Man… the carnival had been a huge amusement. It lived up to its eerie theme as well, but when Hyōen left the carnival after having played all games, it sort of disappeared into the woods. He didn’t have the knowledge to explain how or why, but perhaps he was right about earlier; maybe Worth Woodsea was much more than just a forest. Then again, he was pretty sure given by the ruins in the distance; for instance, there was a tower nearby and everything. This forest did hold secrets that he never dared to uncover, but it didn’t mind him much at all. Hey, he had lived here for over a decade, and from the day that he was born to now, he never asked about such things. Maybe he would pass the tower someday and unveil its secret, but that day was yet to come.

Something felt weird. Upon his journey back to the cottage that was his sweet, little home, he felt the presence of someone else following him around. He kept looking back and forth, but apparently, no one was present to have followed him. It did make him nervous, because due to earlier, maybe one of the skeletons were heading for him. Maybe they wanted his pumpkin pops… he couldn’t accept that. He won them fair and square! With that in mind, he rushed over to his cottage and opened the door, due to the tense atmosphere forgetting to close it again as he threw himself onto the couch that he missed so much. He was used to having the door open, but just in case, he had eyes on it for a while… until he fell asleep…

282/1500

Arisa laid against a tree, hands against the back of her head and her eyes gazing up towards the sky. There was a small opening in the trees that let her look at the beautiful star gazing sky. A small smile appeared on her lips as the flames would warm up her body. Her face was glowing with light from the flames and angelic aura. She didn't know where her sister was nor what to do now. The amusement park was alright. She lost a lot, but she still got a couple if not a few of those candy pops. What were they for exactly anyways? Slowly she brought her hand close to her own face and looked at it. ''Why do I feel so weird when someone grabs my hand now? Is it him?...'' she wondered quietly and softly to herself yet out-loud. Arisa had no place to sleep for the night and she didn't really wish to camp out in some weird run down motel neither. She has heard stories of people getting murdered in those, like that massacure with the kidnapping, skinning them and they used the skin of those people for masks and such. It was really weird, but she didn't want to think about it. The thought of it all gave her heart an increase to her heart rate and it made her nervous mentally. Without the comfort that a certain someone gave her, she felt insecure in a way, cold or in other words... empty. There was no real non-edgy way to explain how she felt since it was quite everything to her. The day when he told her that her side was perhaps belonging beside him and then this wrecked her soul. Slowly she fell asleep with a simple yawn and the fire would still burn upon the night. She felt like someone was watching but the sleepiness of sloth over-powered that feel.

326/1500

… Something began worrying him as the Fire Mage woke up from his short, but restful nap. He didn’t know what exactly, but it felt weird… it was as if someone called for him. Was it a woman’s voice? At first, he tried to convince himself that it was the damn skeletons that had, perhaps, gotten after him for the pumpkin pops, but he was damn sure to not give them any. He won them, and he would only give to whom he willed. Whilst Coda was continuing her slumber like that lazy bird that she appeared to be like, Hyōen had decided to wake up and stand up on his feet again, despite having enjoyed the company of the couch. It just didn’t feel right… maybe someone was out there, lost in the darkness. Due to experience, Worth Woodsea could be difficult to find around at night, and on top of the vast areas that it covered, the beasts that lived in there posed a threat to everyone.

He began exiting through the door and found himself outside again, in the wild where he had grown up in all those years. He looked around to try and spot whoever was calling, but all that he got was a quick blur. Confused, he followed the direction of the blur, but as he had thought of it to be the reflection of the skeleton’s bones by the night sky, it turned out to be an Ana. She was on fire, though, a thing that surprised him… and shocked him shitless too. “A-Ana!” he spoke up in fright as white flames erupted from his hair to symbolize that fear, “Y-You’re burning?! S-Stay right there, I’ll get some water, or… wait, is that your magic?”

574/1500

She was fast asleep as she could see the dream she has been seeing for some quite time now. She had a small smile on her face as she dreamed about seeing those small little gremlins again. They seemed to be making her follow them for some odd reason though. She had no knowledge on where they were taking her nor did they ever really speak. They made motions with their hands, walked with their tiny little feet and made noises like some typical cute small animal. It was quite weird and interesting, but she followed them in the process. Arisa would see multiple things, the library, the darkness and what she feared most, the dark deep waters of the unknown. She didn't know about what was in there nor did she wish to find out. She tried to wake up as the gremlins started to sink into the darkness and then there she woke up.

