I moved to join Dion, with Celeste and Evelyn falling in silently behind me, and we all began the quiet walk up the long, winding path toward the cave entrance.
It didn't take long for us to reach the entrance. We halted by the rough stone of the tunnel's mouth, peering out to scan the exterior clearing. The faint rustle of dry leaves and distant wind immediately put us on edge, and the clearing's horrific sight drove the tension even higher.
Outside the cave were massive, sparse triangular huts, built from numerous bamboo sticks lashed together and rising sharply from the ground, with round doorways cut into their base. The huts were separated by a few meters apart and looked more like crude, ominous monuments than actual shelters, their openings shrouded in shadow.
Bones from countless creatures were scattered all over the ground and between the huts. This sight, coupled with the thick night mist, truly made the scene feel utterly eerie.
"Where do we go from here?" Dion muttered shakily as he looked around.
I turned my gaze to my map, and saw that some of the huts had red dots inside, but most of them were empty.
The ghouls were nocturnal hunters, and so, I immediately deduced that the missing occupants were out on their nightly hunt, which meant the only way to sneak out was to move quietly between the empty huts.
I turned to Dion. "Some of these huts have ghouls inside them, and some don't. If we want to make it out of here quietly, we'd need to move quietly between the empty ones."
Dion arched a brow. "How do you know that some have ghouls in them, and some don't?"
I looked away. "I have an ability that lets me see that."
Dion stared at me questioningly for a moment, then drank, wiped his mouth, and said, "Alright. Lead the way."
I turned around to look at Celeste and Evelyn, then said: "Be very quiet. These guys have very good hearing. If we wake up any of the ones inside those huts, we're finished."
Both girls nodded. Dion simply swallowed.
I then turned and headed out of the cave, moving low and quiet, weaving carefully around the scattered bones. When I reached the first hut and leaned against it, I saw that the others had followed close behind me and were now also pressed against the bamboo, their eyes darting frantically.
I glanced at the map. We then repeated the silent process: a quick dash to the next shadow, a breath held against the rough bamboo, and a scan for the next safe hut.
This hut hopping continued for several tense minutes, and while we were lucky not to encounter any ghouls, this maze of huts seemed almost endless. With every passing second in the silence, our dread only kept intensifying.
A few more huts later, and our movements became erratic: we constantly had to shift direction to avoid ghouls emerging from their huts, and sometimes we paused for agonizing periods until the route to the next hut was clear.
Eventually, we reached the center of the clearing.
…But there was a problem.
The center was an empty plain, and the next hut was not until after several hundred meters.
The only things in the center were long massive wooden poles that had corpses of creatures tied to them. All the creatures looked burnt, and some were still smoking faintly, their flesh flayed and blackened.
On the floor, the concentration of bones were so dense they formed a chalky white carpet, making it impossible to step without making a crunching sound.
'Aiissshh!'
At that moment, Dion turned and whispered, "What do we do now?"
I checked the map. Seeing that there were no red dots until the cluster of occupied huts on the far side, I looked back at Dion and said, "We shall cross."
"Huh?" Dion hiccuped. "That sounds like the riskiest option."
Just then, Evelyn finally spoke for the first time. "I… I think so too. Isn't there another way?"
I shook my head. "The concentration of ghoul-filled huts to the east and west is too high. We'll get caught if we try moving in either direction. North is our only path."
The silence lasted a moment, then Dion drank a few gulps of his alcohol and said, "Then let's move."
He took the lead, struggling to move quietly in his drunken state.
I then followed close behind, and the two girls followed shortly after.
Despite our best efforts to remain quiet, it was hard to avoid making a noise as we were walking on the scattered bones. I winced every time someone made a crunching sound.
Several minutes later, and we were almost at the other side. So far, everything seemed to be going smoothly. For a moment, I allowed myself to believe we might actually make it.
I could even see the hut we were supposed to lean on through the thick mist.
'We are almost there,' I thought as I felt the weight of the last few minutes finally beginning to lift from my shoulders.
But just as I inhaled a breath of relief, right when everything felt momentarily safe…
I suddenly heard a loud horn that caused the four of us to freeze in place.
"Wh-what… what is that?" Dion slurred, nearly dropping his bottle as he turned to look at the direction the loud sound had come from.
Panicked, I too snapped my head back to the direction of the sound, which was the prison. "Shit! They know that we have escaped."
"What do we do n—" Evelyn began in her trembling whisper.
However, before she could even finish, loud noises like cackling women began to echo all around us, causing us to whip our heads around like scared animals, and even back against each other.
Then, in the next few seconds, our horror deepened as we began to see red eyes glowing through the mist all around us…