Eian looked about as he carried an overly large pack of 'deer' meat and an assortment of other stuff, they'd tied it to his back as he was the only one whom could reliably carry it without much hindrance.

They had already eaten a hearty meal of meat and Alex was now in the lead as he was unhindered, also he was the only other guy, social expectations were deeply ingrained.

To be honest Eian wanted a little break from leading the way, an arrow will do that to you, it was just really mentally tiring having to be on the look out all the time, his spiritual well was also perhaps half-way depleted.

Sarah illuminated the darkness with fire and the forest was rife with shadows, Eian felt his eyes were far better than ever before and the forest was alive with shaded colors despite the darkness.

At this hour the forest was mostly silent, interrupted only by an occasional howl, or the buzzing of tiny insects, those things were an annoyance.

'Are the trees getting bigger?' Eian watched the largest tree to date.

Trees of nearby forest had begun stretching a solid hundred feet into the sky, the largest went even higher by his estimate.

The forest itself held less shrubs in the area and the trees held a fair distance between each other.

Eian didn't hear much commotion here, but he wasn't focusing much either, the forest itself was humid and he was sweaty and uncomfortable.

The others must equally be in the same condition and Eian found it strange Jessica wasn't complaining, at least not aloud, then again that was what she was probably mumbling about.

Eian had handed Jessica's spear back to her as soon as they weren't encountering soft soil anymore, she seemed oddly attached to the spears, she'd almost torn it from his grasp and clutched it close.

"Are we headed anywhere in particular Alex?" Sarah asked him.

"Not really, I can't see anything over the trees." Alex shrugged, and Sarah sighed.

Eian noticed Sarah was getting continuously more and more easily aggravated now, she was almost in a constant foul mood.

It was obvious Alex was also getting annoyed at her constant barbs, she'd called him an idiot a few times and always pointed out things in a rough manner.

Eian for his part didn't care much at the moment, as long as they didn't trouble him he was fine for now, he couldn't police them forever after all.

Not to mention he himself was also in a bit of an annoyed state, he hadn't had much time to deal with Alex's insult, then the guy whom causally insulted his mom, the earthquake, vampires and now trotting through a forest past midnight.

"Stop." Eian frowned as something felt a bit odd.

Everyone was asking questions again, just like when he'd been hit by the arrow, they soon quieted and scanned the darkness along with him.

Eian felt something was strange, he couldn't quite place it for a second, his hearing and gut were telling him something he couldn't understand yet.

The group had quieted fully and were all now scanned the silent forest, nothing broke it and every shadow seemed to want to come alive at every second.

Eian frowned, had he imagined it? His hearing usually never let him down, he was used to even hearing footsteps tailing him in the bad part of his neighborhood, his gut instincts had also helped him hide from gang recruiters before, his mom would never forgive herself if something happened to him.

"Did you see something?" Alex broke the silence.

Eian shook his head, he couldn't spot anything about yet and he supposed stress might make him imagine stuff in this eerily quiet forest.

"Why stop then?" Sarah always seemed to want to know everything.

"Thought something was nearby." Eian shrugged and quickly scanned the darkness to be sure.

Sarah stared at him for a second and she looked about, a full minute passed in silence.

"Did you gain some supernatural detection somehow?" Sarah pressed, her eyes were sharp as a hawks, focused.

"....No." Eian's lips turned upside down, and a bit of his anger reared it's ugly head, was she trying to insult him somehow?

"....You're probably just tired Eian. You've been working hard." Sarah nodded and gave him a small encouraging smile.

Eian wasn't sure if he should be insulted or not, with Sarah you could never be sure if she was complimenting you.

Mentally he let it go, Sarah usually didn't try to tell him off, so maybe she was just really bad at talking to people, he'd noticed she was usually direct about what she though of you.

Soon the group began walking again, Eian wasn't even sure they weren't going in circles, the tree the just passed seemed a lot like one they had passed earlier, then again every damn tree looked the same here.

Perhaps they should use Sarah's earlier idea and mark the trees as they went, he wondered why she hadn't suggested it yet, did she know something he didn't?

