text: [Themes: horror, horror]
  
  Nine hours later, you're ready to go. You've somehow convinced Dad to let you go out, not daring to tell him your actual destination and instead claiming you're staying at Lucy's house. You meet up at the Lucy's house with the group, and walk into the living room, where they're all sitting around.
  
  "Are we ready?" you ask.
  
  "Damn straight!" Ant smiles, holding up a large backpack. "Spare food, water bottles, lighters, matches, rope, fireworks, some knives and flashlights. What'd you guys bring?"
  
  Carter holds up half a chocolate bar he's been chewing on.
  
  "Half a M-Mars bar," he says, before taking another bite. "A q-quart-quarter of a Mars b-bar."
  
  "I brought a penknife and a lighter," you shrug, and Ant looks around disappointedly.
  
  "No one brought anything?" he pouts. "You guys suck."
  
  You hear a horn outside, and look outside. A large RV drives up the driveway, stopping outside. Lucy skips out the door, before running up to him, and you follow her outside.
  
  "Hey, Hazel," Drake says.
  
  "Drake's friend, Ed, has the pick-up, so we're driving to the woods, meeting him and switching vehicle," Lucy tells you.
  
  "OK," you say, walking into the RV. You raise an eyebrow as you notice that the RV's windows are covered with shutters and bin bags, and the actual interior looks like a scene from Breaking Bad, covered with beakers, test tubes, Bunsen burners and other Chemistry gear.
  
  "Well, you're blatant," you say.
  
  "Hey, it's effective."
  
  "I mean, yeah, but Breaking Bad made this a trope. Don't police search RV's for this."
  
  "Breaking Bad helped my sales enough that I'm bribing the deputy. You'll be surprised how much extra meth heads are willing to pay for a product when you add some blue dye."
  
  You shrug, and take a seat in the RV, as your friends pack in.
  
  "Be careful back there. Knock one thing over and this place could blow."
  
  "Really?" you ask.
  
  Drake grins and shrugs, and begins driving.
  
  "Maybe. I mean, there's a distillery back there as well as the lab. I'd imagine one speed bump and boom!"
  
  "That's unnerving," Ant says.
  
  "I guess. So, why the hell am I dragging all your friends into the middle of the woods to the old freakshow cage?"
  
  "I told you already," Lucy reveals.
  
  "That nightmare bull isn't convincing me. What's the real reason?"
  
  "That is the real reason."
  
  Drake turns around to stare at you in annoyance.
  
  "What...?"
  
  "Eyes on the road, Drake," Kyle says.
  
  "Fine," Drake says, turning around. "Still, I want an explanation why I'm driving into the woods because the new girl had a nightmare."
  
  "It wasn't a nightmare!" you say.
  
  "Sure," Drake says.
  
  You all sit in awkward silence until you reach the outskirts of the woods. Drake pulls over, and you stand and head out the door. Although you couldn't tell because of the shutters and blacked out windows of the RV, you can now see that night has fallen. An empty red pick-up truck with four seats sits next to the woods. Drake strides forward, pulling out his phone.
  
  "Ah, shit," Drake says. "Of course Ed left the truck here and went off on his quad rather than just take back the RV like he was supposed to."
  
  He locks the RV and hides the keys in the wheel well.
  
  "I'll text my friend and get him to pick up the RV. Come on, get inside. Let's go drive to a dumbass cage in the woods."
  
  Drake, Lucy, Carter and Ant go in the seats while you, Mason, Becca and Kyle sit in the back of the pick-up. You sit, half-lying on Mason who wraps one arm around you. The emotional part of your brain momentarily forgets all fears in favor of a childish infatuation and hormonal lust towards Mason that causes you to blush and your heart to flutter, the rational part of your brain reminds you to stay vigilant in case the cultists or that beast do show up. You and the rest of your friends pull out flashlights and fire the beams off into the darkness, illuminating trees and undergrowth.
  
  "We're nearly there," Drake shouts. "It's a hell of a lot easier to get here because a path's been made."
  
  Your ears perk up at that.
  
  "What do you mean?" you ask, as Drake rolls down his window fully.
  
  "What'd you say?"
  
  "I said what do you mean? You said there's a path."
  
  "Yeah. It's like a big RV drove over the undergrowth and knocked a dirt path along."
  
  "What, you think Ed's been driving out here to work in the RV?" Lucy asks.
  
  "Nah, Ed's terrified of the woods. Said something about a monster or something."
  
  You feel a flash of fear as you remember the RV from last night. You stare outwards, illuminating every shadow, both hoping to and terrified of seeing something hiding in the dark.
  
  "Here it is! The old freak show's cage!" Drake says dramatically.
  
