As night settled over the orphanage, the odd little family of D9 was fast asleep. Since his collapse and transfer to bed, Loch had been remarkably quiet. A set of haunting dreams played through his mind. Loch's dream was a hazy collection of unique moments of the past month, with blurry scenes of standing by Lacey's bed, with this time the young woman being awake but hunched over coughing blackened spit onto her bedsheets. The scene changed again, like walking through a heavy fog, revealing a fresh sight of a worried Loch and Randall crowding around her, with Mother Leanne checking the girls' condition up close.
Then it moved to a new scene again, this one with Loch, himself looking up different diseases and their symptoms in a pile of books with an almost feverish face in the Old woman's underground workshop, ending with him finding a description of a disease before asking the Old woman about remedies for it. The image of him holding a book and talking to the woman he called Granny vanished like smoke, replaced by an image of the silver-badged hunter he'd seen that morning. The Hunter was in the same position Loch had daydreamed before starting the treatment on Lacey.
Illuminated by the Butcher shop, the Hunter stood before its open door, the surrounding area shrouded in a swirling, darkened fog. The Hunter beckoned again, this time in a stark contrast to his usual well-dressed appearance in a black and red three-piece suit and top hat. Instead, he resembled one of the ragged beggars that roamed the Shambles. The man's current suit looked as if he had gotten into a fight with a lawnmower, with slashes throughout the material, revealing tanned skin with similar gashes, leaking dark red blood. His neatly slicked back hair was in complete disarray, and the top hat was nowhere in sight. The man's piercing eyes, however, still radiated a confident calm, as if saying that even though in such a terrible state, he still had everything under control. Another thing that differed from the previous daydream was that this time, instead of just his arm beckoning him, Loch felt as if he could hear the deep, rich voice of the Hunter calling out to him. However, the sound was broken and distorted, like a radio cutting in and out. Loch could only make out a couple of words, "Grade three... back up... cleansing."
Just as the words were becoming clearer to Loch's ears, the sight of a tall figure stepping out of the butcher shop's opened door behind the beckoning Hunter, made his heart beat violently. As an almost animalistic fear began to take over Loch's body, at the sight of the shadowed figure making its way over, before looming behind the Hunter. The figure was still cast in shadow, but what Loch could make out appeared not to be human. It towered over the hunter, ten feet tall and four feet wide. The shadowy figure looked as if it was about to encompass the still beckoning Hunter.
As if sensing Loch's gaze behind him, the Hunter turned, but before he could, a trunk-sized appendage from the darkness-filled behemoth erupted and slashed down, cutting the Hunter in half, causing him to burst into smoke. The sight made Loch cry out in shock, which caused the behemoth's bulbous head to snap in his direction. Taking an involuntary step backwards from the gaze, Loch saw the behemoth take an almost identical step towards him. The sight made Loch shudder, while he took another step, but before the behemoth could take a step towards him in return, the smoky world shuddered around him. Loch felt the fog surrounding his peripheral vision gather before his eyes, obscuring his sight in silent darkness for a moment. With a blink, the surrounding darkness appeared to take form and Loch sat straight up with a frantic look, as he clutched his racing heart with his hand.
It took a moment, but Loch started to calm down, as his eyes got used to the darkness surrounding him and he noticed the familiar sights. He was in his room. With the curled-up shapes of his roommates on their own individual beds. From the room's lone window, Loch observed the night. 'Must have been more tired than I thought.' A gentle caw sound came from his left as he looked over to his bedside table, where Jack's beady black eyes appeared to sparkle in the soft moonlight coming through the window. On a small, foot-tall wooden stand on Loch's bedside table sat a raven, with a grey racing stripe down its back. Jack was staring at Loch while turning its head side to side, confused as to why the young boy was awake. Loch, seeing the sight, said to the Raven, "I'm fine buddy. It's just a bad dream..."
The thought of his dream made his heart, that had only just started slowing down, race again. Even though conjuring the image of that large darkened figure caused Loch to tremble, what really made his heartbeat rapidly was the sight of the Hunter in his torn-up suit beckoning him as if he was asking Loch for help. 'That's just stupid. What could I possibly help a Hunter with, anyway?' Even though Loch said that to himself and tried to lie back down to sleep. He couldn't stop the images from his dream revolving around his head, while a sense of unease filled him, like he had left a fire unattended and couldn't help but worry about the problems that could crop up if he ignored it. After almost half an hour of tossing and turning, Loch sat up in his bed again with a groan.
Closing his eyes, as if to swallow down his rising frustration, a memory of something the old woman told him when he used to tell her about some of the vivid nightmares that used to plague him most nights. "Dreams show us how to find meaning in our lives, how to fulfill our own destiny, how to realize the greater potential of life within us. Even the bad ones can give us answers to questions we are too afraid to ask." The old woman's dried voice rang in Loch's head, calming his tense shoulders as he reopened his eyes with a resolute look on them.