"We might be walking in circles." Eian pointed it out.

Everyone turned to look at him, Sarah blinked and nodded, she held fire in one hand and was their main source of light.

"Mark the trees then, we don't want to waste time getting lost." Sarah mumbled something else but only to herself.

A few minutes later Eian finally realized what his gut was telling him, the forest was too quiet, no insects, no birds, nothing was moving or making noise, his eyes widened at the revelation and it kicked his blood into high gear.

"Guys...It's too quiet. It should never be this quiet." Eian declared decisively and stopped to look around again.

Everyone stopped again and Sarah seemed to be in deep thought as she scanned the forest.

"...You sure man?" Alex was scanning about in front.

"You should always hear something. Insects at least." Eian remained steadfast, he wasn't going to doubt himself, better safe than sorry.

Everyone stayed still scanning for almost a full minute, the seed of doubt began to worm it's way into his mind, but he stubbornly shook it off.

Alex looked a little doubtful and his head did slow turns from left to right, Sarah's eyes remained steely scanning everywhere quickly, but Jessica surprised him with a poker face.

Finally something emerged from the darkness, a darkened shape emerged at the edge of their vision, it looked roughly man-shaped.

Eian readied himself for an attack, placing a hand on his axe and preparing to drop the pack.

"Who are you?!" Sarah demanded an answer, but was ignored.

Eian squinted, he couldn't see anything on it apart from darkness, which was weird as he could see everything else around it.

Was it somehow using magic, was it made of magic? Eian kept his gaze locked on it, it took a step forward and Eian noticed it's features did not become more visible, it was as though it was made of solid shadows.

Then it bolted forward and Eian dropped the pack, he quickly drew his axe and took a stance, it lunged at him and his axe cleaved at it, Eian felt no resistance and he realized he had done no damage.

It was now holding a sword of darkness and slashed at him, he dodged by throwing himself sideways, rolling he came up and then readied himself before cleaving at it once, this time he noticed as the head of the axe cut through leaving no damage as its shape reformed, Eian's eyes widened.

"I can't hurt it!" Eian yelled.

A flash streaked past him and while the fire-ball impacted hit the shadow, it was pushed back slightly but the flames dissipated to nothing seconds later, leaving the creature once more unharmed.

Next lightning forked forward and tore straight through the creature's torso, unhindered it lunged at Eian and he dodged, he kept dodging as it slashed at him.

Eian tried to intercepted the sword with his axe but was retreating, the sword phased through the axe leaving it unharmed, but the sword impacted Eian's arm, it burned like molten steel.

"Ah!" Eian grit his teeth at the unexpected pain.

Eian moved farther back, the shadowy creature lunged, Eian dodged, strangely he felt no blood but his arm absolutely burned with pain.

More fire-balls impacted the creature which pushed it back, until it ignored Eian and charged Sarah, she channeled a torrent of lightning at it.

It was torn to shreds and Sarah kept at it, she stopped soon after and Eian begun to breathe a sigh of relief, until it began reforming slowly.

"RUN!" Sarah screamed.

Eian bolted but remembered to scoop the pack from the ground and everyone else bolted as well, they ran in a random direction in a disorganized jog.

He soon overtook everyone except Alex, he stopped and looked back, Jessica and Sarah were lagging behind, he noticed Alex had stopped as well.

"Shit!" Eian cursed, this was bad, that thing seemed to be invulnerable to their attacks and they couldn't run with these two being so slow.

"Alex try healing my exhaustion as we run!" Sarah was breathing a little heavy from a short sprint.

"Right." Alex nodded.

That seemed to work for a while, but Jessica was next and Eian noticed she short of breathe, she remained adamant and said nothing for a while.

Jessica soon collapsed huffing from the sprint, that led to a bad situation.

"Alex heal her!" Sarah urged.

As Alex neared Jessica back pedaled and glared at him, though her exhaustion took a lot of it out from her expression.

Alex tried to heal her again and she growled at him.

