream broke the silence. I hid my head in my shirt. I heard some of the others drop to the ground.
None of us were this scared in mines, but then again, we had gotten somewhat used to the strangeness
of the mines. Hearing the screams out the woods seemed to be much more horrifying than in the
darkness of the mines.
"Please tell me that I wasn't the only one that heard that," Ace asked, shivering. It was tense. "Anyone
else?"
"I did too," Ezra reassured him. We all nodded in agreement, but we couldn't stop here. I could feel the
breeze hit the back of my head. It felt like it was pushing us forewords. I couldn't stop. All of us were
running forward together, not letting go of each other's hands. We were passing our surroundings quite
quickly. There were the rotting corpses of birds. The smell was overbearing but it seemed to pass
quickly. It all came to a stop suddenly as we came to the top of the hill. From where we're standing,
there was the village. It was nothing like we thought it was. The village was more earie, and desolate.
"Does anyone have binoculars?" Ezra asked looking towards the village in shock. Ace pulled one out of
his backpack, handing it over to Ezra. Ezra relaxed once he got a closer look of the village. The drone was
being set down, not sure if it would be cause of panic for the villagers. Who know what they would
think, though they might think it was some pesky teenagers.
"The villagers are wearing some weird clothing," Ezra said once he scanned the village a couple times.
"Dude, what's that supposed to mean," Liam asked, a little while after that statement.
"It's like their wearing something from the 1800s," Ezra continued on handing the binoculars to Liam.
After a couple minutes we had all seen what Ezra was talking about. It was like the village was stuck in
time, both in clothing and in buildings. The castle we were familiar with since it's big enough to be seen
from our town. The village was much stranger than we expected.
"Shall we look for the other entrance from our side of the mine," Oliver asked, once we stood there for a
while. We had all agreed. The village seemed off; I don't know why but something about just gave me
the creeps. It so unusual for a town to seem to be stuck in time, unless it's a cult or some kind of
historical LARPING village.
"It could be a place for a cult," I brought up as we turned back towards where we parked.
"Or it could a be a historical park where people can visit," countered Ezra, walking in front.
"Either way," Oliver spoke, joining in the conversation, "it just felt off just looking at it."
"Agreed," Sophie joined in, skipping to join Ezra up ahead. We were all in agreement that something
was off about the town. Plus, not every village was overlooked by a castle, well in our area anyways. "I
hope we don't get lost," Sophie started a conversation after a few moments of silence.
"Well, we should be close," Ace assured, pushing a tree branch out of his face. The forest was dense,
and was thick in some areas, but was easy to navigate nonetheless. That was surprising since it did feel
familiar though we never been to this part of the woods. And it took less than 10 minutes to get to the
car.
"Here we are," Oliver announces as soon as we left the woods. All of us just rushed towards the car,
hoping to get home before lunch. None of wanted to be scolded for skipping some of school, though our
parents will find out soon enough since many people know each other. "You all should head to school
once we get back okay."
"We know," the rest of us complained, as we left the area and towards back home.
Our parents did in fact find out that we skipped some of school They were upset, but made us promise
to focus on school. We did keep that promise and for the next couple months we focused on school.
Though as summer break arrived, we began to focus more on work and try get back on finding any other
entrances to the mine. Luckily in the most of us will enter our last year school after the break and then
we will have more time to do this.
"Thank goodness we finished our exams," Sophie sounded relieved as we went towards the police
station to start our shift. We were told we needed to do some paperwork. Every day we started to
assumed that we weren't employed by the government since I don't think they would allow this. I mean
sure, Oliver is not in school anymore and the rest are 16/17 years old.
"Agreed," I sighed as I opened the door to the building. Our desks are close the door but they are block
off so people won't go to us for police reports. "Good evening." I smiled at the other officers in the
building. They acknowledged our existence as we went to our desks. Oliver was already there.
"Hey," Sophie said, as she sat down at her desk. We each had quite a bit of paperwork to do. We had to
do it to continue to work in the mine.
"Are the others still doing exams?" asked Oliver not looking up from the paperwork.
"Yeah, but they probably didn't study too much," I said, starting the paperwork to get it over with. "They
said it was all common sense."
"Once we were done, I took a look at their faces and they were full of dread," Sophie added, turning on
her computer.
"So, I wasn't seeing things," I joked, reading the paperwork in front of me. Funnily enough, we could
hear the door open from our desks.
'No more dang exams' we heard Liam exclaiming as he made his way from the front door to his desk.
'Liam calm down' Ezra's voice followed, while Ace turned around the corner.
"Thank goodness it is the end of exam week," sighed Ace sitting down at his desk while Liam and Ezra
followed from behind.
"Until next year at least," mentioned Ezra, skimming through the pile of paperwork in front of him. He
was right, the actually last exams were next year. We need to pass those to these. I can't wait. We were
glad to have a break from school for a while to due stress of after school activities. It was a weight off
our shoulders for sure. And thankfully we mapped enough of the mine, in our opinion, to take a break to
finish up other things.
"How's the farmhouse?" Ezra asked Oliver while skimming the paperwork.