She heard a voice speaking to her, but her eyes were yet to truly open to reality. Her vision was blurry and not only that, she saw a ghost blurry figure behind the solid looking figure. Her hands rubbed against her eyes as she tried to look forward to see who it was, but it took a bit. ''Mmm I can't... really see.... clearly.'' she mumbled sleepishly as she rubbed her eyes more, yawned like the sloth sin she was as of right now. He was yelling, scared-like. 'That voice...' she thought coldly and then gazed up to see it was Hyoen. The light fixed her eyes to see who it was. ''On fire? What? Uh...'' she started to say quite tired-like. ''Oh yea. Sorry...my magic kinda makes me glow sometimes, mostly when the fire is close to me.'' she explained, chuckled and slowly got up with her right hand pressing against the old tree.

It was getting super close to winter, therefore the tree was dying like some do every year. She bend forward, dusted off her kimono and looked up at him with brown unholy eyes with a sweet smile from her full glossed lips. ''It's nice to see you here... After yknow. Disappearing from that weird dream. Yea?'' she questioned him, chuckled once more and then looked towards the ghost figure. ''Also there's a female ghost figure behind you.''she spoke, pointing towards her. She looked old, but in her thirties?

405

736/1500

He didn’t know what Ana was doing out here, or rather, he wasn’t sure about that. Maybe she had attended to the huge carnival nearby that he caught the ears of people all the way from Hargeon Town and Dahlia Town and prompted them to come here. He hadn’t seen this specific friend since that weird dream… and thus again, he began dropping sweat pearls out of the awkward feeling that he got when he realized that it was all a dream. Despite how it felt, the waters, the leaves, the ride… everything… even her thighs, he still remembered every single sensation, but it was all a dream?! What about the gremlins?! Were they but afterimages or phantoms in his mind too?!

She looked pretty exhausted given by her appearance in her eyes; unlike the usual, shiny glim that they often had in the past, she expressed exhaustion and were brown and tired. “You sure look tired,” he replied back to her with a chuckle, “And, uh… yeah, I don’t know what happened for us to dream about the same. You got to inform me about it, someday.” He had his head a bit lower in order to express how a letdown that it was to know that it all was a damn dream. Ten out of ten, he would have went back to the hole if it was for real. However, perhaps he wasn’t meant to go back, or perhaps the hole could have disappeared, which would have left him to drown; a thought that also pinched his nerves like crazy. Now, Ana’s view seemed to have changed from his face to something behind him, and he noticed that quite quickly. Given by her next words, whilst suspension was built up, it sounded that a female ghost was… was… behind him? Instantly, he almost spat out everything as he jolted his body forward and turned around, his eyes almost empty for life. His arms had stretched upwards in fright, but it turned out that the ghost looked humane enough to calm his nerves down.

“Please…” her voice called, “Please… help me…” Her voice resembled that of what the Fire Mage heard earlier, in which he asked back - after having calmed his nerves - with a worried voice: “Uh, do-do you need help? With what, exactly..?” His eyes were still whitened from anxiety, but instinctively, he wanted to help her with whatever trouble that had forced her to seek them out. “My family…” she continued with that horrifying, saddened voice, “They’re out there… I need to see them…”

1003/1500

The dream... It was quite interesting. She knew the gremilins were real since she has met some when she was with Alisa, but what about the rest of it? There was a mystery to be solved when it came to such a thing. The fact that when they went in, the green smoke and such... That smell had a really familiar smell. She wondered if perhaps it wasn't a dream and 'it was a dream' was a cover up. The smoke could've just been used to put them asleep and then they were transferred apart and dropped off else where by the little furry gremlins. Arisa brushed her long messy hair with her soft finger tails and long nails. Her unholy eyes of brown and black gazed at the ghost as she gazed back at Arisa. There was some weird connection between them, but what was it?

She didn't really know as the woman would then look at Hyoen as he questioned her. Before this happened, Hyoen brought up that Arisa looked tired, making her chuckle lightly. ''I guess that ever since my day with Alisa and in training, my energy feels like it's being sucked out of me... Sometimes I wanna do nothing, my hopes are demolished and so on....'' she tried to explain calmly as her facial expression still showed nothing besides a small smile on her lips and her darkened eyes.

She spoke simple-like as she was probably trying to say that she wanted help to find the rest of her family. Her eyes cornered both ways, ''So your family oooof? How many? And in this forest, correct?'' she asked questions as simple as she could think of. She nodded and brought up her fingers that showed 'four'. ''Alright... Hyoen...'' she started and turned to him. ''You look over there on that half of the forest and I'll look on the half we didn't come by. We'll meet back here.'' she spoke in an ordering way. She didn't like being a leader, but this was a time for action. With that, Arisa walked towards the darkened forest to search for her husband and two children. As long as she found someone, it shouldn't matter.

