Disclaimer: This story continues off of another, for Part 3 click
Chapter 1 (Part 4): The Search
Children upon children sat throughout the entire bus. They all peeked their little heads over the seats, staring at Hollow.
“Come on Hawow, I wanna go to school,” Shashari said from behind, shaking to get on the bus.
Hollow always hated that nickname his sister had given him since he was young. She couldn’t pronounce her “L”s yet, so she often replaced it with a “W”. Hollow made his way through the aisle as children stared at him. He seemed out of place compared to his old school. He really missed his best friend, Victor King. Him and Victor did everything together, even though Victor was three years older than Hollow, they bonded over their love of writing. Hallow was gifted a journal from Victor last year as a thank you gift for being friends for years. Hollow wrote in it any chance he got to, with over 351 pages, he had plenty of space to write in. Hollow sat in a seat near the back, as high-schoolers typically sat near the back. Hollow opened up his journal and began writing, The past few days have been a real struggle, losing both of my parents, rogue cop, meeting a strange man with a robotic servant, but worse of all, I fear what fate my younger sister may have. Hollow closed his journal and looked over to a high schooler standing over him.
“You’re the new kid right?” the kid asked.
“That’d be correct to your understanding,” Hollow replied.
The kid became shocked at Hallow’s speech preferences. “You’re a smart one I see, mind if I sit?” The kid asked, Hollow slid over to the window and patted the seat, the kid then sat down next to Hallow.
“Name’s Benjimin, Benjimin Monopoly Snickett,” the boy said as he shook Hollow’s hand
“Name’s Cash Shaw Osborn,” Hollow replied.
“Cool name kid, I have an uncle with the last name Shaw,” Benjimin states
The pair talk for hours while the bus picks up more kids, around 7:45, the bus takes a sharp turn and flips down a hill, tumbling down as glass shatters and pieces fly off the bus. A faint whistle can be heard, only to be heard by Hollow, “Take it to the grave or the cherry tree will be taken.” Hollow smacks the ceiling hard and falls unconscious, blacking out.
Hollow is shaken awake, Hollow opens his eyes to find Benjimin pushing against him. “Shaw, you alright?” Benjimin’s light voice says to Hollow, the ringing in Hollow’s ears made it hard for him to hear. Benjimin scoops up Hollow and carries him out of the bus, laying him on the ground.
Hollow coughs up a red smoke and then the ringing seems to swallow itself as Hollow can once again hear normally. Hollow quickly sits himself up. “Shashari!” Hollow exclaims, “Is she alright!” Hollow calls to Benjimin, sitting about a foot in front of him.
“It’s not looking good, Havenson has granted us without life,” Benjimin replied.
Hollow gets up onto his feet and scavenges the bus, finding no sign of his sister nor any of the others
“Cherry tree…Cherry tree,” Hollow repeated
“Take it to the grave or the cherry tree will be taken,” Hollow said.
The voice repeats itself, “Take it to the grave or the cherry tree will be taken.”
“Get out of my head!” Hollow exclaimed harshly
“Woah Shaw, calm down, I haven’t said anything,” Benjimin said from behind
“It’s not you….It’s the voice,” Hollow replied
“The voice, what voice?…you must have had your mentality smashed pretty hard in the crash,” Benjimin stated
“No, it has got nothing to do with my mentality, before I blacked out, I heard a whisper, a terrible sounding one, it said ‘Take it to the grave or the cherry tree will be taken.'”
“What does a cherry tree have anything to do with it?” Hollow asked
“I have no clue Shaw, and take what to the grave? Almost sounds like the Guardian of Death, Chzinus,” Benjimin replied
“I think it must have been talking about someone on the bus, but there’s only one other person I knew in the crash….my sister!” Hollow thinks for a quick second, “Wanting to leave my sister for dead, but why, this cannot be her fate, why would a demonic possession want my sister?” Hollow asked himself
“Safe to say kid, she might not still be alive, I mean, we’re lucky enough to even survive that, and with you being so young, I’m surprised you made it,” Benjimin said
“There’s no way she could be, she knows how to survive for the most part,” Hollows claimed
“Hollow, honestly, we should go find help first,” Benjimin said.
Hollow looked to the sky, as he sees the sun start to go down, he then looks down to his watch, flipped to facing him and telling military time, his watch read 20:00. It started to malfunction a bit, going to the timer and reading 3 days 59 minutes 59 seconds, counting down.
“That’s strange, my watch is counting down,” Hollow said.
Hollow then looked toward the bus, on the side, in red, it read “The Watch Reads Doomsday.”
“Benjimin, do you see that?” Hollow asked.
Benjimin walked over to Hollow, “What?”
“Never mind,” Hollow replied
“Let’s go find help,” Hollow followed. up with.
The pair make it up the mountain and walk along the road, behind them the guardrail is bent in, and tire marks lead off into the distance.
Lurking behind them a bit is a figure, a shadowed silhouette, as a man stands next to him. The man’s face is shown, the man was wearing a black cowboy styled hat, along with a cowboy styled outfit, tied at his hip was a revolver. The man’s eyes appeared to be white with his entire self, seeming to be black and white with no color. The figure that stood next to him had bright purple eyes, breathing smoke from its nostrils. “That ’em?” The figure asks
The cowboy nods his head in a ‘yes’ motion
“Andrew, what’s happening in three days?” the figure asked
“…That….is none or important, your task is to follow the pair and make sure Shashari is not found by them, now go,” Andrew replied as he turned.
“That’s the orders given to me by Ranvish, commit to them and you’ll be a free beast,” Andrew finished with as he walked away.
The figure expanded purple wings and launched himself up as he glided over the pair of kids….
To be continued…
