Continue To Lie - Tpn Fanfic

Chapter 61 - Rumbling, it's coming

"F/N?"

      Ray asks from outside, his voice coming off as dark and distant from where I'm walking.

"Have you found anything?" 

"It's dark, I can't see much." 

      I tread lightly among the darkness filling the room. We just had to visit this place after dark, didn't we?

       I walk in the direction of the center of the room, trying to find the tall stone statue I had discerned earlier while there was more light filling this closed space, as the sun wasn't yet set. Once my pupils confirm with the darkness, I spot the still silhouette I was looking for. 

I grin when I spot an unlit candle sitting next to it, and using the piece of softwood I keep at all times inside my backpack, I light it. The fire is small and orange, but it lights up what I need to see. My heart stops beating for less than a moment, my breath caught in my throat. I almost trip.

"N/N!?"

      Emma shouts with slight panic when she notices the light. When I don't answer, she tries again.

"What happened!? What did you find!?"

      My eyes dilate with horror, my body freezes as if a storm will trigger if I move. The only part of me that can move slightly, even if shaking, is my hand. My fingers quiver as I slowly extend my hand to the corpse laying in front of me.

"N/n, are you okay, what's going on!?"

"F/N, say something!"

      "I-"

I try to speak, but the words don't leave my lips. I, I, I- That's the only sound I can make. My body is stuck in a still position, my arm extended, reaching out to the lifeless body cradled in the arms of the stone statue. 

      The statue is that of a demon standing still with its arms out, carrying a human's limp corpse. The corpse's face is a face I've seen a hundred times before. Back at the house, throughout my childhood, the body of someone I've always known. Why are you here..?

"N/N! N/N!"

-

The green-haired girl furrows her brows and kneels down, dirtying her clothes in the process. Hayato stands behind her, observing the same footprint on the ground that she is.

"More tracks... All of these are from wild demons, aren't they?" 

      The girl asks, using a finger to lift her glasses above her nose. Hayato nods vigorously, waving his hands in alarm.

"It's getting dangerous! If we keep going in this direction, we'll get close to a town! Let's go back the way we came."

       Don and Gilda nod, meanwhile Ayshe and her dogs don't pay his words mind. Gilda wonders if Ayshe actually doesn't understand what they're saying or if she's just ignoring them on purpose. However, Hayato, who just realized the irony of his words, starts to laugh.

"That's pretty funny, isn't it?"

      He giggles as he trudges, returning in the direction they came. As he does so, Ayshe's dogs sniff the ground and after coming across an odd odor, they start to bark. Hayato continues.

"We have to avoid the demons but search for them at the same time! That's pretty funny, isn't it?"

      Once his last words are spoken, he hears the sounds of saliva dripping from a beast's mouth and its tongue ready to pounce directly behind him. A demon camouflaged and hidden like a tree suddenly reveals its true form, opening its large jaw with Hayato directly in its reach. He's not given any time to react before he's staring directly into the maneater's beady-little eyes.