"Back off!" Jessica shot lasers at him with her eyes.

"We need to move Jess." Alex lifted both hands up defensively.

"Don't call me that!" Jessica held herself as she backed away.

"Stop arguing and let him heal you!" Sarah intervened.

"We don't have time to waste!" Eian himself was feeling a little antsy.

"NO!" Jessica backed away from them at them.

"Just leave her!" Sarah fully lost her temper and lifted both arms up exasperated.

Eian looked at Alex, he looked conflicted and kept trying to convince Jessica whom was having none of it.

Soon Eian saw something, the shadow was back and his arm still stung from it's earlier attack.

"It's back!" Eian warned them all.

"Run!" Sarah yelled and bolted, no one followed.

'Fuck! FUCK!' Eian dropped the pack he was carrying again.

Eian sort of wanted to run as well, but he wasn't going to abandon people to their death, it felt wrong and he knew he'd wholly regret it if he did, he had too many regrets as is.

He heard Sarah yelling at them to run even as the shadow attacked, Eian tried to get it's attention by attacking, his blood was pumping as he knew this fight wasn't one he could win.

Unlike what his group thought, he wasn't fearless but in the short time he'd been here, along with the goat-fuckers lessons, he'd learnt to wrestle it to a side while he fought, right now it was tightening its ugly grip on him and all the same he forced it back.

How do you fight something you can't hurt?

Eian swung at its body, ensuring not to fully commit, it tried to counter as he predicted, he ended his feint and retreated.

A lightning bolt hit the shadow creature square in the chest, but it passed through harmlessly, Eian scowled this would be a fight on the back foot.

Concentrating Eian activated empower, a surge of energy coursed through his veins and he readied himself as he circled the creature, it stood still watching him.

It lunged sword forward and Eian dodged, it followed through with another slash, Eian retreated, he couldn't block nor parry it's attacks.

'Can I cut off a foot? Will it buy time?' Eian glanced at the creatures sword and it passed half a foot away from his face and he grimaced.

Hopefully Alex would convince Jessica soon, then he could buy time and they could retreat, then he'd disengage and make a tactical retreat as well.

He heard arguments behind him, another two fire-balls streaked forward and impacted the creature, it pushed it back slightly buying Eian some time.

'Fuck!' Eian retreated but decided against trying to dismember it's limbs.

It's sword had passed straight-through his axe without damage nor change, thus it was likely it's body was the same.

Recovering the creature attacked and Eian concentrated on the floor, smashing, the ground beneath it erupted, sending both the dirt and the creature flying upwards even as Eian felt his spiritual reserves dwindle slightly.

The creature stumbled about and Eian focused again, he would have to deplete his spirit buying time.

"Is she ready yet?!" Eian yelled, he was referring to Jessica.

"NO! Alex just grab her and heal her!" Sarah yelled back.

"I'm not doing that to anyone!" Alex yelled back.

"You'd rather she die?!" Sarah sounded exasperated.

Eian kept throwing it back until his spirit fully depleted, then he readied himself for more combat.

It lunged at him and he dodged, but this time it ran at Sarah, Eian swore and tried to hit it.

Sarah channeled lightning again, but it threw itself sideways dodging the channel, Eian swerved as the lightning almost caught him as well.

It raced further and Alex got between it and Jessica, Eian closed his eyes and tried to force another earth shatter.

He didn't have enough power it didn't work.

'Fuck!' Eian grit his teeth as he watched Alex about to die.

Alex braced himself as the creature neared, arms forward, standing in front there heroically making a last stand to defend Jessica.

"Screeee!!!!" A loud inhumane voice rang out.

The creature fell to the ground as it's arm melted away into the darkness, it quickly ran backwards towards Eian and he threw himself out of it's way.

Rolling he caught sight of it's retreating figure as it left, standing he stood still watching it go, Eian blinked a few times and scanned the darkness for any sign of movement.

Everything went quiet for an instant, but soon the forest was abuzz with noise, heart beating Eian turned to look at Alex, both their jaws formed perfect 'O's.