I carried on screaming, but it was useless because she continued to pull my hair, tugging me backwards, towards the bench. She looked like a witch, every adjective and noun you have heard to describe a witch was present before me. She was very tall and skinny with a black cloak on, over her bony shoulders. Her face was a sickly shade of lime green and her skin sagged around her eyes and her cheeks. There were only a few strands of wispy grey hair on her bald, wrinkly head and her nose stood out long and crooked. Bright, red lipstick was smeared on her lips and she had a beautiful purple evening dress on. The only thing that made me not a hundred percent sure whether she was a witch or not was that there wasn’t a black cat or a broomstick around.

“You’re coming with me!” she crackled.

“Let go of me, I don’t want to go with you!” I cried.

“Then you shouldn’t have come here looking sad then, poor souls like you make my potions hiss and bubble.”

A black portal started opening up between the bench and she stepped in. Still having hold of my ponytail, she yanked me through the hole and then it closed up. Inside was red, a shade of bloody red. The walls were painted with blood, some were dried so it had a brown muddy colour whereas some parts of the wall seemed like it was freshly painted because the blood was slowly dripping down. It was dark too, only a few candles in the corners lit the cave up. In the centre was a large cauldron, big enough to fit an elephant in. Then, I was sure that she was a witch.

Whatever was inside that cauldron, it bubbled away like the magma in a volcano ready to erupt. She threw me harshly onto the ground and staggered towards her throne. I looked around me and I saw piles and piles of bones. Some seemed like human bones but some were animal bones. They were jumbled together, still with bits of flesh on them.

“Welcome to my den!” she said, “Don’t plan on escaping because you would be in the recipe in a matter of a few minutes.”

“Let me go!” I cried again.

“No!” she burst out and ran towards me, grabbing the shirt of my collar and hauled me up to face her, “You could be what I need for my potion so I’m not letting this chance go to waste.”

“What is your potion for?” I asked.

“Like all other witches of course, to make me young and beautiful forever,” she said, “You see those bones over there?”

She twisted my head around with her other hand to make me look at the bones, “Those are bones of young, pretty girls like you who wandered into the wrong place at the wrong time. Oh, those are animal bones, young newborn animals, to add to the taste.”

“You’re disgusting!” I spat at her.

“Well, you wouldn’t be here to judge when you’re part of that pile,” she said and loosen her hold on me, “I’ll just get everything prepared.”

What have I got myself into now?

I only wanted some peace and now I’m going to be cooked by a witch.

What is going on in this village?

Am I going to meet vampires and werewolves as well?

“Right!” she said, startling me, “Everything is ready now.”

I stared at her with horror. She has wheeled out a big bed, but the mattress was already soaked with blood from previous, unfortunate souls.

“Get up on here!” she ordered.

“No!”

I tried to fight her but she slapped me, her long nails scratched five long finger marks on my left cheek. I winced but she just pulled my hair towards the bed.

“Get up!”

I’ve already died once. And I’m going to die again?

This time, I’m sure Lay isn’t going to come and rescue me so I reluctantly got up onto the bed and lay down. The liquid soaked into my clothes and my hair like a sponge.

“Now that’s a good girl,” she praised.

She held a sharp knife above my head and said, “It would be all over soon.”

I closed my eyes, ready to feel the knife slice through my skin but it never happened.

“Who are you?” she suddenly shouted.

I opened my eyes and she stood beside the bed with a horrified face, I turned to see who she was asking and it was totally unexpected. Then a blinding light shot through the space between them and the witch fell back onto the floor.

I thought I heard her skull crack when it hit the rocky steps leading to her throne. Her body began to transform, her skin turning younger and prettier. The wrinkles all were disappearing and long, black hair was growing from her roots on her head. Her eyes were closed but her nose shortened. She was very pretty. Her purple dress fitted around her nicely and she lay there on the steps very peacefully. And then she crumbled and turned to ashes.

Utterly shocked. What did I just witness? Is she really gone now?

If that was what she looked like after the potion was complete then I think I might be willing to sacrifice myself seeing as I was already dead.

“Raine!” he suddenly said beside me, “Oh my, are you alright?”

“Still alive,” I said, “No, I’m not alive, I meant, still dead.”

“Let’s get back to the others quickly,”

He helped me off the bed and the portal appeared. Soon we were back outside the café. As soon as he opened the door, everyone was there, rushing towards me and pulling me inside.

“Raine!” Chanyeol said, “What happened to you?”

“Look at your clothes!” D.O exclaimed.

“Are you hurt?” Luhan asked.

“Just let her sit down, guys!” Sehun shouted through all the comments and questions.

D.O made me sit on a towel on the sofa so the blood on me didn’t stain anything.

“Sehun, where did you find her?” Tao asked.

“The book opened up a while after she left and I looked at it. All it said was the word ‘danger’ and ‘lake’ so I guessed that Raine was in danger and she was by the lake,” Sehun explained, “When I got there, this black thing suddenly vanished so I thought she must have fallen in or something, so I tried to get it to appear and I just sat down on the bench to think and then it appeared.”

“The portal didn’t appear when I sat down, the witch did instead, I think,” I told them.

“A witch!” Tao said.

“She was so ugly; it gave me goose bumps when I saw her!” Sehun recalled, “It’s going to give me nightmares, but when I saw her holding a massive knife above Raine, I threw a rock at her.”

“Where did you find the rock?” Tao asked, treating this like a story-telling session.

“On the ground and then I took out my laser zapper and fired it at her.”

“Laser zapper?” D.O repeated, “That toy gun thing that Suho got you for Christmas two years ago?”

“Yeah, it was in my hand when I read that Raine was in danger so I ran out with it as well,” Sehun said proudly, “Didn’t think it would come in handy but she turned into ashes after I shot the laser straight into her eyeball.”

“That’s so cool!” Chanyeol clapped.

“Story time is over now, Sehun,” Kris said, “Raine, what actually happened?”

“That was what actually happened,” I replied.

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“See Kris!” Sehun beamed, “I can be a superhero sometimes!”

Everyone laughed and then I noticed Lay and Baekhyun wasn’t here.

“Where is Lay and Baekhyun?” I asked, remembered what happened earlier today.

“They went out to look for his dad,” Kris said, “Raine, are you sure he isn’t telling the truth?”

“I read it in the book,” I said, I reached over to get the book from the coffee table but a few drops of blood dripped onto the carpet, “Oh no!”

“Don’t worry, I bought a new brand of stain remover that I need to try out,” Chanyeol said.

I flipped through the book again only to find that the previous message has appeared, “It’s here, it appeared again.”

This time there was more added to it and it read:

            Where you went is where he will go if the truth about his death is not revealed.

Then I flipped the book over. There was only nine hours left for us to get the truth, find his dad and fulfil his wish.

“Where could they have gone?” Kris panicked, “We need to find them both quickly!”

“They wouldn’t have gone far,” Xiumin said calmly, “Kris, Tao, Kai and I will take the van out to look for them and Luhan, D.O and Chanyeol can take the other car. Sehun and Raine can stay at home to clean themselves up and in case they come back. After two hours, we all come back here, understand?”

“Yes!” they chorused.

“Let’s go!” Tao said.