Removing his covers, Loch saw he was still in his clothes from the day and didn't feel the need to retrieve new ones. As quietly as he could, Loch got out of bed and put on the shoes beside his bed. Kneeling down, Loch retrieved his toolbox that was back under his bed and gently dragged it towards him, being as quiet as he could. He then unlocked it, retrieved a closed cloth pouch and a small thin knife and tied them to his rope belt around his pants. Jack, atop his perch, was looking at the boy below him while turning his head back and forth at the young man's actions. Loch put the toolbox back and looked over to his feathered companion. Remembering that besides Randall, the one who was almost always with him when he did something stupid, was this feathery fiend eyeing him, Loch gave the quizzical looking bird a giant mischievous smile. "Come on buddy, let's go get some meat," Loch whispered.
The raven didn't appear to hesitate as it leapt up onto Loch's shoulder and flapped its wings in excitement. As prepared as he thought he could be, Loch made his way towards the window at the other end of the bedroom, attempting to be as silent as he could. Just as he passed the last bed on his left, Loch heard movement and froze. Looking to his left, the curled-up image of Lacey rolling around in her bed with a small frown on her face made him worry for a moment. Standing as still as a statue, Loch waited with bated breath. After seeing Lacey settle back down, he relaxed again. Checking both sides of the room, he then continued to tip-toe towards the window. After arriving at the window, Loch removed the latch and swung it open, revealing the silent night sky.
Just outside the window was a tree with bare branches swaying in the wind. Having climbed up and perched on the window sill, Loch braced himself with one hand as Jack flew from his shoulder to a branch across from him. Looking at his desired target, Loch felt his palm get sweaty, as he kept running through his next action in his head, trying his best to gauge the movements. 'No hesitating, or I'll crawl back under the covers. I've got this.' Loch reminded himself, once, twice, and even a third time before he finished by taking a deep breath, that echoed loudly in the sleepy room, and leapt towards the tree in front of him.
The distance was only small, but Loch's stomach still did a flip when he was midair for that brief moment. He had not taken this approach when sneaking out before, but he had seen Randall and Squirt do it multiple times in the past. Loch usually used a tied-up bed sheet that one of the boys would anchor to themselves, to crawl down. Just as Loch made contact with the crown of the tree, he used his one good arm to wrap around the main trunk while also hooking his feet around. He wasn't able to stabilize himself through and his feet slipped, leading him to slide down the trunk like a fireman's pole, as he screamed internally, 'Stupid armmmmmmmm!' Slamming butt first into the ground, Loch rolled backwards and grit his teeth so he didn't shout out in pain before coming to a stop on his back, head facing the clear night sky.
"Well soil it. That hurt." Loch muttered as he recovered the breath that had been knocked out of him. Jack flew above his head in circles and let out several soft sharp caws, that Loch interpreted as laughs, raising his hand into a fist to shake at the bird. He then noticed his cut-up palm. "Damn it!" Sitting back up, Lock tore off one of the many strips of cloth that was around his left arm and wrapped up his bleeding palm from sliding down the tree. With sore bones, Loch stood up and whistled for Jack, who returned to his shoulder. "Let's go smartass," Loch said, as he began to make his way past the tree.
Hearing a sound come from the second-floor window behind him, Loch turned to see a figure of someone with long curly hair standing by the window. As the moonlight came leaking down in the clear night and poured on the sleepy-looking girl, Loch could make out the red curls and freckle-filled face of the young woman, he called sister. Lacey's half-lidded eyes peered in his direction as she called out his name in more of a question than a statement, uncertain if it was his figure she saw in her half-awake state. Loch gave the girl a toothy grin that she couldn't see, and knowing he didn't want her to ask what he was up to, and somehow feeling like he was running out of time, Loch took off running towards the back yard wall without a word.
Squeezing through the gap in the wall, Loch ran down his street and into the connecting one, reaching the windy street filled with stores. His soft cloth shoes made little noise on the damp broken cobblestone pathway but still felt loud to him in the desolate street. He finally arrived at the shopfront of his dreams, which stood distinct from its neighbours. This one was a little larger in size, but also didn't run up against another shop on either side as well. Like the other shops were giving this particular building a wide berth. Loch arrived before the shop and stood there, frozen by what he saw. His already pale face turned slightly paler, and his breath came in shallow gasps. The shop's exterior presented nothing unusual. Besides the hanging billboard above the door that read Butcher seemed askew, the only thing that stood out in the darkness of the silent street was the fact that this shop was lit. As if the one inside was still working, even though there were no noises coming out from the wide-open door.
