Complete Darkness. In the distance, a green torchlight appears, casting no shadows and emanating off no walls. The light gets closer. When it’s just within reach, a second light appears beside it. A low broken snarl fills the silence.

Gale’s eyes open with a start. Noticing how fast and shallow he’s breathing, he consciously tries to control his breath. There’s a soft orange glow highlighting the innards of the small cave. Gale rolls over towards the dying fire, facing the rest of his companions in fur sleeping bags around the fire and the cave opening in the distance. Closing his eyes he tries to go to sleep once more, but the echo of his repeated dream still rings in his head.
Why can’t I forget?
Realizing that his attempts at sleep from now on are useless, he slides up against the cave wall, and puts on his coat. He looks at his companions.
Dust, on the right side of the fire, sleeping with his arms over his chest and a gaping mouth, his blond hair still as short and covering his eyes nonetheless. Flake, lying on her side facing the fire, her red streaked blond hair covering one side of her elegant face, breathing as calmly as Gale could only have years ago. The last sleeping bag, belonging to Hurri, is left unmanned.

Gale gets up and out of his sleeping bag, and finds his finger-less gloves in his jacket pocket. Putting them on, he slowly treads around Flake towards the mouth of the cave. He didn’t have to walk far, as he spotted Hurri sitting cross-legged at the entrance, staring out into the rain with his broadsword on his lap. Gale walks up beside him, and sits down in similar fashion beside Hurri.
“Can’t sleep either?” Hurri asks without looking over.
“Nah.” Gale replies, leaning back and crossing his arms.
“Listen,” Hurri starts in a lower tone.
“I heard something. It’s why I’m up. A rock fell down into the mouth of the cave” He said, pointing with one hand at a fair sized stone in the left side of the opening.
“Heh.. Hurri, this is a mountainside we’re on.” Gale replies tilting his head back and placing it on the wall side.
“The rock didn’t bother me. That’s only what woke me up.” Hurri whispered, leaning towards Gale and making eye contact. Gale realized his seriousness, and started immediately paying attention.
“Gale… I… think it found us instead. I think we’ve become the hunted.” Hurri continued.
“What did it look like?” Gale asked, squinting outside to see past the rain.
“It… it jumped down from the top. Only the faintest of light touched it, but… it turned even that the darkest of black. It… It’s eyes….” Gale had an image of the torches in his dream. “They were…. black as death itself, but they reflected everything.” Hurri hushed. A single drop of sweat rolling down from his forehead.
Oh God….he’s serious.
Gales eyes widened being fully awake. He got up from his sitting position and went straight at the fire.
“Wake up. We need to move, now.” He said, moving towards his pack.
“What? Why?” Dust complained stretching and brushing his hair away from his face.
Flake however could find the tension in Gale’s voice and was awake instantly, getting her leather armor on.
Gale grabbed his shortsword from the side of the wall and strung it to his belt.
“It’s here.”
Dust’s sleeping bag barely touched the ground before he had bow in grasp, and quiver on his back getting his boots on.
“What are we going to do with the stuff?” Dust asks, putting on a vest.
“We’ll be back for it, don’t worry.” Gale replies, with a small smirk on the corner of his mouth.

Hurri walks back to his travel bag and pulls out a small dagger, strapping it to his leg, and then taking his breastplate from the wall and starting to put it on. Flake secures her cloak around her neck, puts the hood on, and grabs her green wooden staff from the wall, ready to go. Dust straps his quiver on his back, and grabs a few arrows and holds them between his fingers. Gale finishes strapping his Cestus to his right arm, and they all look towards the exit. In little over a minute, everyone was prepared. The beast’s howl echoes through the cave.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Well, it’s been a while. I found out, that at the current pace, (as in the previous episodes) you would long forget about reading the series by the time anything interesting happened. So here it is. *Presses the skip button*
There you are, enjoy.

But I will explain the… past. (I guess thats what it is now, isnt it?)

Hmm
Erm
I was bored as hell for the past few days… so I decided to write this (Yesterday I was just thinking)

Yes, this is still Maple Related. >.>
EDIT=Fixed the page stretch I hope!

*Runs out of random things to say* …

Oh yeah!

~HUNDaemon