Tony looked around the dining room, it was unrecognizable. The curtains had been torn down and the antiquities had been removed. The vampire must be storing them elsewhere. Many sacks of hay and cloth bed sheets lay on the floor, uncomfortable but welcome beds for the many refugees that would arrive the next morning. ‘Satisfied?’ Thomas asked Louie. He nodded, but his enthusiasm seemed reserved. The three of them walked around the house, the place sure seemed a lot more colorful and fresh then it had been before. Several men and women were still cleaning the place up, scrubbing the hard wooden floors and cleaning the walls. The dusty, old rugs had been removed
‘They’re doing a great job.’ Thomas said.
‘This place used to be a mess and look at it now, suitable for families with children.’ Tony spoke with the voice of a man ten times his age. ‘I think we’d best head back, dinner is probably ready and Susan has put some great effort into it.’ The three men took another good look around and left the mansion but stopped cold in their tracks. The mutilated body of a young female lay only several meters away. Dry lumps of blood stuck to her fur and it looked as if she had difficulty breathing.
Without saying a word to each other, the three men approached her. ‘Are you alright?’ Thomas asked, trying to make his voice sound calm and nurturing.
Whether it was the sound of an unfamiliar voice or the girls fear they didn’t know, but she cowered at the mere sight of them. ‘Do not touch me, please leave. Please do not hurt me.’ Blood streamed down from her lips as she spoke, her voice was so soft and her body so broken. As if she spoke with the voice of a little child. Whoever had done this to her, they had not been holding back.
‘Poor girl, she’s lost it.’ Tony whispered. He could be so subtle.
She didn’t reply but tried to crawl away from them burying her bloody fingers in the soft grass. Thomas noticed that an exceptional amount of blood seemed to drip down from underneath her body. ‘We have to get her to Susan before she bleeds to death.’ He said determined. ‘Whether she wants to or not is not important right now. We need to get her to my place if we want to save her life.’ Tony and Louie both looked at each other. ‘What did you have in mind?’ The first one said.
Yakira had struggled enough for one day, her body wanted to continue escaping from the potential evildoers but she could not go on any longer. She rested on one of her arms and collapsed.
‘I guess that makes it a lot easier.’ Louie said with an indifferent tone to his voice. Thomas squatted down next to her and rolled her over onto her back. ‘Alright Tony, you grab her legs and…’ He stopped right in the middle of his sentence. Several bloody marks had appeared across the cloth on her chest. ‘Let’s get this girl to the house.’

‘What happened, who is she?’ Alexander said as he opened the door.
‘We do not know, we found her at the mansion. Poor girl has been pretty roughed up.’
Tony said as he and Thomas placed her down on the couch. Susan looked after her and healed her wounds. ‘It looks like something has attacked her eyes as well. What kind of monster could do this to her?’
‘A friend of Louie’s apparently.’ Tony said, but was quickly shut up by the look in Louie’s eyes.
Yakira opened her eyes, she was blind and wrapped in darkness.
Several figures were surrounding her; her eyes moved around quickly, looking at nothing in particular..
She grabbed the hand of one of them. ‘Tell them not to hurt me.’ She said, before she drifted off again. Her hand slid out of Louie’s. The first seeds of pity were sown within him. A feeling long ago cut from his very soul by the embrace. He leaned over her and whispered into her ear to make sure that no one else would hear him. ‘No one is going to hurt you while I’m around.’

Everything that is evil starts out as something good.

“Gary? Where are you Gary?”
Several children were playing a game of hide and seek. It’s funny how something as simple as that can entertain us so in our younger days. “This isn’t funny anymore Gary, please come here.” Meya shouted. “I’m going to tell your aunt about this and you’ll be in trouble.” She paused to see if he would respond to this threat, but he didn’t. “I swear I am going to tell on you Gary!” But she knew that Gary wouldn’t believe her because she was far too fond of to get him into trouble. She’d have to miss him for days if she’d tell on him. And who would she play with then? Marcus, who she had found in less than a minute because he was to fat to fit in the barrel he tried to hide in. Or Reglia, who always pulled her ears if Gary wasn’t looking. Roger wasn’t too bad, he was a little quiet ever since the kids went on an adventure that took them to Greenthorpe mansion. Nobody knows what he saw and nobody ever asks him for it. Some things are best left unknown and even though they were still young, they knew this was one of those things.

