CHAPTER 17:

  They all continued to walk through the forest with relative ease, no interference this time

  In the delta of a forest that Sylvia had led them there, it seemed like an ancient church

  They descended down the small hill by taking each other's hand, making sure to be stable down the path

  Haru, now walking in front of Sylvia, turned his head to look back

  “This must be the place then. We've been walking for hours, and I even lost count”

  As she was looking at the ancient church, it was in ruins, Sylvia's pointy ears rattled as she heard haru

  “Correct, this is the designated place. Don't let the ancient disguise fool you. This place just has poor maintenance”

  Garcia, hearing Sylvia respond to haru, scratched his chin

  Recalling that he had read about records in the Hebrew scrolls about ancient churches in Constantinople(Istanbul)

  Rarely was one even hidden and mistreated

  When he suddenly remembered another important detail, if Sylvia knew about this place, it had to do something with the property inherently

  A look of realization flashed before his eyes. He stopped scratching his chin

  “This place, it can only be the meeting sermon of the church. They usually have secret spots like this for meetings”

  All the others looked at Garcia in surprise, while he did have the Hebrew scrolls at all times with him as one would guess. This was all from memory that he had said

  Sylvia tilted her head as she looked at him, adjusting her glasses for them not to fall

  “Spot on actually, this church was and is still used traditionally for sermons”

  With that being said, the atmosphere became more relaxed

  They kept moving forward

  Zoe, basically skipping with her steps, while Sasha was trying to catch her

  “Get back here!”

  “Oh relax. It's not that serious”

  Charybdi was walking while pouting, Scylla kept silent while also looking beside her, at her sister

  “This is boring, couldn't we be training instead?”

  “Shut it. Not everything needs to be a fight bonehead”

  “Language you two!”

  Preston, from behind the both of them, watched tentatively. He was well aware that he needed to interfere with Charybdi if she acted up

  Lana and Annabelle kept their gazes straight ahead while walking. They stayed quiet in each other's presence

  Sylvia had kept her gaze down to the grass, avoiding eye contact with the others

  Haru noticed the expression on her face couldn't help but find it strange. Just a few moments ago, Sylvia was brimming with joy

  Without looking at her, he spoke

  “What's with the frown, Sylvia? It doesn't suit you”

  As they were slowly reaching the church ruins, Sylvia didn't turn around when she heard those words. Instead, she insisted

  “Is it not obvious? I'm trying to be serious. There is no reason for me to be entertained”

  She raised both eyebrows at her reply, Sylvia was usually mature and composed, but not this dead serious. He couldn't even bring himself to look at her face from how fierce she seemed

  When they finally reached the ruins of the church, pieces of it laid down on the ground like they had been brought down by man

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  The building in was one with a Gothic appearance to it and tainted windows

  A single cross was held at the peak of the roof above the circular tainted glass

  There was only one door were one could enter form

  The door made out of black wood was reasonably tall

  Zoe, who had been skipping along happily, touched one of the ruins, running her soft and delicate hand across its surface as if testing it

  Sasha gave out a sigh. She supposed that it'd be fine this time

  “Just make sure that you don't wander into any trouble”

  Sasha rubbed the temples of her nose as she spoke

  Zoe turned her head almost like an owl with a smile on her face

  “I promise I won't. You don't have to worry about me, Sasha!”

  Zoe said, giggling to herself

  Haru tilted his head in mild curiosity. He ran his hand along the hard surface of the fallen column

  It was clay like with ridges and potholes in it, a few scars here and there. Overall, it hadn't been damaged too much

  While doing it, Haru thought to himself about the reason

  (Pieces of the church lie here, but much of the church itself is still intact,that makes no sense…)

  The more they explored, the clearer it became to Haru that Sylvia was indeed trying to hide something from all of them

  Sylvia herself was no fool. She was already aware that haru had caught to her, so it was a matter of time until the rest noticed too

  She huffed slightly, cursing herself under her breath, then she muttered again to herself out of frustration

  “Godamnit, I tried to stall as much time as possible for them”

  Once she muttered that, a sweat ran down her cheek. Maybe she had said it out loud and was being careless

  She had no safe way to know for sure, so she composed herself and looked up, praying from the inside that no one heard her

  She started walking faster, without saying another word

  Upon seeing this, Annabelle tilted her head in slight confusion. She was the second one to notice her odd behavior

  “Sylvia?”

  Sylvia, without stopping, simply replied in a calm tone

  “It's nothing, I'm just feeling under the weather today”

  Annabelle frowned her eyebrows slightly before replying

  “I wasn't asking that, defensive much?”

  Which in turn, caused Lana to notice Annabelle's reaction and that, in turn, caused a chain reaction. Since everyone was close to each other, they noticed each other's expression all the time when not talking

  Sylvia looked back, seeing that all eyes were on her as everyone remained silent, even Zoe

  Her own thoughts had been proven. She couldn't decide whether that was a curse or a blessing in disguise

  On the one hand, yes, the group seemed to be close to each other and perceptive, but that also meant that she could hardly conceal her secrets anymore

  The silence was quickly broken by Zoe by being herself, as she had climbed up upon one of the fallen pillars on the grass

  “Wow, this is fun!”

  Zoe said as she wiggled her arms around, flailing as she sat on her knees

  Haru let out a gushed squirm

  “Bah!”

