Thursday: The Gathering Darkness
By evening, they had traveled several miles, still following the stream of animals. The once bright sky had darkened to an ominous purple-gray, and the wind had picked up once again, now howling around them.
“I’m starting to wonder if this is a bad idea,” Ivy Mae said, as a sudden gust of wind nearly knocked her off balance. “Should we turn back? Or try to head somewhere else?”
Jas, now a little more paranoid from the day’s events, looked around nervously. “What if we’re just walking right into something... worse?”
Roman was silent for a moment, then he pointed ahead, where the trees seemed to part just enough to show a distant horizon. “Maybe we’re meant to go this way. Maybe this is the only way we survive.”
As they pushed forward, the wind grew colder, and the shadows around them seemed to stretch unnaturally. And just when they thought the night might offer some relief, a low, guttural sound echoed from the sky above them—a howl of wind, but somehow... different.