  As Drake pulls the pick-up into the clearing in the woods, you see the massive, rusted cage, although there's no RV. You shiver in fear, and Drake steps out of the truck.
  
  "Let's investigate and get home," Drake says, firing his flashlight beam towards the cage.
  
  The flashlight beam illuminates the cage and its insides. The old rusted gurney sits there, now encrusted with dried blood.
  
  "Well, that's new," Drake mentions.
  
  You step back nervously.
  
  "Hazel said there was a gurney in her dre... when she was abducted," Ant points out.
  
  "Fuck, this is some creepy shit. I'm calling the sheriff," Drake says.
  
  Drake takes out his phone, and makes a call.
  
  "Hello, Sheriff Buckly? I just found a gurney in the middle of the cage in the woods covered in dried blood. I think some weird... oh, really? OK, you know where the cage from the... oh, great.. Cool, see you in a few minutes, or an hour, or whatever."
  
  "What was that?"
  
  "The sheriff said he'll come here straight away."
  
  "Good," you sigh in relief.
  
  You really can't imagine having to deal with this without the help of the law. Now, it's out of your hands. You wait patiently for Sheriff Buckly to arrive. Eventually, you spot a flashlight heading towards you.
  
  "There he is," Drake says.
  
  You shine your light ahead, illuminating the figure of Sheriff Buckly. He swears, and holds his hands to block his eyes.
  
  "Turn that off!" he says, and you do.
  
  "Fuck, how'd you even get the truck out here? I can barely walk through the undergrowth," he says. "Where this bloody gurney?"
  
  You point at the cage, and Sheriff Buckly walks over and looks at it.
  
  "Jesus... who else saw this? I'm going to need to gather all the witnesses and find out what was going on," he says.
  
  "We're the only people who've seen this, although Hazel got a bit of a closer encounter."
  
  "So you didn't tell you pa about this?" Sheriff Buckly asks.
  
  You shake your head, and Sheriff Buckly nods.
  
  "Good," Sheriff Buckly says.
  
  Sheriff Buckly draws his revolver, and quickly aims at Drake's head and fires. Drake's head snaps back as it explodes partially, sending chunks of gray brain matter, pale skull and pieces of red flesh at you. You scream as Lucy runs over to Drake as his body collapses backwards. Mason runs for the truck, before the Sheriff barks an order.
  
  "Stop! Move another muscle and I'll blow the brain out of everyone of you!"
  
  Mason stops, raising his hands. Sheriff Buckly points his gun at all of you, forcing you to raise your hands into the air.
  
  "Everyone, calm down. Nobody needs to get hurt," Sheriff Buckly says.
  
  "Fuck you!" Lucy screams. "You killed him! You killed him you piece of..."
  
  Sheriff Buckly steps forward and cracks her across the head wit his revolver.
  
  "Shut up! Carter, Mason, Ant, Kyle, get in the fucking cage!" he shouts.
  
  Mason, Ant, Kyle and Carter slowly walk into the cage.
  
  "Now, back the fuck up to the end of the cage!"
  
  The boys comply, and the Sheriff draws a set of keys from his pocket, locking the cage door. He turns to you, Lucy and Becca.
  
  "Just don't move. They'll be here in a minute."
  
  You stand in silence, the cold wind blowing, the silence only broken by the occasional soft sob by Lucy as she stands over Drake. After about half an hour of waiting, you see the RV pull up along the path. It stops, and four masked men step out.
  
  "Anyone escape?" one asks.
  
  "No," Sheriff Buckly responds. "Fuck, I didn't even know they were coming out here. You said whatever the fuck you injected the girl with would make her forget everything."
  
  "I said it probably would. Her phone's bugged. How didn't you find out?"
  
  "She didn't make any calls saying she was going to do it!"
  
  "Well, at least no one escaped," the masked man says, pulling off his mask.
  
  The group remove their masks. You vaguely recognize them, one being the mechanic who found you, one being the town doctor, Doctor Kessel, another being a German teacher from school and the final one being the bartender of the local bar.
  
  "What are you going to do with...?" Becca asks, before Sheriff Buckley lets out a bark.
  
  "Hey! Shut the fuck..."
  
  "No, Jake, let the girl ask her question," Doctor Kessel says.
  
  "What are you going to do with us? Who are you? Why did you send a monster to hunt me?"
  
  "What are we going to do with you? Nothing, ideally. We only need to borrow you. Who are we? Well, surely you must recognize us. Louis, Sheriff Buckly, Mrs Jordan, Alison and me, Doctor Kessel. "As for the monster, I assume you're referring to the Black Beast. That's not an issue, I assure you. Although I'm not sure of its origins, if you look at town records, it actually kills most of the bears in the area, which reduces the amount of attacks so much it's saving lives. If I was in your situation, I'd be much more worried about us."
  