"I doing some renovations to it," he announced to us while putting away things that were cluttering his
desk.
"What," came out of mouths at the announcement.
"What happened?" asked Sophie, looking up.
"Some of things we did when we first rebuilt it were done wrong," he started explaining. "So, I have to
renovate it to get it properly fixed."
How did we not realize we did something wrong with the construction? Then again, we were
underqualified for this big of a project. I do think this includes working in the mines.
"Makes sense," I said, going back to the paperwork on my desk. Everyone seemed to make some
statement of agreement on realizing that we weren't professionals on constructing buildings.
Surprisingly a quick agreement for the team.
"You bunch have a package," one of the higherups said from the doorway.
"From who?" asked Oliver, stopping what he was doing at the moment.
"Don't know," he said, putting down the package in front of Oliver. "Find out yourselves."
The package looked quite small, so I am interested how it would be divided up between the six of us.
Luckily, we were able to stop the paperwork to take a look at the package and have a go at guessing
what is inside. One of us said it was a letter, or a map. Maybe a small box of sweets. There was no
address on the box nor a name. Well, there was. It was all blacked out by a sharpie.
"Let me open it," Oliver scolded us, making us go sit back down at our desks. "Continue your work and
I'll open it at the end of our shift at the library."
We all nodded and started pushing through the paperwork to make the shift feel faster. If it helped
before it should help now. Luckily, we were allowed to listen to music or podcast while doing all the
paperwork. It made the hours feel like minutes and we were out of there by 5; the library closes in an
hour.
"How tired are you," Ezra had asked Ace as we walked as fast as we could.
"Not tired enough," complained Ace as he sped-walked the slowest.
"Well," Ezra, almost complaining, "do it faster."
Ace just glared at Ezra before bolting off. It took a couple seconds before Ezra chased after him. In a
couple of minutes, we were all in the library, sitting at one of the tables provided. Oliver popped the
package on the table for all to see. It was indeed small, but looked so unusual.
"Hurry and open," Liam said quickly. Half of us nodded in agreement. Oliver decided to open it really
slowly that Ace almost fell asleep. Once it was open, we were all surprised. It was a box.
"Open the box," Sophie demanded once we all overcame the shock. "Hurry, we are going to get kicked
out soon."
"Be patient," Oliver scolded us. He opened it slowly while we all just stared at him.
"What is it?" asked Liam, once Oliver finally opened it all the way. Oliver was silent for a little longer.
"A note and a-," he started but stared at was left in the box.
"What does the note say?" I asked, curiosity building in my mind.
"Slow down," he responded. "It says-"
To the young adults,
If you ever step foot in my village again
I promise you that you won't leave
All of you will make good experiments
Be warned
Mother Miranda
"What a strange letter," commented Sophie. "Now what is in that box?"
"It's a vile," Oliver told us, showing it to us. "I'm taking it to someone. It must be a biohazard."
"You do that," Ace agreed, and we all either agreed or just started at the vile. "Bring it to scientist if you
must."
"I will don't worry," Oliver reassured us.
"I'm not worrying," responded Liam, Ezra nodding in agreement.
"Let's head back to the station," Sophie said, "we left things behind."
"Sure," Ezra said, getting up to follow Sophie. We all got up one by one while Oliver planned to the
police station to file a report then to the hospital or someone to have whatever was in that vile to be
tested. It could be a virus or someone's blood that could've been missing. Since Oliver was the most
responsible, he was the one to do all that. I could see the librarian look at us quickly before looking back
down at whatever they were doing. They must've been curious about what we were doing less than an
hour before closing.
"What walk to the farmhouse to see what is up?" I asked the rest of the group.
'Yeah', 'Sure', 'Why not' were the answers I heard and immediately we all turned towards the path of
the farmhouse. Plus, it would allow us to waste 90 minutes out of day walking there and back.
"Oliver," I said, "we'll be at the farmhouse. Or on the path at least."
"Okay," he responded, "I'll see if I can join you later."
"Alright," Ezra answered for me, before deciding to race Ace and Liam to the farmhouse. Sophie and I
stayed behind like often, but we did pick up the pace a bit to lower the time to get there.
The breeze was present on our way there. So were the birds. The mix of the rustling of leaves and the
song of birds did dampen the tension of what happened at the library. It helped made the walk more
relaxing than before. Thank goodness.
"I know we were underqualified for working on the farmhouse," Sophie complained.
"Agreed," I laughed, "I think they forgot common sense when putting us to work."
"Totally," she continued, "if they only realized it when they gave us the fine and the punishment."
"And look how we grown," I joked some more and Sophie joined in on the laughing. We already made it
halfway to the farmhouse before we could hear something behind us.
"Hey," Oliver greeted us once he slowed down to bike beside us.
"That was quick," Sophie commented on the time it took for him with the stuff he had to do.
"Not really," he responded, "I have to go back in tomorrow for more information."
"Well at least you get to go home," I said, as Sophie and I started to contain our laughter. He just
nodded as we all sped up to catch up with the other three. The sounds we made were minimized by the
sounds of nature preparing for another day.