The Night Is Rising // O/O // Closed

“It’s looking for something, it seems,” Ana said in a low voice. “It might have caught our scent. We need to be ready to move in case it comes here.”
The monster suddenly snapped its head down and picked something up in its jaws. Given that the thing it had picked up was squirming, she was pretty sure that the thing was alive. It was too small to be a human, though, luckily.

"Okay, okay," Laurel breathed, taking a deep breath and psyching herself up to make a run for it, if needs be. "Is it coming?" Even though she was pretty sure she could get out of there, she wasn't quite ready to actually look at the monster. Expecially if it was coming towards her. This had been so much better when they were at Endor's castle, or even when the monsters had first appeared.

"No, I don't think so…" Ana watched for another moment.
The creature, having gotten its prey, slowly slithered away. It must not have smelled them.
She gave a sigh of relief. "Nope. It didn't know we were here." She glanced around. "Once it gets out of sight, though, we should leave. I don't want it coming back for us."

"Oh, thank God." Laurel let out a breath she'd been holding and let herself relax. It might have been too early to do that, but there was so much going on. "Yeah, let's do that. Where will we go once we get out of here?" She asked, gesturing around her at the shop. She really wanted to find that weapon so they could finally fight those things instead of hoping they wouldn't find them. She wanted to get rid of that powerless feeling inside of her.

“Probably to get one of the weapons.” Ana wished that she had brought the map along, so she could see what things were the closest to their current destination. “I mean, the knives are great and all, but somehow I don’t think that they’ll protect us from a hoard of monsters.”
She brushed some hair from her face and stood. The monster thing had gone, and it seemed like she and Laurel were gone. She picked up her bag of candy. “Come on. Let’s go.”

"Yeah… that's a good idea," Laurel agreed, nodding. She was glad Ana wanted to go get the weapon as well– having to argue with her didn't sound like something she wanted to do. "Agreed. They're pretty and they work for one monster, but it would be really nice having something that could wipe out an entire group of them." Laurel stood up as fast as she could and grabbed her candy. At least they'd gotten to keep the candy at the end of this crazy little adventure. "Alright."

“Think there will be a weapon that can blow up an entire area, like a grenade?” Ana grinned. “Because that would be super useful.” She stood, going over to the window and peering out. “Nope. There’s nothing out there. Let’s go before the thing comes back.”
She looked in satisfaction at the candy in her bag. All in all, it had been a pretty successful raid… minus the monster.

"Ha! Imagine that. I'd love that. We could just throw it at them and run." Laurel laughed and tightened her grip on the bag of candy. "Agreed." She nodded and checked the street one more time before hurring out of the building and towards the Jeep. Laurel was eager to look at the map and find the location of the weapon. Hopefully the monsters wouldn't be around the place where the weapon was. And hopefully, the Shadow King left them alone until they'd gotten their hands on the weapon. She'd been terrified when one monster had shown up– who knew what the leader of those monsters was like?

Ana quickly slid into the Jeep, putting her bag of candy in a safe spot behind her seat, where it wouldn’t fall out for lack of a door in the front. She pulled out the map and looked at it. There were a few weapon-marked places nearby ish. “Where do you want to go first?” She asked, showing the map to Laurel.

Laurel climbed into the Jeep and, seeing where Ana put her candy, did the same with her bag. She leaned towards the map and quickly scanned it. Her eyes quickly landed on a small picture of a crown. "What about that one?" Laurel asked, tapping it quickly. "Didn't that crazy lady Endor say something about getting it first?" It appeared like the icon was hovering over a lake, but that was probably just the general place, not where it actually was. "The lake is pretty, too." She laughed lightly and looked up at Ana to get her opinion.

"Sure!" Ana said lightly, starting the car and pulling out of the candy shop parking lot. She pulled a piece of gum from her pocket and popped it in her mouth. "I'd like to see water… I hope it's water, anyway." She grinned. "All these trees are getting on my nerves."
Then, she glanced at Laurel, a question growing in her mind. "Do we want to go to my brother's house, to drop off any unnecessary stuff, or should we try to get all of the weapons and stuff first?"

Laurel nodded slightly and glanced over her shoulder at the road behind them. It was empty again. "Ha, yeah. This place is great, but there really are a lot of trees." She laughed and shook her head. "What do you mean, you hope it's water?" Laurel frowned lightly. Did Ana think the water would be changed to something else? "Oh… I mean, I'd like to get the weapons first, just in case we run into a pack of monsters on our way to your brother's house. But we can go there first if you want to."

