Publish Or Perish

@Mellow_Supernova.. Prompt 4 - November '18

                                                                            Into the Woods

On a gloomy night, the man was crossing a deserted street when suddenly, a skeleton fell on him.

'Ah!!' He yelled as the skeleton's thighs hit him in the nose. His head was already reeling from the skeleton falling on him. Disentangling himself from the skeleton's limbs, he managed to push it off him.

'Uh.....' He muttered as the skeleton clattered to the ground. He glanced upwards and found that the lights of a small flat were on. To his surprise, three skeletons dangled from the window sill, held by tape.

A second later, a guy poked his head out of the window, and looked directly at the man below.
'Oh man....did it fall on you?' He asked.

The man below sighed. 'Yeah, it did.'

'Ugh, I told Caleb to tie them up well!' he muttered loudly. 'Wait just a minute! I'll come down to get it,' he said and disappeared from view.

The man below felt weird standing there, in an empty street with a skeleton at his feet.
Only a minute had passed when the other guy threw open the gate and stepped out to meet him...

'I'm sorry....Nothing Broken I hope?' he said.

'Nah, I'm fine.'

'Great!' He stooped to pick up the skeleton, that made a rattling sound as its bones jiggled.

'Anyway, I'm Chris,' He held out his hand.

'Noah,' They shook hands.

'Well, I should get going,' Chris said, with the skeleton in his arms.

'If you don't mind me asking,' Noah began. 'Why do you have these hanging from your window?'

'Long story....,' Chris told him. Noah raised an eyebrow.

'It's....complicated. Let's leave it at that,' Chris spoke, studying him intently. 'Nice meeting You Noah. We'll see each other again.'

'We will?' Noah asked.

'You're new here aren't you?'

'How did you--' Noah began but Chris cut him off.

'Heh, its kinda obvious,' Chris walked off, not turning back once.

'Well......' Noah muttered to himself. He didn't feeling like walking anymore, after that encounter. It had given him something to think about.. Thus, he too, turned and went back the way he'd come.
...........

Chris turned out to be right. Yeah, Bellwood was a little town, like he'd said but they just ran into each other just everywhere.

The very next day, they met at a coffee shop... They ran into each other somewhere or the other, almost every single day. The ultimate result was that the two befriended each other. Both were pretty evasive when the other asked them about their background, so they talked about other stuff... Like the history of Bellwood.

Turns out, Bellwood had a pretty...interesting history. Records in the local library talked of mysterious magic. Next, were the missing people cases...It happened once every year, and it ward totally random. One person would go missing, and never be found again.... There was no sequence, no pattern as such.

'Creepy right?' Chris asked Noah, who remained silent. That was what everyone was so afraid of. It explained why Noah had found the street deserted when he'd first met Chris, even though it was just around 9....