I take each step carefully while I look down at the rundown path below me made of gravel and dirt.

The grass invaded the path, it was clear that there was little to no maintenance since the path was constructed.

As I dragged my feet down the path to my destination I pondered my thoughts on what the strange man told me earlier.

The ten rules he told me about seemed completely absurd and unreal. I felt as if this was my first moment to think about all that had happened.

The pig monster, The strange man. It was all happening so quickly I felt I had no time to breathe.

As I was thinking I was reminded of when the strange man showed me the security cameras.

I took a glance at the top of the trees and after a few moments, I spotted a camera hidden in a branch on a tree.

Even though he showed me it earlier it still surprised me that they actually were there. I had too many questions with no answers.

I decided that it wasn’t worth pondering any of these questions as at the moment I had no way to find the answers I sought.

As I walked I looked deep into the forest and thought about the pig monsters and the rules the man told me.

Fear enveloped me for a moment as I thought of the unknown, however in an attempt to avoid reality I looked at the ground and started drawing lines in the gravel as I walked.

Eventually, there was an opening in the forest and the gravel road stopped. I looked up to see a large abandoned church.

Moss covered it from head to toe almost completely. Some of the roof tiles looked like they had caved in and most of the glass in the windows had shattered.

The only thing that looked clean was a large golden bell that was held up on top of the roof.

Suddenly the bell started to move on its own and remembering what the Strange man had said I started hurrying to the door.

The door was slightly open but made of metal. It seemed like it was unmovable however I could barely fit myself inside.

Once I got inside I noticed that there were nine people already there. They all looked at me as if they were eyeing me out.

After a moment of awkward silence, a small old black man with a large white beard said “well, It would seem that introductions are in order. My name is Ezra and you are?”.

“My name is D-Dante ''

I stuttered to the group of people as they stared at me and made me uncomfortable. After a moment of silence,

a blond lady with her hair in a pigtail who looked to be about 40 said “My name is Annabelle ''.

As she said that I realized she was pregnant. Next was a kid with short ginger hair who peeked his head out from behind Annabelle.

He shyly said “I-I’m Wilson '' before hiding back behind Annabelle.

After that, a large muscular bald man who was leaning on a wall said “Name’s Bruno”.

Two people stood up from a broken bench one was a scrawny male no older than 17 with short black hair. The other was a 20-year-old girl with long black hair.

The male moved his hand around, however, I didn’t understand what he was trying to convey. The girl suddenly said, “My name is Cheryl and this is my brother Jack he is mute”.

He seemed to sign something after that but I still couldn’t understand.

Next was an Indian man who had long black hair and glasses. “Hello, my name is Amar.”

He said before pushing up his glasses.

Next to him was an albino girl with long hair who said “Hello” without giving a name.

Before I could ask what her name was, the bald man said “don’t bother she hasn’t told anyone.”

Perplexed, I moved on to the last woman.

She was crouched in the corner shaking and a pile of vomit sat at her feet.

The bald man frowned and introduced her “That’s Matilda she was here before anyone else got her we think that she’s having a withdrawal from drugs”.

I looked at her and saw that her hair was stringy, her arms boney, and from the glimpses of when she would open her mouth, she didn’t have any teeth.

After introductions, everyone went back to whatever they were doing except Erza.

He walked up to me and started some small talk. It felt awkward doing small talk considering the situation we were in.

He seemed to notice that I didn’t feel like talking too much at the moment and he left me alone. I looked around the church for a moment.

There was a single bench that was in use by the two siblings. Other than that it was pretty much rubble. However, next to the albino girl was an old bookshelf.

On it, there was a single book. I walked up and grabbed it. There was dust around it however, it seemed that it had been taken off the shelf recently.

Inside the book, there were only a few pages as the rest seemed to be ripped out.

As I was looking at the book Erza walked up to me and said

“It’s quite an interesting book. Although some of the pages are ripped out, from what’s there it’s very surreal.

It talks about a weird crow person and some other stuff I won’t spoil if you want to read it. Sorry for troubling you. I'm quite chatty if you didn’t notice.”

I replied, “Not at all thanks for telling me about it.”

he nodded and sat down on the ground next to me. As he did I wiped some dust off the cover and read the title out loud in my head ‘Diary of Ark’.