“There are,” Ana agreed. “Trees are cool, but I don’t like too many of them. Water is better.” She lifted one hand from the steering wheel to brush some hair from her face.
“And yeah, we can go get the weapons first. I was just wondering if you’d like a break or not.” She chewed on her lip thoughtfully. “Where do you think we should sleep during the night? Or should we take turns driving?”

Laurel smiled softly. "Trees are nice because that's what forests are made of. I don't know about you, but forests seem really magical." She pressed her lips together and shook her head slightly, eyes full of humor. "But yeah, water can be really nice too." Laurel sighed softly, glad that they were going to get the weapon first. "I mean, a break would be nice, but I don't think I could truly relax knowing those monsters could appear any second. Especially if we can't fight them off. Oh… it would be nice if we could find somewhere to crash, but if that doesn't work I'd be fine with taking turns driving." She looked over at Ana and shrugged.

“I wonder if there are any hotels that are open,” Ana mused. “We could stay in one of the rooms in a place like that. Although the risk is that there might be no one there, or the Jeep might get stolen.” She frowned. “But it’s up to you. And I agree. I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep well tonight if I know that there are things out there that we can’t beat.” She hit the gas. “Let’s try to get to the lake or whatever this place is before the sun starts to set.”

"Huh, that's a good question." Laurel sighed softly. "Yeah, it might be like the candy store. And who knows what kind of people might show up there." It might be nice to sleep in a bed, but she had no idea what a hotel might look like in an apocalypse. Getting the Jeep stolen from them would be really bad, too. "I don't know. I guess, if we pass one, we can check it out. But I agree, we should try and find the weapon before the sun sets." Laurel nodded. They probably would have enough time to find the weapon before the sun went down.

Ana nodded. “Yeah…” she trailed off, and for a long while, there was only the noise of the car driving over the road, and the wind. Finally, she spoke again. “I wonder what happened to all those people who used to live in the town. Do you think that there’s a monster that could consume them without struggle? Or maybe a hypnotist-type creature?”

Laurel watched the landscape pass, eyes alert for any monsters. There was nothing, though, much to her relief. Although this was the best time to think about everything that had happened so far, Laurel didn't want to. If she thought about any of that, she didn't know what would happen to her. Instead, she hummed a song to the wind until Ana spoke. "Hmm. There might be. I haven't seen any monsters other than those weird shadowy ones, but that doesn't mean they couldn't exist. Honestly, I wouldn't doubt something like that could happen." Laurel laughed dryly. "I hope we can find them, though," She added as an afterthought. Laurel didn't know many people in the town, but she didn't like the idea of everyone who'd lived there being gone forever.

"Me too." Ana shook her head, shivering slightly. "I may not like people all that much, but I like it even less when everyone is missing." She sighed. "Do you think they all ran?" She answered her own question. "No, they couldn't have. The cars were still there, and there was no sign of anyone breaking in to any of the stores, which would usually happen if everyone was trying to run away."
She gave a wry smile. "I hope we can find them too."
She glanced at Laurel, who was looking worried. "Do you think that there are more types of monsters than just the weird shadowy ones we saw with Endor and that bug one we saw in the candy store?"

"Heh, yeah." Laurel nodded slowly. "I don't think they all left. What you said makes sense." She sighed softly. What in the world could have happened to everyone? If they didn't leave, and the monsters didn't eat them… where did they go? "I… I hope not. I can't deal with any more of those monsters." But Ana's question wormed into her brain. Terrible, imaginary monsters ran through her brain and Laurel shivered. What would their king look like? Another parade of monstrosities skipped through her mind. "No, there had better not be." She repeated, shaking her head to get rid of the images. Her imagination was a little too good at that moment. "But if there are, I'd rather they stay away from me."

"Me too." Ana frowned. "As much as I don't want it to be true, I think that there are more types of monsters than just the two. The Shadow King can't be that unimaginative, right?" She shook her head. "I wonder if we'll see any other people while we're getting the weapons. And…" She hesitated. There was a question she had been wanting to ask for a while, although Laurel wouldn't know the answer. It was something that had been bothering her for a while. "Who do you think Endor and Alina or whatever her name is really are? What if they're the ones who are sending the monsters toward us, and not this so-called Shadow King?"