  "What do you want? Are you going to sacrifice us to Satan?" Becca asks again.
  
  Doctor Kessel lets out a chuckle.
  
  "No, Rebecca, we're not. We're not satanists. Real satanists don't even believe in Satan. We're... researchers. We're humanitarians. We're explorers. When we were little kids, we used to be the best of friends. We played in these very woods. When we were little, we found... a book in one of the caves. We took it and read it, and we found out the most amazing things. Do you know how insignificant not only we are, but this planet, this solar system, this galaxy and this universe is? There are so many amazing things we learned about these beings that we can't even comprehend, but compared to what's out there, we learned so little. So we kept reading. The book included some instructions to summon them, to summon these beings that are stronger than any gods we've ever imagined, more alien that any alien we've created in fiction, more incredible than anything you could experience here. If we create a Key-Bearer, we can create a portal to these beings."
  
  "That's insane! How do you know they won't wipe us out, or enslave us all, or worse!" you cry.
  
  "I don't," Doctor Kessel admits.
  
  "It could destroy everything!"
  
  "You just need to calm down and listen!" he hisses. "Imagine you're stuck in a room. There is a small tap for water, a toilet and a small machine that creates a nutritious yet tasteless paste. You have everything you need to survive and continue your blank, boring existence. Now, one day, a door appears in the room. It's unlocked. Do you go through?"
  
  "What the fuck does...?"
  
  "We are trying to open that door. Just as the person in the room doesn't know what's on the other side, anything is better than the bland, boring existence of the room. We're trying to open the world up to experiences unknown to man, good or bad, because it has to be better than this meaningless existence."
  
  "What are yuo even talking about? What the fuck's a Key-Bearer?" Mason shouts, as Sheriff Buckly aims his gun at his head once again.
  
  "Shut up," Sheriff Buckly grunts.
  
  "Ah yes, the Key-Bearer. That part's the worst for you guys. A Key-Bearer is a creature birthed of the beings' power of a human womb. We've had several attempts at this, but every time we failed. Instead of creating a Key-Bearer, we created half-human, half-monster children who aged rapidly. Finally, we settled the problem. The mother of the Key-Bearer had to be a virgin, post-puberty, below 21 and to have AB Negative Blood. You'd imagine my luck when I found one such target walking around the cave where I was sacrificing some former mothers to keep the beings' interested in our world. I simply pumped out some gas I had on hand to help knock her out, and voila! I got to work."
  
  You stare at him in horror, putting a hand on your stomach. There's a series of gasps and shouts from the group, before Sheriff Buckly fires his gun in the air.
  
  "SHUT IT!" he roars.
  
  "I'm sorry, Hazel. It'll be over in a few hours."
  
  "A few hours? It's only been two days, how...?" you ask in horror.
  
  "The Key-Bearer grows incredibly quickly. It should be able to be birthed within a day at most."
  
  You feel something wiggle in your stomach, in your womb, and a pain shoots through you.
  
  "Listen, Hazel, it'll be OK," Doctor Kessel says. "In a few hours, you'll be fine, and we'll be in a whole new world."
  
  > get the Key-Bearer out of you
  You desperately search your pockets, finding it after a few seconds, pulling your switchblade out. You pull up our jumper and t-shirt slightly, revealing your stomach. You can see it is slightly extended, and if you take a deep breath and stay still, you can very vaguely feel something moving around in there, which begins to increase as you feel a sharp pain hit.
  
  "Drop the knife. I'll put a bullet between your eyes before you get near any of us," Sheriff Buckly says.
  
  You raise the knife, and plunge it into your stomach, towards the center mass of the movement.
  
  "NO! For fuck's sake, stop her!" Doctor Kessel screams.
  
  Sheriff Buckly charges towards you, knocking you in the side of the head with his gun. Your head snaps backwards, and you quickly lose consciousness.
  
  > Awaken
  You awaken strapped to a gurney, covered in blood, wearing a hospital gown. You're in the RV, and the lights are turned off. You can't see anything, but you can here a someone whimpering.
  
  "Hello?" you ask.
  
  The whimpering stops, and you begin to hear a deep, guttural panting.
  
  "Hello?" you ask again.
  
  As your eyes begin to adjust to the darkness, you make out two figures in the darkness. One sits in the corner, the other stands above them, rubbing them with a long coil of rope that moves like a snake.
  
  "Mason? Becca? Kyle? Carter?" you ask, staring towards the figures.
  