  He quickly moved to grab her to safety, moving her down from the pillar

  Zoe whined, she pouted, being carried in Haru's arms

  “No! Let me play! You big meanie”

  Haru softly sighed, putting her down

  “God, you're persistent."

  That small interaction had earned a chuckle throughout the group, though it was not inherently funny. The way Haru squirmed was

  Even Sylvia couldn't help but let out a smile at this. She fully looked back at them, noticing that they seemed like they forgot about her mood momentarily

  She had to adjust her glasses twice to see if she was looking correctly

  It seemed that it was both a blessing and a curse at the same time, due to their chemistry, they were perceptive of each other, at the same time, friendly enough to focus on other things

  At last, Sylvia let out a small sigh of relief, no longer being causative around the others

  Shortly after that, they went inside the church itself, inspecting further into it

  Inside the church, it was the classical style, that of the mirrors being painted with images of saints all over, the room had a plethora of seats lined up, a red robe leading to the podium, a piano besides it, as well as the Bible on the podium itself

  Despite all that, the church had a dark and sinister aura to it, like everything was destroyed, broken down, or left to rot

  Even the ever happy Zoe broke facade, as well as Scylla's stoicism

  The atmosphere felt suffocating, like a lump around their throats had been placed

  All felt it except Sylvia, who was looking ahead, utterly unchanged by the interior and atmosphere

  “The key word is, used to, no longer does this church even do sermons ,or have attendants or a priest doing service”

  Haru looked at Sylvia, forcing himself to push down this intense feeling of suffocation

  “Then why the hell are we even in this place?”

  Sylvia, not changing her expression, responded

  “There is much more than meets the eye here”

  Her words echoed throughout the whole church

  The 9(holy beings) now knew that they had to pay attention to her words. Often, more than not, Sylvia hid the meaning of her words in the way that she worded her sentences

  “Upon further inspection, this place doesn't seem to even have active maintenance”

  Garcia said. He mentally flipped through the pages of the Hebrew scrolls

  Sylvia, slightly impressed that Garcia had proven that he remembered most of if not the entirety of the Hebrew scrolls in his mind, cleared her throat as she spoke

  “Bullseye, which is why this place is so horror looking in the first place, it isn't that there's something haunting it, it doesn't have any maintenance"

  Scylla, in her curiosity, raised both her eyebrows

  “But this is a church. A church is important. Why may it be that they abandoned it?”

  “That's what I thought too. Actually, Sylvia just said that it is not haunted. That can only mean that someone pulled the strings”

  Haru scratched the back of his head while answering Scylla's question

  Sylvia was about to say basically the same thing as Haru, but he snatched it out of her mouth

  She was beginning to feel more and more proud of them. She had severely underestimated their perception and keen eye yet again

  “I suppose nothing else needs to be said. You all can look around freely”

  Sylvia said as she advanced further, walking on the red carpet of the church, thinking to himself to pass the time

  Lana lit up a cigarette, observing the paintings on the glass above

  Annabelle scrutinized Lana silently from the sidelines. She frowned slightly. Otherwise, she kept her cool

  Both Charybdi and Scylla wandered around the church in curiosity, Preston was watching them from behind, keeping them both in check

  Matthew and Garcia debated on what would happen next, based on the past and future, although Matthew was careful not to reveal too much

  Zoe happily walked around the church, getting herself into dangerous positions and situations, Sasha saved her every time as fast as she could

  Outside of the church, deep enough into the forest of Constantinople(Istanbul), a loud cry could be heard echoing, bouncing of the trees

  Two men could be seen even at a distance, standing above the body of a bloodied boar on the ground, bleeding to death slowly

  They stood over the boar watching it, and one of the men kneeled down on one knee to inspect it

  “The creatures of this land, they're much weaker than before”

  “Indeed, what an intriguing development, although much less fun”

  The other man responded with a soft chuckle

  The man who was kneeling on the ground had white, somewhat long hair and green eyes, as well as a black leather jacket, even though it was hot in the area

  The man beside him was wearing a black shirt and not a jacket. He was wearing leather jeans, his hair a deep brown, and his eyes a deep blue color

  The boar cried out weakly as it tried to move but couldn't. It had left a trail for blood behind it, the blood coming out of the wound on its stomach

  It had run away from these two men, from their first strike, prior, not being able to sense their presence

  It’s loud cries in its desperation to escape had filled the forest area within a200-meterr radius, causing the small animals to hide away in fear

  They tortured the poor boar until it couldn't defend itself anymore, now dropped to the ground, like garbage

  The two men smiled evilly, hardly did they care for what animals they killed, or if they were to cause a disturbance in the area

  They hadn't even bothered to cover their tracks or the boars blood trail, in case of a discovery

  No further blow was inflicted on the boars body other than the one on its now gaping stomach

  Its guts are spilled over on the ground

  The men weren't stupid or careless. They were simply maniacs who liked to play with their food

  Back inside the church, the loud cry could be heard clearly

  None of them could make out the exact sound, though

  Everyone stopped what they were doing when they heard it

  Even Sylvia stopped, momentarily shaken throughout her whole body

  “What the hell was that?”

  No one dared to even say a single word. It wasn't as loud as a bomb, but as scary as a horror movie scream…