Chapter 24 Stampede of Wild Horses

I turned around to see where that thing was standing, but I couldn’t see anything at all.

I immediately took a step back as I actually felt something touch my hair.

Although the shadow in my peripheral vision was very vague, I knew for sure that I had seen two fins around its ears. My mind was buzzing as I thought to myself, did those corpses with fins start moving last night because this strange thing was causing mischief?

Maybe something like this had been standing behind those corpses, but ordinary people couldn’t see it. And maybe the reason I had accidentally seen it was because my eyes had become farsighted as I got older. But could ordinary people also see these fins out of the corner of their eyes?

My mind was a complete mess at this time. I looked at the empty grassland, turned my eyes away, and peeked out of the corner of my eye again.

That thing was still there.

It was slowly walking around the halo of light cast by the bonfire, as if it were looking for a place where the light was weak. This thing wasn’t afraid of flashlights, but it seemed to be afraid of going near the bonfire.

I slowly retreated until I reached the edge of the bonfire. Then, I began adding coal and grass to it. The bonfire actually wasn’t very strong anymore, so the flames almost died down whenever the wind blew. When this happened, the light was instantly swallowed by the darkness.

Since the flames were already weak, they basically disappeared as soon as I put the coal and grass on them. I cursed in my heart and immediately squatted down to blow the flames back to life, trying to make the fire flourish again. At this time, however, I suddenly felt a finger poke my hair.

I stopped, looked out of the corner of my eye, and found that something was wrong. My flashlight was shining in the other direction and I was facing the bonfire, so there was an elongated shadow behind me. When the bonfire went dark, my shadow became thicker and the darkness outside immediately latched onto it.

That thing stepped onto my shadow, avoided the firelight, and started crawling towards me.

I immediately stepped aside so that the bonfire could directly illuminate the area. That fuzzy human figure in my peripheral vision disappeared in an instant, but I still pointed my flashlight at my shadow to dilute the darkness just in case.

At this time, the bonfire slowly began to flourish. I took the “eternal” feed from the side and threw it directly onto the bonfire. The flames were even stronger now, and I couldn’t see that thing when I looked out of the corner of my eye.

But as the fire became stronger, my shadow grew longer. I found that the bonfire was located at a very low position, so my shadow would connect to the darkness outside. Fortunately, the shadow was very weak whenever the bonfire was flourishing.

But what creeped me out the most was that when I saw that thing at a close distance just now, I discovered that it actually had facial features. Even though I was looking out of the corner of my eye, I could definitely tell that it was a human face.

I started clapping. This was a signal the three of us had agreed on that meant: if you’re not dealing with a highly urgent situation right now, give up the original plan and immediately reunite.

I wanted them both to come back right now.

After clapping a few more times, I swept my flashlight over the grassland but still didn’t see anything. I started to get nervous, please don’t leave me alone. My instincts were telling me that the situation this time was completely different from our previous grave-robbing experiences. This wasn’t something we had experienced before, nor did it even come close to anything we had experienced.

At this time, I suddenly saw a flare shoot out of the grass and soar into the sky, illuminating the surrounding grassland.

When I looked in front of me, I found that a small forest had appeared.

I swear to God, we had traveled all day and didn’t see a trace of any forests along the way.

I knew for a fact that I hadn’t seen a second forest on the grassland. Is this the grove we camped at before? I wondered. Are we back?

It was too dark for me to recognize it, but what if we had really gone back?

How did that happen?

I felt like I was going crazy.

Then I saw Fatty stand up from a pile of grass. He was also clutching his hair and had a look of disbelief on his face.

I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw him. At least I’m not alone.

Fatty also turned and started to run back to me. He was very far away from where I had been before, which made it obvious that we had quickly gotten separated after we entered the darkness. I didn’t know what had happened at that time.

Fatty was rushing right towards me, but then he suddenly stopped after a few steps.

I waved at him—silently telling him not to hesitate—but he pointed at something behind me, suddenly took out his cell phone, and started taking pictures.

Completely baffled, I looked back but didn’t see anything behind me. I did, however, hear a deafening sound in the darkness behind me, which almost sounded like an earthquake.

I didn’t know what was going on, but Fatty’s behavior instantly made my blood run cold. I immediately started running towards him. Is it possible that the thing didn’t leave just now? Is it on my shoulders or something?

As soon as I left the bonfire’s circle of light, Poker-Face rushed out of the darkness on the other side of the camp and jumped onto one of the horses. When it leaped over the bonfire and rushed up behind me, Poker-Face lifted me onto the horse with one hand. Then, two men and one horse rushed towards Fatty.

As soon as Fatty saw us get on the horse, he immediately turned around and ran into the woods. I looked back and saw dozens of wild horses suddenly rushing out of the darkness. They ran straight through our tents, trampling everything including the bonfire.

Is this a stampede of wild horses?

There were wild horses on the Mongolian grasslands, and I had heard that wild horses in general were very easily frightened. But this was too exaggerated. This kind of situation was something that only appeared in documentaries.

We came all this way without seeing a single wild horse, so why were there suddenly so many of them on this dark night?

We arrived at Fatty’s position in an instant, and Poker-Face shouted, “Go left!”

Fatty immediately turned and Poker-Face said to me, “Hold on. We’ll lead the horses to the edge of the forest.” He pulled on the reins and urged the horse into the woods, leading the other horses away from Fatty.

The forest was dark, so I immediately lit a cold firework as soon as we rushed in. All the wild horses followed us in, so we found a huge tree to hide behind and let the stampede rush past us.

In that brief moment that they ran past, I noticed that a group of them had a lot of scars that looked like words. But all too soon, they disappeared into the woods.

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