Cabin in the Woods II

*Cameron shines his flashlight behind him, continuing to follow Vanessa. Monu and Tirea run up to help Euryale, while Eve continues to dash beside them*

Monu:<I think the shadow man's coming!>

Astarte, Hector and Eduj continued to run away without wasting breath on talking.

Taiyo helps in getting Euryale back up.

Azuma & Mimiru continue going back to the road from the woods.

*In the beam of the flashlight, the Shadow Man can be seen pretty much right on top of them. Euryale throws her weight sideways so that the group all goes tumbling down the hill. They are stopped when they smash into a cluster of trees.*

N"Ow. What the fuck did you do that for?!"

E"I was getting us away from the Shadow!"

*When she turns her flashlight back on, she can see the other beast looming up. Sirens can be heard off in the distance.*
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*Everyone who continued running now rounds a bend in the forested road. The only thing they can see of the others is an occasional sliver of light poking through the trees. They, too, can hear sirens slowly approaching them.*

Taiyo: "Ow..."

Taiyo attempts to pick herself up. Up above, Mimiru shines her flashlight in the direction of tbe other, calling down to them.

Astarte, beginning to run low on energy, was encouraged by the sirens and pushed herself even harder to run towards them. Hector and Eduj struggled to keep up, but were also given some extra encouragement by the sirens.

*Cameron continues towards the sirens*
---
*Eve, Tirea, and Monu pick themselves off the ground*

Monu:<Is everyone alright?>

E"Yeah, just go!"

*Euryale swipes Nero's knife, accidentally cutting her hand in the process.*

N"Hey!"

*She flicks the blood into the creature's eye, holds the knife in between her knuckles, & punches as hard as she can into the creature's neck, a few blobs of dark goop falling on the ground. It lets out a high pitched screech & she ducks an arm swipe from it. When she can't pull the knife back out, she just turns & runs away.*
===================================
*They do not answer. Blinking blue-&-red lights can be seen through the trees, slowly winding up the mountain road.*

*Eve, Tirea, and Monu follow Euryale*
---
*Cameron waves his flashlight in the direction of the sirens, and heads over to Mimiru and presumably Azuma*

Taiyo follows Euryale.

Mimiru keeps her light shining in the direction the others are presumably in down the hill, Azuma heads down the hill, calling out to them.

*All that answers them is a bunch of strange, disconnected noises. Shouts, a pair of high-pitched screeches, the scuffling of many animals in the forest, & the snapping of a mid-sized tree. It is all coming from their right, so there is that.*
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*Up ahead, the helicopter is rounding its way back. It turns on a spotlight situated below the cockpit & slides it across the forests on either side of the road. Its search is still a few miles away from them.*
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*They bound along, the beam of the flashlight jerking every which way, illuminating isolated pairs of tree trunks. At one point, it catches a glimpse of a small tree falling on their right, so Euryale jerks aside to avoid it. It crashes against another tree & makes a loud scraping noise until it finally crashes on a bush. A fox screams & darts in front of them. It stands frozen, looking at them with wide eyes.*

Azuma: "Where the hell are they?"

Azuma goes back the way he came, hearing Mimiru shouting.

Astarte, Hector and Eduj continued trying to reach the lights and sirens as quickly as possible without looking back.

*There turns out to be 3 cop cars. As half of the group is standing in the middle of the road, they swerve around to avoid them. One scrapes against a tree & is visibly lopsided when it stops. 2 officers get out of each car, first checking with each other to confirm that they're okay.*

<'Fraid we'll have to call a tow, though.>
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E"Hold on."

*Euryale grabs Roatha & Nero to keep them from running.*

N"Are you insane? We need to keep moving!"

E"We'll just get lost. Besides, nothing is following us, see?"

*She sweeps the flashlight around behind them, demonstrating that the forest is empty. Then she sweeps it back up, showing that they can no longer see the road. However, they do see flashing lights & hear sirens through some trees.*

"No! No! Let's go! Now!" Astarte almost screamed at them. Hector grabbed her by the wrist as she lurched towards them, pulling her back and holding her firmly by his side.
"It's dangerous here," Hector said to them, practically gasping between words. "We might-- I don't-- we could die! This is a life or death situation."
Eduj looked around for the others.

Azuma makes his way up the hill to the road.

Azuma: "There are still others in the woods."

T"They're right. Just because nothing is following us right now, doesn't mean they won't change their minds."

E"...Let's go up this hill. Try to get back on the road."
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<Alright. You kids stay here while we fan out & search. Even if we had all of our cars, we'd still need to wait for more in order to get you all back to town. Call it in.>

*One of the officers standing by the broken car uses the radio to request back-up.*

"I don't think you should fan out," Hector shook his head, and Astarte whimpered loudly. "I mean... there are things out there, they killed another police officer, and they've caused terrible injuries. I..."
Hector realized he probably sounded hysterical and went quiet for a moment, before speaking again at a more measured pace, "You need to understand that this is really, really dangerous."

Azuma: "And this guy is really really unstable."

<Son, please calm down. We're perfectly safe.>

<I don't know, Ted, one of our guys did go missing up here.>

Ted<Probably wrecked his car & got lost in the woods. I hate to say it, but these things happen, even to good cops like Frank.>

<You kids haven't seen a police officer out here, have you?>
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*The other group finally emerges on a stretch of road. They can't see the bend that the others disappeared around, but they can see the helicopter searching in the distance.*

Hector turned and pointed at Azuma, "You saw him. The cop. And the thing that attacked him."

Azuma and Mimiru look at each other.

Azuma: "Uh..."

Mimiru: "We saw a wrecked cruiser the other day."

Ted<Alright, I'll stay behind to take statements. The rest of you fan out.>
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R"Well, what now?"

N"Isn't it obvious? We keep going forward. There's a helicopter."

T"But what about the others?"

E"Also, just because there's a helicopter, it doesn't mean that they'll spot us."

Taiyo: "The others might already have been found."

Azuma and Mimiru just kind of stand in place until they're asked questions.

Hector looked at his feet and Astarte continued to whimper. Eduj ran a hand through his short hair and frowned.