  The standing one turns, and you see the sitting one quickly flick on a light switch, brightening the RV. In the light, you notice that the sitting figure is Becca, whose eyes are red with tears and seems terrified. Your eyes scan, and see the second figure, slowly approaching you. The figure is one of the monster-children. It has long brown hair, but her face is nothing but a mucus-encrusted, lipless mouth and two nostrils. It wears a tattered, blood-stained blue dress, with a long, red tentacle coming from it's stomach and wrapping around its body. The tip of the tentacle slowly moves towards you, and you spot a yellow eye poking out from the end of the tentacle slowly edging towards you, staring into your eyes. You scream, and struggle against your bonds, before the tentacles begins to wrap around your leg, leaving a long lane of sticky pus that oozes out of the tentacle. You scream as it continues to edge towards you, heading towards your face. The tentacle snakes up your chest, before intertwining around your neck, before stopping inches from your face.
  
  "Hello..." the monster-child rasps.
  
  You stare at the eye, seeing a mixture of pain and child-like curiosity in the eyes. Then, you hear a yell. Out of the corner of your eye, you see Becca charge forward with a long, thin knife, stabbing the monster-child through the neck. The creature howls, gargling blood, before Becca draws her knife and begins slashing at it's face and neck, before finally running the knife through it's skull. It collapses, and the tentacle in front of you falls on your face, wiggling like a dying fish. You whimper, and Becca comes over to you and begins cutting you free of both your restraints and the tentacle that intertwines around you. You eagerly get up, pulling the bits of tentacle off you as you struggle not to vomit.
  
  "What happened?" you ask, shivering.
  
  You feel a dull pain in your stomach, pulling it up slightly slightly to reveal you're thankfully still in your underwear, although you see your stomach is heavily bandaged.
  
  "They cut you open and pulled... something out of you. It was alive, and wiggling, and..." Becca says, before shivering in terror. "We need to get our friends and get out of here."
  
  You hear a thumping from the bathroom door, and quickly go to listen.
  
  "Hello?"
  
  "Hazel? Get me out of here!" Lucy screams from inside.
  
  You unlock the door, finding Lucy.
  
  "Thank God. They locked us in here and put the guys in the cage. We need to get out of here and stop them."
  
  You nod, and head to the kitchen, finding a large butcher knife. The door to the RV opens, and Lucy and Becca quickly hide behind the counter with you.
  
  "Iris? Are you finished playing with your new friends? I hope you didn't hurt them. We're going to need them if this newborn isn't the Key-Bearer. I haven't even got to see the k... Iris?"
  
  Louis the Mechanic walks in, looking around.
  
  "Hello?"
  
  He takes a few steps forward, walking into the kitchen towards you.
  
  > Attack
  You wait until he's closer, take a deep breath, feel the adrenaline coursing through your veins, and charge. You turn around the counter and in a single bound reach him. His eyes widen in panic before you stab your blade, slicing through skin and flesh, straight through the neck. You pull your blade out and stab again, and again, until his neck is nothing but a hunk of meat that falls to the floor, blood spilling into a puddle on the floor. You stand over him as he dies, watching as the life goes out of his eyes. As a result of an adrenaline rush and primal instincts taking over, you try not to focus on the pathetic, dying man in front of you, and head to the door. You open it to a crack, peering out. Mason, Kyle, Carter and Ant sit in the rusted cage, with Sheriff Buckly watching over them. Mrs Jordan and Alison are placing blood-stained stones in a circle. Doctor Kesel stands with something cradled in his arms, although it's too dark for you to see.
  
  > escape to formulate a plan
  You slowly open the door, and begin creeping out of the camp. You slowly tiptoe away, staying low and staying wrapped in the shadows. As you edge away from camp, you freeze as you hear a shout.
  
  "Shit, they're escaping!" Sheriff Buckly roars.
  
  You break into a sprint, heading away from the camp. You manage to make it to the trees, but you hear gunfire behind you. You turn your head slightly, seeing a spurt off blood go from the back of Lucy's leg as she collapses forward, skidding along the earth to a halt. Becca makes it to the trees next to you and stops.
  
  "Shit, do we go back?" she asks in a terrified panic.
  
  You look back. In the darkness, you might be able to get to Lucy and help her disappear into the trees. If you both reach the tree line, it'll be almost impossible for Sheriff Buckly to track you.
  
  > try rescue her
  "We have to," you say, determined.
  
  Becca nods and you turn and burst into a sprint towards Lucy. You see Sheriff Buckly heading towards you, aiming his gun. You grab Lucy, yanking her up.
  
  "Come on!" you shout.
  
  As you begin to help pull Lucy towards the trees, Sheriff Buckly takes his shoot. You feel a bullet thud through your chest, and you collapse forward. You cough up blood, before closing your eyes for the last time.