Chapter 10 Chapter 10 Ghostly Shadow

He couldn't believe that the sunlight disappeared without a trace in an instant.The woods were not very large as seen from the middle of the glade, perhaps two acres in size, but tall, with thick trunks, close together, and with a leafy canopy overhead.Surrounded by green and soft tones, it seems that there are only a few minutes of dusk in a day. It's beautiful and terrifying here, a little bit of both. Thomas moved forward as fast as he could, weaving through thick vegetation, leaves flapping against his face.He stooped to avoid a low branch and nearly fell.He quickly reached out and grabbed a branch, swung his body forward, and regained his balance.The thick leaves and fallen branches that covered the ground crackled beneath him.

His eyes were fixed on the blade beetle that was scurrying among the trees. The deeper it went, the brighter the red light it emitted became in the dark environment. Thomas was running thirty or forty feet into the woods, dodging, ducking, backing up.The blade beetle jumped onto a large tree and climbed up the trunk.However, when Thomas chased under the tree, the thing had disappeared.It disappeared among the dense branches and leaves, as if it had never existed at all. He lost the little thing. "Faceface," Thomas whispered, almost joking, almost.Although the words sounded strange, they came out of his mouth very naturally, as if he had become a glademan.

A branch on the right snapped and he turned his head sharply.He held his breath and listened carefully. There was another sound, louder this time, as if someone had snapped a twig on his knee. "Who's there?" Thomas called, feeling a surge of fear.His voice bounced off the canopy overhead, echoing through the air.He stood there motionless, and everything returned to silence, only the singing of a few birds in the distance.No one answered, and no more sound came from that direction. Before he had time to think about it, Thomas had already walked in the direction where the voice came from just now.He didn't deliberately hide his whereabouts. He pushed away the branches and leaves as he walked, letting them bounce back to their previous positions.He blinked, trying to adjust his eyes to the growing darkness, wishing he had brought a flashlight, he thought of the flashlight and his memory.Once again he recalled a real thing from the past, but couldn't associate it with an exact time or place, couldn't relate it to anyone or time.It's frustrating.

"Is anyone there?" he asked again.There was no more sound, and he felt a little relieved.Maybe it was just an animal, maybe another blade beetle.Just in case, he called out, "It's me, Thomas, rookie. Well, second-to-last rookie." He frowned and shook his head, wishing the place was empty right now, he sounded like a complete idiot. Still no response. He walked around a big oak tree, stopped suddenly, and a chill ran down his back, and he came to the cemetery. The clearing was small, not more than thirty feet square, and covered with a thick layer of leafy weeds, close to the ground.Thomas saw several crude wooden crosses stuck in the ground, where the intersections were tangled together with rough wire.The tombstones were painted white, but the painters seemed in a hurry—there were drips of hardened paint here and there, with streaks of the color of the wood on which the names had been etched.

Thomas stepped forward hesitantly, walked to the nearest one, and knelt down to take a look.The light was very dim, as if seeing through a black fog.Even the birds had stopped chirping, as if they had gone to bed.The sound of the insects was almost imperceptible, or at least much quieter than usual.Thomas realized for the first time how humid it was in the woods, and the damp air beaded his forehead and the backs of his hands. He leaned over the first cross, which was new, and had the name Stephen on it—the last letter n was so small that it was squeezed to the side because the gravestone carver hadn't estimated in advance what it would take to carve the words. what a place.

Stephen, Thomas thought, with an unexpected but detached sadness in his heart, what kind of story do you have?Annoyed by Chuck? He stood up and went to another cross.Weeds grew all around the cross, and the ground around the base was solid.Whoever was buried here must have been one of the first to die, because his tomb looked the oldest, and his name was George. Thomas looked around and found more than a dozen other tombs.Two are almost as new as the first one I just saw.A silvery light caught his attention.The light was different from the blade beetle that had brought him into the woods, but it was no less eerie.He scanned headstones and came to one covered in dirty plastic or glass, its edges smeared with mud.He squinted his eyes, trying to make out what was inside.After seeing it clearly, he took a deep breath.It's the window of a tomb—a decomposed, dusty corpse rests inside.

Thomas was terrified, but curiosity drove him closer to find out.The tomb is smaller than normal - only the upper body of the dead is placed inside.He remembered the story of Chuck, the boy who tried to rope down the hole after the teleportation box descended, only to be cut in half by something.A few words were engraved on the glass, and Thomas had difficulty making out what was written on it: May this half flash be a wake-up call: You cannot escape from the elevator shaft. Thomas felt a strange urge to laugh—it all seemed so ridiculous that it couldn't be true.But at the same time he was angry at his shallowness.He shook his head, and stepped aside to see more names of the dead, when the sound of branches snapping was heard again, this time directly in front of him, behind the bushes on the other side of the cemetery.

Then there was another noise, and one after another, getting closer and closer, and the woods became darker and darker. "Who's there?" His voice was trembling and hollow—as if speaking through a soundproof tunnel. "This is really stupid." He wouldn't admit how scared he was. The man didn't answer, but instead of hiding, he sprinted across the edge of the woods in the middle of the cemetery, circling around where Thomas stood.He froze, almost overwhelmed with fear.A few feet away, the voices of someone approaching grew louder.Thomas finally saw the blurred figure of a thin boy, limping along at a brisk pace.

"Who is..." Thomas hadn't finished speaking when the boy rushed out of the bushes.All he saw was a flash of pale skin and huge eyes—a ghostly figure made him cry out in fright, and he wanted to run away, but it was too late.The shadow jumped into the air, flew over his head, hit his shoulder, grabbed him with two strong hands, and Thomas was knocked to the ground.He felt a tombstone poke into his back, snapped into two pieces, and drew a deep gash on his back. He punched and kicked his attacker, shadows of skin and bone flew over his head, desperate to grab hold of something.He looked like a Griever, nightmarishly terrifying, but Thomas knew it must be a glade man, a man insane.He heard the terrible snapping sound of the boy's teeth opening and closing.Then he felt a sharp, sharp pain as the boy's mouth bit him, digging deep into Thomas' shoulder.

Thomas screamed, the pain rushing through his blood like a rush of adrenaline.With the palms of both hands desperately pressed against the attacker's chest, he pushed hard, straightening his arms, muscles tensed, against the writhing figure pressing against him.The boy finally backed away, and there was a sharp cracking sound in the air, and another cross was snapped. Thomas crawled aside on hands and feet, gasping for breath, and finally saw the lunatic assailant clearly. The sick boy. Book.