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The messy footsteps awakened the youth.
The youth hurriedly opened his eyes and vigilantly looked towards the approaching sound.
Slowly the memory of last night came and the teenager’s mood became tenser.
He had an instinct that the people who were approaching him were somehow a threat to his existence.
“Have you seen the vampire that had fled into the forest yesterday?” An old voice with a somber tone asked.
The voice was coming from under the tree.
The teenager lowered his head and tried to look through the gap of the branches. There were four men wearing black-robes standing under the tree.
Apart from them, a timid man was following them. This man was the runaway grave-keeper.
“This is the only place to hide..”
The grave keeper’s anxious voice rang, he was getting more anxious while looking at the priest’s indifferent face.
“Don’t you believe it? You have seen the dog’s dead body and the tooth marks on my companion’s throat! Was it done by any normal human?”
The priest looked around the forest and even looked at dense foliage above his head, where the teenager was hiding.
But because of the dense foliage, the young priest wasn’t able to see him.
“I have checked this forest several times. There is no sign of a vampire here. Even if we believe you, it’s already five o’clock, maybe the vampire has run away. We should contact the church in London.”
The teenager’s eyesight was very good, somehow he was even able to see the look of contempt on the priest’s face.
“Then..”
The grave keeper tried to say something. Where would the vampire have stayed for an entire night, he also didn’t know.
“Let’s go back.”
The old-man leading the young priest told everyone.
“No, we can’t leave. What if the vampire came back? He had already drunk my companion’s blood.”
The grave keeper shouted in panic.
The priest sneered at the grave-keeper and said, “You have pushed your companion for your survival. Coward.”
The grave keeper felt ashamed and he could no longer oppose their decision to go back.
The teenager was keenly listening to the sound of those men while lying down the branch of the tree. When the sound of their footsteps got further and further away, then only his tight nerves got relaxed.
After pulling the fingers out of the barks of the tree, the boy froze. He tried to twist his wrist a few times and saw miraculously his wounds were healed.
He raised his hands and touched his face, it was healed without any previous sign of an injury.
He had no memory of last night after losing his consciousness, he didn’t know how he climbed on this tree.
He only knew, maybe he got injured last night by looking at his blood-stained cuffs.
The teenager carefully sat up on the tree and leaned on the tree trunk. As he leaned, somehow a cold object touched his chest.
His body got stiffened by the cold touch, and he tried to unbutton the cloth to reach that cold object. The cold object was the silver chain with a simple yet delicate design.
The teenager’s blue eyes were curiously studying the chain and the blue gemstone attached to it. The gemstone was exquisite with a serpentine shape.
There was a delicately carved three-letter word ‘Asa’ written on the pendant.
“Asa”
There was a hoarseness in the youth’s voice as if he hadn’t spoken in years.
“A Gift from God..”
The teenager murmured. He didn’t know, why did he think of those words?
‘Asa?’
Was this his name? But why was it sounding so strange in his ears?
After staring at the pendant for a while, the teenager stuffed the pendant in his collar and fastened the button.
He didn’t care if that was his name or not. After all, he didn’t remember anything.
Suppressing all his doubts, Asa started to think about where to go after leaving this forest.
Going to the city? But did he have a home there?
His memory was blank. He had no memory related to the word ‘home’.
But the teenager’s emotion was not very much affected by it.
Those men in black robes just said, London? Was it a nearby place?
Would there be a place for him in the city…
Asa’s head suddenly lifted when he heard the sound of the rustling of the dead leaves in the distance.
While being vigilant, Asa lied on the branch and lowered his breath. The dense foliage hindered Asa’s vision. He wasn’t able to infer the number or the position of the people by the sound of the footsteps.
The footsteps stopped under the tree on which Asa was hiding.
Asa didn’t try to probe the person, he was quietly lying on the branch while lowering the sound of his breathing.
Asa tries to stretch his head and peek at the face of the visitor. But, the position where the person was standing was a little tricky. The person’s face was covered with dense leaves.
Who was the visitor? Was he from the earlier group?