Inside the Beast's Castle

Chapter 24--Vespers(2)

The forest was dark.

Obviously.

The tree branches fit perfectly together, making a canopy that blocked out almost all the weak light that tried to break through.

My throat constricted. The last time I as in the forest was the night I first met Kvir. It was when I ran away and saw the black-masked men who were supposed to be dead.

A hoot from an owl (I think it was an owl, anyway), startled me. I jumped and twirled around. Branches cracked under my feet, not allowing me to silently move as I hoped. I pushed through the bushes and thorns, holding onto the dagger like a lifeline.

Everything fell silent. No crickets chirped, the owl that hooted made no noise, there were no sounds of the feet of scurrying squirrels or the mad flapping of birds wings.

Then, a low voice shattered the silence. It was a man, and he was singing.

"Hush lit-tle
Ba-by,
Don't say a
Wo-rd.

Mama' gonna
Buy you
A mock-king
Bird.

And when that
Mock-king bird don't sing,
Papa's gon-na tie it up with
Me-tal strings.

And watch its wings go
Flap-py flap.
And eat it th-en,
Just like that."

My heat kept into my throat. The voice slowly sang the lullaby song in the creepiest way possible. The worst part wasn't the fact that someone sang it though. It was, for one, the song that one of the men sang under their breath the night my mother died.
Second, it was coming from directly behind me.

I turned around and bit back a scream. Stepping toward me, holding a bloodstained dagger was a person wearing a black mask. Red oozed from the top of his head, falling in between the creases on the face mask. His shirt was spotless; there were not rips or stains from the forest. The only thing on his chest was a four-inch wide wood piece that stuck through him and out his back.

Don't things like that normally kill people?

The man stepped toward me again.

Time to go.

I turned back around and ran like a bat out of--well, I ran fast. Terror boosted my adrenaline as I fought my way through the bushes and trees. Thorns scraped at my cheeks, digging into my flesh. I ignored them.

But no matter how fast I ran, the man was the same distance behind me, singing that song.

"And then I'll watch you,
Ba-by, aye.
I'll sit right there and watch you
Cry."

My breath came out in choked gasps, some from running and some from the tears I was swallowing down. The song spread around me like wildfire, echoing from the smallest nook in a tree to an owl hooting along. I could almost hear thumping every few beats, like an unstopping drum beat.

Something brushed against my shoulder. I ignored it, putting it off as a tree branch.

Then said tree branch grabbed my shoulder.

I shrieked and tried to pull away, all the while still running. It didn't work. I only succeeded in pulling him closer to me.

He yanked my shoulder back, twisting my body around. My feet tangled up, resulting in a hard fall on my side. The air left my lungs, leaving me gasping for breath but still managing to scramble back, away from the man.

Through the folds of the mask, I saw the man's mouth open again.

"I'll laugh at your--"