Chapter 28: A Starry Night (3)

As he lay there, writhing in pain, even his sense of hearing was becoming fuzzy, till eventually, he slipped into a void of nothingness. The only proof of him being alive was the burning pain that seemed to be circulating throughout his body.

~There's one more left, I have to take care of it. I hope Alpha is already leading the leaflings to safety,~ he thought to himself, trying to will his limbs to move. But it was no use, he felt no connection to them. It was as if he were trapped in his own body, his mind being the only thing he had any control over.

~Fuck, not again goddammit. Not again!~ he shouted inwardly.

He screamed at his legs to move, at his arms to push him off the ground, to drag him towards the remaining shroom-being, to move even a single-fucking-centimeter. But it wouldn't. He would die here, and he knew it... a failed leader once again.

***

~I messed up, I messed up, I messed up,~ Ghost repeated to herself as she ran as fast as her little spindly legs could take her. She had one job to do, and she fumbled it. Now a shroom-being was hot on her tail as she moved towards the camp.

~I have to get rid of it first,~ she thought to herself, her breathing loud and jagged. This was the first time she had ever seen a shroom-being, and her natural instincts screamed at her to do everything in her power to get away from it.

~No, I have to quiet down, I'm making too much noise,~ she realized, taking a roundabout way towards the camp. However, no matter how hard she tried, the shroom-being remained behind her, closing in with every passing second.

~Think, think. How do I get rid of it? How would Luci get rid of it?~ she pondered, before locking her eyes on a patch of shrubs to her right.

~I need to blend in,~ she decided, taking a sharp turn before hiding behind one of the shrubs.

"I saw you," mused the shroom-being, taking its time as it walked towards the shrub. Ghost instantly stopped her breathing, and stalked towards the next shrub, being careful not to make a sound.

"There you are!" the shroom-being shouted, and for a moment Ghost could feel all the life drain out of her body.

"Huh? I could've swore it hid behind here," said the shroom-being in a disappointed tone, before moving on to the next shrub.

Once again Ghost carefully stalked her way in between the leaves to the next shrub over, making sure not to make so much as a peep.

"Here?" shouted the shroom-being, jumping out in front of the shrub that Ghost had just been hiding behind. This continued on through four more shrubs until eventually, Ghost was at the last shrub in the patch. Moving from here would expose her completely, and she'd be doomed.

To make matters worse, her body was screaming at her to breathe. She hadn't stopped to catch her breath even after running, and it was now beginning to feel like she would collapse at any moment. If not for the daily training she had done, she wouldn't have been able to hold out this long.

"It's the last one," the shroom-being mused, slowly walking towards the final shrub.

"I guess you're hiding behind this one, aren't you?" it continued, looking directly at the shrub that she was hiding in.

Dead silence.

The shroom-being scrutinized the shrub, unable to believe that its prey wasn't there.

"Did I miss-see?" it snarled, turning to look back at the other shrubs. "Did it run off?" it continued, before running into the forest.

"Finally," Ghost sighed, taking in a deep breath as she got down from the shrub. She had climbed up and positioned herself at an odd angle to make it seem as if she were one of the shrub's leaves. However, if the shroom-being had stuck around for a second longer, she would've been caught out due to exhaustion.

"I'm coming, Alpha," she whispered to herself, trying her best to get up.

***

~They're getting closer, where is he?~ Alpha wondered, the voices of the shroom-beings getting closer with every passing second.

"Shouldn't we start running? What if something happened to him?" one of the leaflings asked. They were beginning to get restless, and though Alpha instructed them to keep quiet, the group was simply too big to be properly controlled.

"I have a proposal," Hannibal whispered. Though it was soft, all the leaflings stopped thier bickering and turned to look at him.

"Ahh, I thin- I think," he stuttered. It seemed that all the eyes were making him nervous.

"Speak, Hannibal," Alpha instructed.

"I-I think we should split up into two groups," he blurted out, looking down at his feet as he said this.

"I don't mean to be rude, but why would we do that? What good would splitting up do?" Alpha asked. To be fair, he desperately hoped that Hannibal had a good reason for such a tactic. If it were up to him, he would leave the leaflings to Hannibal and run into the forest to look for Lucius.

"I-If we split up into two groups, we can confuse the enemies," he explained.

"Why not separate into even smaller groups if that's the case? Wouldn't we have a better chance that way?" Alpha asked, seeing some merit in Hannibal's plans. He knew that leading a big squad like this was going to be hard for him. He wasn't Lucius and he couldn't command them the way he did.

"Well, the way these guys are homing in on us, they've probably been watching us for quite a bit. They have a general idea of the size of our camp, so breaking into smaller squads would make them suspicious," Hannibal continued.

"Why are you making it seem like they will catch one group?" one of the leaflings asked.

"N-no, I didn't mean it that way. Okay, let me explain,"