But somewhere in the back of my mind I already knew that they were in perilous danger. There's a guilt-wracked part of me that wishes I never investigated their disappearance. Smarter people would have left the matter, they would believe that the run went wrong and turned deadly... smarter people would have been right.

I felt obligated to find out what happened, even if that meant finding Sam and Jordan's remains. I had to do it, not only for my sake, but to give the rest of the family answers to what happened.

"They should've been back ages ago." Kiersten sighed, face pale and voice desperate. "We have to do something."

"Kid it's gonna be dark soon, it's too dangerous to go out now, we gotta wait until morning." Sarah replied, the same fear plastered on her expression.

"We can discuss this after Emily goes to bed, okay? We can work out a plan." I told her.

When the time finally hit eight, the five-year-old tugged on my shirt and put her hands together under her head, signalling that she was tired. "Okay kid, Kiersten's gonna tuck you in." I began to turn away, but she continued to tug on my shirt. "What's wrong?"

She pointed up at me innocently.

"You want me to tuck you in?" After being met with a nod, we walked to a large room where we had set up cots on the floor. The girls stayed in one room while the boys stayed in another, everyone agreed that there was safety in numbers. It was nothing fancy, lots of pillows and blankets cluttered around the floor. The only partially decorated area of the room was the corner Emily slept in; stuffed bears and children's books splayed out in messy piles. She made sure to tuck all her teddies in before she got into bed. I knelt above her and waited for her to pick out a story to read. Usually, Sam would be the one to do this, he did all the funny voices that would make her smile and he took pride on being Emily's favourite bedtime reader. But now he wasn't here.

"The Fox and the Crow?" I asked, taking it from her hands and opening it to the first page. I was never one who enjoyed fables, though Aesop was a brilliant writer, I never saw the meaning to exposing kids to cruel life lessons at such a young age. The story of 'The Fox and the Crow' was an effective one. It tells the tale of arrogance. The crow sits atop a tree with some cheese, the sly fox notices this and compliments the bird. 'If your voice is half as beautiful as those fine feathers I see, it would please my ears to hear you sing a little melody.' Foolishly, the crow trusted his lies, the need to impress the fox greater than his intelligence. He begins to sing, dropping the cheese he had had in his mouth. 'Oh no! You've stolen my dinner!' The crow cried. But the fox replied, 'It was a fair enough trade! Vain crow, with your head up in the trees! You got the compliments, and I got the cheese!' The moral of this tale is more than just needing praise, it's about not always believing what you hear. I should have explained the hidden meaning to Emily when I had the chance. She was already soundly asleep when I finished the story.

Staying and going to sleep would have been a lot easier than going back out to face the problems at hand, but my family needed me.

"So, what do we do?" Sarah asked me specifically, although she was over ten years older than me, the weight of the decision was on my shoulders. Sarah was a small, dark-skinned woman, with arthritis and a quiet personality, she wasn't one to lead.

"We need to think rationally about this." I began, "If they are still out there, they would have found shelter."

"Wait... 'if they're still out there?' What does that mean?" Kiersten interrupted.

"Look, we shouldn't jump to conclusions, but, kid, we have to prepare for the worst. Those things are still out there, even though we haven't seen them in a while, they're still just as dangerous as before."

"And what if it wasn't the creatures?" Sarah chimed in, her voice low and shaky.

"What do you mean?" I asked curiously, the thought that something... or someone else could have hurt them didn't cross my mind at all.

"The 'hunters?'" Kiersten questioned, turning to face Sarah now.

"They were looking for something when they were here."

"Looking for what?"

"I'm not supposed to say."

"Sarah, you have to say." Kiersten complained, "Maybe it'll help us find the boys."

"It might be nothing, but I heard Jordan say they were looking for people." The woman said quietly.

"'People?' What for?" I asked, they didn't exactly seem like the type of group to go around searching for others to help.

"I don't know. That's all I heard."

"Well, who was he talking to?"

"I don't know." Sarah said, exasperated.

"We have to find them." Kiersten exclaimed loudly. "We have to!"

"We can't do anything until the sun rises." I told her, taking a few steps towards the bedroom we all shared. "Get some sleep, and in the morning, we'll do whatever we can."

The girl looked as if she wanted to continue arguing her point but going out at night was reckless and practically impossible to find anything in the silent darkness of the city. She didn't hide her annoyance as she made her way to her mattress, but she didn't question what I had said anymore. She was quite understanding for a hormonal teenager.

I felt my shirt being tugged at and hazily opened my eyes to see Emily smiling down at me. She had her whiteboard in her hand with a single word written on it. 'Up.' She was good at spelling for her age and would write down the things she wanted to express. Emily always woke me near sunrise, with a few nudges and a happy smile on her face.

"Yeah, yeah. I'm awake, I'm just closing my eyes." I mumbled, turning over. When the tugging didn't stop, I decided to just get up, the kid was a lot of things and persistent was definitely one of them.

To my surprise, Kiersten was already up, sitting at the kitchen island with a bottle of water.

"Hey... you okay?" I asked, taking a chair beside her.

"Couldn't sleep." She replied dryly. She had grown close to Sam, he was around her age, and they laughed and related to the same things. And Jordan, I think he reminded her of her dad. All I knew about the girl's father was what she had managed to tell me through tears. He was dead. That was it. She answered the landline to her dad's work friend and just like that, everything she had ever knew was gone. Her life was turned upside down with just three words. 'Paul is dead.' And Jordan seemed to fill a hole that day had left within her, and now he was gone too.

"I'm going out today, I'm gonna figure out what's happened."

"I'm coming with you, right?" Kiersten asked, face dropping when I replied.

"No, I need you to stay here."

"Sarah is staying here. I can go with you." She stated angrily, hurt clear in her eyes.

"No. I need you to protect Emily... and Sarah." I added quietly, "You have to take care of them while I'm not here." What I told her wasn't a lie, truth is, Kiersten is the strongest out of the three and the bravest by a mile.

"That's bullshit!" She retaliated, "Our friends are missing. I won't sit here and do nothing."

"Stop with the dramatics, I said you're staying here so you're staying here." I huffed; I was beginning to understand the frustration mothers dealt with on a daily basis. There was a tug at my shirt. "If making you stay here and stay safe makes me the asshole, then I guess I'm the asshole." Another tug. "What?" I asked, immediately regretting my tone when I looked down and saw Emily standing there. "Sorry." I whispered. "What's the matter, kid?"

She just pointed out the window with a straight face and an unmoving hand. I looked out, face at once dropping as I realised what she meant. Outside stood a man, a man with torn clothes and a dishevelled appearance. And just as sure as we were staring at him, he was staring straight back at us. There's no other way to describe his aura than eerie; like Michael Myers standing beside the hedges in 'Halloween.' His sheer presence was enough to silence all four of us. We didn't get a chance to speak first before the man walked shakily towards the double doors that separated our group from the monsters that roamed. I've never been more grateful for Sarah's obsessive need to lock all the doors every night as I was when I saw the door handle turn.