"Probably… I don't know, maybe he is. I mean, we have the monsters that look like they're made out of shadows and their king is called 'the Shadow King', so…" Laurel trailed off. She desperately wanted this Shadow King to be unimaginative. She wanted him to stay away from her and Ana forever, or at least until they could fight back. "That would be nice to know that other people still exist, but if they're trying to get the weapon, then… I don't want to fight against humans. But we need to get that weapon." Laurel didn't know why she was so sure it was her and Ana who needed to get the weapons, but she didn't want to think about other people getting it. "Oh." Ana did make a good point. "Endor seemed to know a lot. And she probably could have gotten rid of all the monsters without us, but she insisted that it was us who had to do it. I guess we'll just have to be ready for anything." Laurel shrugged. She wanted to believe that Endor and Alina weren't the bad guys there, but she couldn't rule that possibility out.

"We will. I don't want to have to place my trust in someone I don't know," Ana said. "So I really hope that they're trustworthy. I don't want to be stabbed in the back. So we might want to be careful around the weapons." She sighed, shaking her head. "I probably shouldn't be so wary around people who are trying to help me. but I really can't help it."

Laurel nodded slowly. "Yeah, getting stabbed in the back would suck." She frowned and looked over at Ana. "Do you think the weapons would hurt us? Actually, that would make sense if they were against us. We go off on a grand quest to get the all-powerful weapon, only to get killed by it." Laurel sighed softly. That would be a twist she would love to read about, but not one she would want to live. "It makes sense. We know nothing about anyone who's tried to help us so far, so it's only natural to be cautious around them." It was probably better to doubt first and slowly begin to trust instead of trust instantly and get killed or hurt because of that trust.

"Yeah." Ana sighed. "I wish we knew the full details of what is going on, rather than some vague details that don't make any sense." She shook her head. "But these thoughts are really dark. Let's think of something happy. Like… puppies."
She grinned. "Do you think the pet stores have any pets there at all? Because we could pick up a few pets. We don't have too, but it would be cute."

"Me too. But when could things ever be that easy?" Laurel laughed shortly and ran a hand through her hair. "Oh, yes, I like puppies." She smiled at Ana, grateful for the distraction. "I don't know. I would hope so. The alternative is…" Laurel shuddered slightly, then laughed. "Ha, yeah! We could get a little mascot or two to come with us!" Her smile faded. "But that would be so sad if they got killed or hurt! I don't know." Laurel shrugged, then squinted at the road ahead of them. "Do you think that's the lake?" She pointed out a slight glimmer ahead of them. Either it was the lake or just a mirage, but she hoped it was the lake. However much she liked talking to Ana– and she liked talking to her a lot– she was getting nervous.

"I- that's true." Ana sighed. "It would be so nice to have a little friend, though. Maybe a cat. They don't have the need to be around people all the time. They're just soft and cute. And bad-tempered." She grinned, thinking of how her brother often compared her to a cat.
She glanced over to where Laurel was pointing, and sped up a bit. "I think it might be," she said, as they emerged from a strand of trees. "I think it is. Thank goodness. I was getting worried."

"Oh, a cat would be lovely!" Laurel exclaimed, smiling a little at the thought. It would be nice to have a companion with them. It would be something normal and cute to distract them from the horror around them. To take care of it, though… Laurel leaned forward, eyes fixed on the glimmer in front of them. "Oh, good." She watched as the lake came into view. It looked totally normal, and there was nothing to suggest a weapon was being kept there. "I wonder where the weapon is," she muttered, scanning the area for monsters this time. There were none that she could see.

"I hope it's not in the water," Ana said grimly. "Although with our luck, that might be the case."
She looked out at the dark water, which seemed to go down forever and ever, and shivered slightly. She had never liked water, although she knew how to swim. Water scared her. There were so many things that could go wrong in it. You could drown. You could be afloat forever. You could lose your supplies, or get caught in a storm. You could get lost at sea. There were so many ways that you could get hurt or killed, with few ways to stop them, or help yourself. It was scary to her.

"Yeah. Going swimming isn't what I want to be doing right now. Expecially in a lake." Laurel wrinkled her nose at the water. She was fine with swimming pools and maybe oceans, but lakes were not her favorite. They usually had a lot of stuff in them and she hated it. "I guess we'll just have to see." She waited until the Jeep was stopped before getting out. The lake still didn't look special, and she still couldn't see anything that indicated that there were weapons there. "Huh. I guess we're going for a walk?" Laurel glanced at Ana and shrugged.