Hope Valley

Chapter 1

It was the wee hours of the morning when me and Joseph headed back down the cliff face to our front gate, opening it as quietly as we could as we wrapped our scarves tightly around our faces. We could see frost covering everything, even though it was only the middle of July. People had placed pumpkins on their door steps, preparing for this years Halloween. Most of us didn't celebrate it, for it was not really a celebration.

Nothing really was a celebration in Hope Valley.

"I can hear them already." Joseph breathed, his hazel eyes downcast as we traipsed through the dried leaves along the dirt road. It was amazing how many forests lay in such a small city as ours, and maybe that was why it was considered small. No one cut the trees down, but let them run wild and devour everything that lay on the face of the earth, everything too weak to protest.

I could hardly breath in the cold as our eyes scanned their strange branches, watching for any sign of movement, for anything that dared to threaten us. We walked this way to school every morning, and yet we still did not trust the trees yet.

We weren't always allowed to go to the high school, for most of our lives we had been home schooled by our mother. Our father was a psychologist who doubled as a forensic pathologist. He got to see every angle of this place, and he knew it wasn't a very good place to let his children learn from. We were hardly even allowed to go outside then, it had been very controlled and distant from the world that lay just a wall away.

So what had changed their minds so quickly?

Joseph came to a halt, throwing his arm out quickly. I stopped, my eyes wide and frantic as I stared through the strands of my white hair.

"Get in the trees. NOW!" He hissed, pushing me to the right, off of the road. We were sprinting then, running as fast as we could through the forest until we jumped behind a log to shelter us from whatever was coming. He pushed my head down and peered over the rotted bark beside our faces. He was wearing a red cloak, one that possessed a low cowl that sheltered his face. I wore a black one, for it was more my taste, but I never thought that the red did not suit him. It went with his auburn hair to be honest.

"There is so many of them." He gasped quietly, his right hand resting on the pistol that lay on his belt. Most would say it was antique, but we all knew it worked best with the special bullets we had made. Ebony didn't fire very well from just anything.

They passed then, row upon row of men in black. They all wore the same thing: black suits, white shirts, and red ties. Their hair was dyed black and slicked back as if it was plastic almost, and they never dared to break the smile on their faces. They never carried anything that looked even remotely dangerous, and yet our parents had made sure to tell us to hide when we could hear them coming. No one really knew what they did, but most suspected they were the reason people were going missing.

And people always had, and it was a yearly norm now. Usually it was ten, maybe eleven, each year, and a type was never configured. They were always random people, people that had never mattered much to the community, or people who mattered too much to the community. To most, it seemed completely by chance that they were taken.

But to me, and Joseph, we knew exactly why they were being taken.

One of the men stopped, the one on the last corner on our side of the road. He lifted his head, a terrible smile on his face, and looked right into our eyes. I cowered and looked away, but Joseph, he stood up, and looked straight back.

The mass suddenly stopped, and one by one, they all turned to stare at the boy in the red cloak. I had no idea what he was doing, and part of me wanted to run away and leave him behind; but I could never do that, not to joseph, never to joseph. He was always the brother that cared, always the one who judged the less. He never approved of me sticking to books rather than socializing, but he understood that it was who I was. He liked people, I didn't, and that was alright.