Nentarli [COMPLETE]

~ Twelve ~

I wondered what in the world could be wrong when the banging on the door woke me up. I put my pillow over my head.

"I'm not getting up this early, Emy, it's my day off." I mumbled through the pillow and tried to get back into the dream I had been having, it had been so interesting and I wanted to see how it ended.

"Cass, wake up! Wake up, something's wrong!" Emy's voice was closer and full of fear and worry.

I bolted upright and it took me a few seconds to adjust to seeing the room we were in. It hadn't been a dream, it was all very real and so was the banging on the door, accompanied now by voices and the sound of running footsteps. A mixture of excitement and fear ran through me as I clambered out of bed and Emy answered the door. Blaike was standing on the other side, he was fully dressed and his face was deadly serious.

"You both need to get dressed as fast as possible, we have to go... and there's no time to explain," he added when he saw my mouth open.

"Alright, we'll be five minutes," she told him.

"I will be waiting right here," he replied as Emy began to close the door.

We got changed in silence, packed our bags and headed for the door where Blaike was stood waiting, it looked like he hadn't moved an inch.

"Come on, this way," he urged when we stepped into the corridor.

He gestured to the end where Kayle and Kaleb were standing with swords drawn, heads turning in every direction. I grabbed Emy's hand as we were ushered down the corridor towards them, I was too worried to even ask Kayle where he'd got the sword from. Blaike was close behind us and had his sword drawn too, Kayle stepped towards us, putting his hands on our shoulders in what I figured must have been his way of trying to comfort us, it helped until he took it away.

He turned to Blaike, "We need to sneak out of the back somehow, the guards have gone to the front to head them off." He said it all so formally, almost like it was routine for him.

Blaike stood still for a split second and nodded, bringing us all in closer, "Okay, there is usually a secret entrance or exit at the back of these big houses."

Kaleb's brow furrowed, "They are usually used for early morning deliveries and other noisy activities that should not be traipsed through the main house... likely to be near the kitchen."

Blaike nodded, "Yes, we need one of those. We will use it to get out and then we can sneak around the outskirts of town to get away."

Kayle and Kaleb nodded at his plan while Emy and I looked on in confusion.

"Wait, hold on," Emy butted in when Blaike was about to speak again. "You can't just wake us up like that and talk like this, then expect us to just be okay with it. What's happening?" Emy's voice had raised and I could tell it was fear more than anything else, I squeezed her hand in reassurance.

None of them seemed fazed though, Kaleb leaned down so he was almost level with us and said in what must have been a calming voice for him but was far too rousing for that.

"We cannot explain right now there is no time, we have to get moving but... there are Scavengers coming towards the village and..." he seemed to wrestle with a thought and after a quick glance to Kayle and Blaike must have thought better of it. He stood up straight, "And we really must get out of here. We will explain more as soon as we can."

He looked out towards one of the nearby windows, my mind was reeling at the thought of Scavengers. The things Merkell had mentioned and thought were after us back in our world. They were coming now, into the same village we were staying in, it couldn't be a coincidence, could it?