“Gary?” Reglia shouted. She was starting to get worried as well. She knew that he liked a joke but this had gone on long enough now. “Let’s go look for him.” Marcus said lazily.
Even talking cost him too much energy and it didn’t look like he was going to get out from underneath that tree even though he suggested to go look for Gary.
“What do you think we’ve been doing lard head?” Reglia said. “This game is called hide and SEEK for a reason, geek.” Meya giggled.

“He may be a lard head but he is right.” Roger said. “It’s getting dark and if we don’t get home in time our parents will start to get worried. I do not want to stay out here after the sun has gone down” Marcus wanted to get up, but after a few sighs and puffs he decided that it was best for him to stay behind in case Gary came back.
Reglia gave him a soft kick against his big -ss and shook her head. “One day you’ll sit still forever because you’d be too fat to get up.” Roger smiled.
He thought she was pretty, two golden brown pony tails were hanging down her shoulders and her eyes would sparkle if she made one of these mean comments. He enjoyed hearing her voice; he had enjoyed it ever since they started to play together. The people in town called them ‘The pack’ wherever they went. They always went together. If only they had stayed together this time…

He walked a little further into the cave he had discovered.
Gary was looking for a good place to hide and stumbled over something underneath the grass.
When he looked to see what it was that made him stumble he noticed a hole in the ground, just big enough for a small rabbit to squeeze through.
In the eyes of an adult, his next move would have been one of great courage or stupidity.
But in the eyes of a child, it was the perfect hiding place.
A narrow tunnel crawled through the thick and dark earth. Several strange crystals in the sides of the tunnel lit everything up so that he could see where he was going.
His mind told him to stay put but he decided to ignore the good advice and he wandered on.
“I’m going to tell your aunt…” Sweet Meya. ‘I know you won’t’ He thought to himself.
He reached the end of the tunnel and entered a massive cave underneath the earth lit up by hundreds of Crystals. He stood there in awe over the size of this cave.
A cold stream of wind playfully teased his earlobes. He didn’t know why and he knew he should not do this but he took a few steps into the cave and stepped into a small stream of icy cold water. His foot blocked up the path of the water like a dam and it felt like the cold water bit in his feet but he was too bedazzled to feel anything. This was how the archeologists must have felt when they discovered the grave of king Nozz, the first king of the old times that had united the rabbits of Carrotus. The air in here was thick and smelled sour, could he have been the first person that had entered this cave in thousands of years or more even. He could have even been the very first person that entered this cave since the beginning of time. His imagination seemed to have no limits, but he soon found out that his last assumption wasn’t correct when he noticed a drawing on the far wall.

“He must’ve disappeared somewhere around here.” Timmy said. The sun was setting over the treetops now it would not be long until it would be dark. They all searched down the area in which Gary had disappeared, inch by inch, until Meya noticed a hole underneath a patch of grass. It seemed that Gary hadn’t covered up his little secret as well as he hoped he had.
“Here, look.” One of his wristbands was resting in the sand.
Timmy, Meya and Reglia were all looking at each other. They looked rather scared.
“Gary?” Meya said softer than before and a lot more scared than before.

The drawing depicted the monstrous form of a man; thick black lines were drawn over him. As if he was locked in a cage. Gary was drawn to its eyes, as if the drawing had placed an enchantment upon him. ‘Touch me Gary, touch me and free me. Please Gary I’ve been alone for ages.’
The drawing had gotten inside of his head. The young rabbit’s mouth hang open and a small stream of drool fell from the corner of his mouth.
A muffled “Yes…” barely audible escaped from his lips and he brought his fingers to the drawing. ‘Good boy. You’ll be rewarded Gary, you’ll be a rich man. I’ll give you everything you want Gary, free me.’ The monsters voice was so friendly and calm it was soothing and it was not long before his fingers touched the cold rock. Gary’s heart stopped, for a second, for a minute. For one brief period of time he had lost track of everything. It felt like an eternity of pain and anger soared through him. He did not scream, he could not scream. The monster was his throat; the monster was his head, his eyes, his ears. And then, all of a sudden. Everything seemed to go back to normal.

“Gary, you scared us. Didn’t you hear me? I called out your name.” The young boy turned around and looked straight into Rogers eyes. All color left the young boys face. He had looked into the eyes of a monster before and it had left him crippled. He wasn’t sure what to say and decided that it was best not to say anything at all. It had helped him out before.
Gary gave the two girls a big hug and then turned his back on them to look at Roger.
He grinned and placed his pointer finger on his lip. ‘This could be the start of a beautiful friendship Gary.’