377

1113/1500

It appeared that the female ghost was very, very desperate to reunite with her family again. Thinking about how desperate that she was, it could have been the reason and drive force to her ‘returning’ to the mortal realm in this night close to Halloween. If he remembered right, in the night of Halloween, all deceased would walk the earth once more as phantoms, ghosts, just like this individual, where they would either cause harm or hope. It would be a night of the dead, and surely one to remember. He didn’t have experience with things like that before, though, because despite living in Worth Woodsea, there had never been a carnival like this one before. In fact, he had never seen a ghost before either; that too was a first time for him. Obviosuly, it scared him at first, but he began feeling more and more compassionate with this specific one after her words earlier. Looking at Ana, he noticed that she really looked more tired than usual, and she stated that it had been like this since her training with Alisa. He remembered a certain, white-haired girl speak out that name to the black-haired girl back at Pegasus Beach, specifically where they were having tug-of-war. Alisa was his opponent, in which he realized the obviosity in that Ana knew her. However, she sounded a bit too dry for her face; despite the smile, what her words expressed didn’t sound like accompanying a smile at most times.

The ghost had explained that she had a family of four; her, most likely a husband, and then the two last would presumably and approximately her children. Ana had planned that they should have split up, her trying to look around the first half of the forest and Hyōen in the other half. Nodding, he quickly turned around and gestured the ghost to follow him as they would approach the shrubbery of Worth Woodsea. The Fire Mage had enough experience about these parts to find around, even in gloom and dusk, as he would firmly push away bushes and branches that stood in the way. However, given that the ghost went right through them, it felt like an unneeded gesture, in which he simply leapt around instead. The forest resembled that of a nightmare in the dark, and his eyes were on their guards all the time in case if any beast would try to attack him in shelter of the night.

He could see a light. It was faint, but his rather tired eyes spotted them just enough to be able to pinpoint its location. He quickly rushed whilst having noted that he might have seen someone, in which the ghost followed troop right behind him. Once he braked his feet in the dirty ground, he spotted the bright, ghastly remain of a dead child; it was a small boy, whose eyes began filling with tears by their presence. However, as soon as he saw his mother, his tears exploded as he had went out for a hug. After the touching reunion with mother and child, Hyōen did what Ana had planned and returned back to his cottage without obstacles.

1532/1500

-exit-

Arisa looked at Hyoen, waiting for him to decide on what to do. She wasn't going to really assume on if Hyoen was alright with splitting up already or not. Her foot could feel the cold ground, not wearing any shoes and her kimono felt more like a coat for right now. Her eyes studied the woman as she wanted to resemble the child when she went out to find them. She hoped that she could find the father too so she could resemble him as well to the children. This reminded her of the last time when she encountered a ghost. She wasn't out of sorrow though such as sloth, it was more out of wrath, anger in this case for those simple minded beings.

After Hyoen agreed to finally go out and go their separate ways to find these other three, the mother went with Hyoen to find them as Arisa went on her own. ''Wonder if I'll be able to find one of them at least....'' she spoke. She wandered into the forest full of dying trees. The leafs were falling already as most of them were on the ground, ready to be burned all up.

Hooo hooo~

She heard owls as it was their time to be awake. Owls were like the stereotypical vampires who stalked the night. They could see at night time and they hunt their prey during this time. She wasn't going to be one any time soon for those vampires. At least of right now she hasn't met any vampires, nice nor bad, as far as she knew anyways. Any of those people she met in the past could be a vampire, but would have never really noticed it. After that dream with the fallen angel, she has been getting this feeling, the feeling of being able to sense if someone was an evil race or not. Demons, vampires, 'lycans' and more.... there were so many more that she has yet to learn about, to find and to seek to learn knowledge from.

Arisa continued on her search to find a dead older male's body, just leaning against a tree. Not so far away from that man was a spirit. ''Greetings lost spirit. Have you lost your wife?'' she questioned, tilted her head as she was being courageous with this. She wanted to help out this family as if she had a family and this chance happened, she'd want this to happen too. He nodded and explained the situation. After more walking she found the child curled up dead in a tree space where some animals usually would hide. After finding it's spirit she lead them back to Hyoen who found the other child and they rejoined. They thanked her and Hyoen, giving them pops as a reward before passing off.

447

1560/1500

-exit-