"Oh, great Tree, please bless this one with the shade from your crown." Loch couldn't help release a prayer that the priests from the Church always say on Earth Day as a sign of protection at the familiar sight before his eyes. 'It's just like my dream. I don't understand. I thought Mr. Kapers was bedridden at home from being ill? Why would he be working in the dead of the night? Maybe, his trying to catch up on work.' Loch's mind raced, with all kinds of reasons and excuses for the current state of the butcher shop, but a chill crawling down his spine made him know that the situation before he's eyes was unordinary. While gazing around the area, and debating internally if he should enter through the open doorway, Loch noticed another unusual thing about the current street. 'Where is everybody?' The trembling boy was not wondering where the actual owners of the buildings or the normal customers were, he was wondering where the beggars and the small-time thieves were. The ones who usually hid out in the dark alleyways between the buildings at night to get away from the elements. They usually filled the Shambles at night, conducting the business that belonged in the dark.
There was not a soul in sight. Loch looked everywhere and strained his hearing as best he could, but besides the ominous sound of the butcher's billboard swinging in the light breeze, there was nothing else. The small amount of courage and determination he had built up earlier appeared to be leaking out like a popped balloon. As the side of his mind telling him to go home appeared to be winning over, a slight, deep grunt of either pain or exertion appeared to leak out from the open door. Loch felt that beckoning feeling come over again. It was like destiny was a real person and was not just knocking on Loch's door but trying to kick it down. Not being able to help himself, Loch gazed at his left arm dangling by his side in its wrapped state, his flagging spirit lifted as he gritted his teeth, almost snarling at his arm and then the open door. "Soil it all. I've got this." Loch whispered out loud, as Jack let out a soft caw from his shoulder and flagged his wings wide, as if to say, "I've got your back".
Loch approached the open butcher's shop and noticed the door wasn't just open, it couldn't be closed again, as it appeared to have been ripped from its hinges and someone had just placed it next to the doorway so as not to destroy it completely. The sight made Loch's palm slightly sweaty, as he walked through the doorway and inside the Butcher's, feeling as if he was walking into the mouth of a monster. Entering the front of the shop, Loch tried to look everywhere at once. Besides looking open for business, the insides appeared to have been untouched for a while, with no stock placed in the cubby holes behind the counter or the cases in front. All that was sitting on the counter was some wrapping paper and a set of scales. The two gas lamps on both sides of the wall were on, however, and an even brighter light appeared to be coming through the doorway behind the counter.
Loch approached the counter and leaned over it to see if he could see anything through the doorway, but all he saw was a short hall that opened up into another larger room. Loch couldn't make out much from his spot but could see several dark red stains upon the floor and flecks of the same color on the plastered walls, along with the edge of what appeared to be a large metal table. And hanging over the edge of that table limply, Loch could make out a man's hand that held a couple of fancy golden rings upon the fingers.
'Is that... his hand...' Loch thought at the sight of the hand, he obviously wasn't finding the hand familiar just from the brief meeting he had with the Hunter that morning but because it looked similar to the hand that was beckoning him in his dreams. Since waking up, that image had seared itself into his brain, as if playing on repeat. Even the rings looked the same. A soft groan and some mumbled words, as if someone were sleep talking, drifted down the hall, Loch could only just make out a few familiar words that tickled his skull, along with some new ones, "Back up" and "The Twisted" before a severe hacking cough interrupted the words. To the trembling boy, the deafening noise made the hallway tremble with every cough.
Crouching down behind the counter, Loch took several deep breaths to calm himself down, while the coughing noise from beyond the short hallway drifted back into mumbling similar words again. Lock's mop of sandy hair rose above the counter, soon followed by a sweaty forehead and then a pair of narrowed green eyes. As Loch scanned the short hall for movement, trying to hear the man's mumbling, something horrifying interrupted him. Jack, who was on his shoulder and originally staying perfectly still, took off without warning and flew down the hall.
Not given much time to think and just running on instinct, Loch cried out in a whisper, "No! You stupid bird." Before climbing over the counter and following the Raven, who had already flown into the room at the end of the hall and disappeared from sight. The moment Loch made it past the hall and entered the next room, he paused from hearing a tired and shaky man's voice ask aloud, "Is that a bird?"
Loch's heavy, shallow breaths grabbed the attention of the man strapped to the large metal table. Craning his blood-specked neck to the right, the man locked eyes with the boy, his already confused face becoming that of someone who had been repeatedly hit in the back of the head. Jack, who was circling the room above the man, let out a caw and then landed on Loch's shoulder. The Hunter from this morning, was now strapped to the table with thick chains wrapped from shoulders to ankles, as if some animal that was about to be dissected, looked at the two odd life forms in front of him and asked aloud, "Looks like not one but two lost birds?"