Leo approached the cage, the clip board tightly in his grasp. The whimpers suddenly stopped and went from sounding like a wounded animal to that of a child crying. He frantically flipped through the other pages hoping to learn more about what was making the noise. His eyes scanned down as certain words popped out - mimics and influences, reads the mind. Do not be fooled by it. He decides that perhaps it would be best if he did not attempt to set it free. Suddenly a familiar voice cuts through the air like a knife. It was Thomas and he was not alone. Somehow he managed to track Leo to the factory and now was standing a few feet away from him surrounded by a few of the other bullies including Victoria, a sneer on their faces, voices sharp as glass. “Did you really think you could hide from us?” They stepped closer, forcing him to back up till he was on the platform pressed up against the bars of the invisible cage with nowhere to go. His left arm now stretched out brushes against what felt like a lever and before he could even question himself, he pushed down on it hearing a click as it released. With a sudden unknown force the door to the cage swung open knocking Leo off his feet and to the floor, watching in horror as the bullies suddenly dropped to their knees and grabbed onto the sides of their heads with their hands and screamed.

They writhed around on the dusty floor in agony before scrambling to their feet and running towards the factory door, scattering like mice fleeing a sinking ship. Soon silence fell in the room like a heavy cloud, whatever was in that cage now free and he was alone with it. He struggled to get back on his feet, his legs shaking like leaves in the wind. He realizes that he can’t go back to the school after what just happened to the bullies and he can’t return to his foster home. The creature, whatever it was, had no intention of returning to its cage. He was not sure what he should do but he knew they could not remain in the factory for long. Bullies do not back down for long and he knew that they would tell someone, perhaps their parents, his foster home and most likely the police. It was only a matter of time till they would come searching for him and whatever he had released. They had to move and they had to move now.

 Leo makes his way through the factory floor, hearing the footsteps of the unknown creature following close behind as they head out the back door and into the dense overgrown woods behind the back door. No one would think to look in a place where the area was not suitable for construction or habitation due to the instability of the land itself. Pushing farther and deeper into the woods, he finds an old decaying cabin hidden by overgrown bushes which seems like a suitable hiding place for them both. Leo needed time to collect his thoughts and figure out exactly what the next plan of action would be.  Despite the fear he felt, he needed to rest even for a little bit then he would try to figure out more about the creature. It is when he dozed off, the creature ended up disappearing but Leo would not realize this till after he woke up and sensed the stillness of the room. Where did it go and what was it planning on doing. He dreaded the part of not knowing what he had unleashed into the town

He had to know so he sneaked through the woods till he found himself behind a rural gas station where a few truckers would stop to get fuel and catch up on the local news for the surrounding area. He positioned himself close enough that he could hear them talking without being seen. There seemed to be quite a bit of excited chatter as a crowd of people gathered around the counter as one of the diners read from a local paper about missing teens from his school. What caught his attention was the mention of one of one of the teens, the name of Thomas the main source of his relentless torture. Apparently at the end of Coven Road which was a dead end, there was a line of abandoned backpacks but no one in sight. Leo sank to the ground feeling a heavy guilt overtake him as it dawned on him that whatever he had released was now the cause for the disappearances. Now he felt completely torn…if he tried to track down the creature to find out what happened to the bullies he would run the risk of being a suspect in their vanishing since most in the school knew that they had tortured Leo and they also would have known about the incident in the factory. This would mean that they would be actively seeking to find him and question him about what he had let loose on the town.

Leo was now terrified and did not know what else to do but to run and run far away as possible. He needed to put as much distance between himself and the town as he could and the only way he could do that was to hop into an empty train car as it passed through town. He could hear the faint sound of the whistle as the train was slowly approaching in the distance. If he hurried he could make it to the tracks in time and board that train, leaving the horror of the situation far behind him. As he got closer to the tracks, he could feel something in the air begin to shift and change and he could feel the warmth of something against the back of his neck which caused the hairs on his arms to stand on end but he could not see anything and that scared him because he knew. Leo was beyond terrified…the bullies had vanished, the police were most likely looking for him and now the creature had tracked him down. He had a feeling that it now wanted something from him in return. He did not know what happened to the bullies and he wasn't sure he wanted to. He now owed a debt to something he did not understand and now was obligated to repay.

Leo spoke into the air not knowing if he would even be understood. He explained that he finally understood that the creature had reacted to the bullies as a way of protecting Leo but that it came with the price of not being able to return to the town. There was nothing that could be done to change the outcome and there was nothing that could be said that would take away the anger of the parents whose children were missing nor convince the police that he had no part in it. He definitely could not explain what he set loose because they would simply think he snapped and lost his mind. He knew that staying would only bring trouble to them both and he could hear the train getting closer. He reached out his hand till it came in contact with it, feeling an unusual warmth and felt a low vibration as it emitted a soft purring sound. It did not follow him to terrorize him, it finally found something that made it feel like it belonged and not something to fear. 

 In a strange way they had bonded, both of them lost and misunderstood by the rest of the world. Together they would board an empty train car hoping to leave the horrors of the town behind them and find a future somewhere far away where no one would find them.