"How much do we want to get?" Ana asked, looking around at the shelves. "Because there might be enough room in the jeep to take about half of this… if we don't want anything else in the car." She gave a small smile. "Do we want to grab some bags to put the candy in?"
Already her mouth was watering, and her fingers were desperate to pick up the beautiful, glimmering, sweet candy. She loved candy with a passion.
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"We should get a good amount." Laurel grinned at the shelves of candy. "Enough to last us forever." She laughed and looked over at Ana. "Yes. Let's get all the bags!" Laurel looked around and spotted the place where all the bags were kept. She skipped over and grabbed one, then looked around. What kind of candy should she get first? Gummy bears? Sour candy? Jelly beans? Yeah, she wanted to get jelly beans. Laurel started towards them, eyes darting around to make sure there weren't any monsters hiding behind the displays.
"I don't think there's enough for forever," Ana said wryly, but she grinned. "We still need room for the other stuff in the back of the car, you know. So don't grab too much."
Despite her words, she started to load up several bags with candy. Lollipops, taffy, jelly beans, gummy bears, licorice. There was so much, and it made her mouth water. She wasn't being as cautious as she should be, but then again, who could blame her? There was candy. And candy always made people lower their defenses.
"True, true. But enough for a good amount of time should work, right?" Laurel grinned over at Ana, then turned her eyes towards the display of jelly beans. She filled up a bag with all her favorite flavors, then went over to grab a generous helping of gummy bears. Laurel was browsing through some sour candy near the front of the store when a flash of movement caught her eye. She frowned, eyes darting up and down the street. There was nothing, nothing… and then she spotted it. A monster slipped around a corner a little way down the road and started gliding up it, head twitching back and forth… almost as if it was hunting. "Ana!" Laurel hissed, backing away from the window. "There's a monster in the street coming this way! We need to hide or something." Even though her life was in potential danger, she kept a tight grip on the bags of candy. There was no need to waste good candy– unless she was seconds away from death.
"Shit," Ana cursed. She went to the window, peering through at the monster before ducking back. "It's too big for us to handle without getting hurt. We're too weak right now." She looked around the store. "Should we try to hide behind the counter? It faces towards the door, so we can stay out of sight that way." She chucked her bags of candy behind the counter and ducked, holding the blades of the knives from Endor tightly.
"Agreed." Laurel took a deep breath and looked around the shop. "Yeah, that's probably the best thing to do right now." She hurried behind the counter and dropped down behind it. She had to drop the candy to grab her knives, but she was determined not to forget them. "Let's hope it just goes right by…" Laurel whispered, biting her lip nervously. The shop was silent except for her and Ana.
"I hope it does, too," Ana said, her voice barely louder than a breath of wind. "Or we're screwed. We might even have to leave the candy behind."
And then she started. "Oh no! The jeep! If this creature smells our scent, it might come here!"
Laurel let out a small, breathy laugh. "That wouldn't be good." Her eyes widened at Ana's realization. "Well, it doesn't have eyes, so it's probably navigating by scent alone…" She trailed off, her hands clenched so tight around the knives that her knuckles turned white. "Maybe it'll ignore it?" Laurel said, so softly she could barely hear herself. Although she wanted to check where the monster was, she couldn't make herself move. A lump of cold, heavy fear was growing in her stomach, keeping her right where she was.
"I sure hope so," Ana said. "But when has hope ever done anything for me?"
She spared a glance at the monster, and froze. It had stopped, and was slowly swaying, as if looking for somehitng.
"Hmm," Laurel hummed in agreement. She was glad that Ana checked to see where the monster was, as she still hadn't been able to convince herself to move. "What's it doing?" Laurel breathed, not liking how Ana had froze. That usually meant something bad, right?
“It’s looking for something, it seems,” Ana said in a low voice. “It might have caught our scent. We need to be ready to move in case it comes here.”
The monster suddenly snapped its head down and picked something up in its jaws. Given that the thing it had picked up was squirming, she was pretty sure that the thing was alive. It was too small to be a human, though, luckily.
"Okay, okay," Laurel breathed, taking a deep breath and psyching herself up to make a run for it, if needs be. "Is it coming?" Even though she was pretty sure she could get out of there, she wasn't quite ready to actually look at the monster. Expecially if it was coming towards her. This had been so much better when they were at Endor's castle, or even when the monsters had first appeared.
"No, I don't think so…" Ana watched for another moment.
The creature, having gotten its prey, slowly slithered away. It must not have smelled them.
She gave a sigh of relief. "Nope. It didn't know we were here." She glanced around. "Once it gets out of sight, though, we should leave. I don't want it coming back for us."
"Oh, thank God." Laurel let out a breath she'd been holding and let herself relax. It might have been too early to do that, but there was so much going on. "Yeah, let's do that. Where will we go once we get out of here?" She asked, gesturing around her at the shop. She really wanted to find that weapon so they could finally fight those things instead of hoping they wouldn't find them. She wanted to get rid of that powerless feeling inside of her.
“Probably to get one of the weapons.” Ana wished that she had brought the map along, so she could see what things were the closest to their current destination. “I mean, the knives are great and all, but somehow I don’t think that they’ll protect us from a hoard of monsters.”
She brushed some hair from her face and stood. The monster thing had gone, and it seemed like she and Laurel were gone. She picked up her bag of candy. “Come on. Let’s go.”
"Yeah… that's a good idea," Laurel agreed, nodding. She was glad Ana wanted to go get the weapon as well– having to argue with her didn't sound like something she wanted to do. "Agreed. They're pretty and they work for one monster, but it would be really nice having something that could wipe out an entire group of them." Laurel stood up as fast as she could and grabbed her candy. At least they'd gotten to keep the candy at the end of this crazy little adventure. "Alright."
“Think there will be a weapon that can blow up an entire area, like a grenade?” Ana grinned. “Because that would be super useful.” She stood, going over to the window and peering out. “Nope. There’s nothing out there. Let’s go before the thing comes back.”
She looked in satisfaction at the candy in her bag. All in all, it had been a pretty successful raid… minus the monster.
"Ha! Imagine that. I'd love that. We could just throw it at them and run." Laurel laughed and tightened her grip on the bag of candy. "Agreed." She nodded and checked the street one more time before hurring out of the building and towards the Jeep. Laurel was eager to look at the map and find the location of the weapon. Hopefully the monsters wouldn't be around the place where the weapon was. And hopefully, the Shadow King left them alone until they'd gotten their hands on the weapon. She'd been terrified when one monster had shown up– who knew what the leader of those monsters was like?
Ana quickly slid into the Jeep, putting her bag of candy in a safe spot behind her seat, where it wouldn’t fall out for lack of a door in the front. She pulled out the map and looked at it. There were a few weapon-marked places nearby ish. “Where do you want to go first?” She asked, showing the map to Laurel.
Laurel climbed into the Jeep and, seeing where Ana put her candy, did the same with her bag. She leaned towards the map and quickly scanned it. Her eyes quickly landed on a small picture of a crown. "What about that one?" Laurel asked, tapping it quickly. "Didn't that crazy lady Endor say something about getting it first?" It appeared like the icon was hovering over a lake, but that was probably just the general place, not where it actually was. "The lake is pretty, too." She laughed lightly and looked up at Ana to get her opinion.
"Sure!" Ana said lightly, starting the car and pulling out of the candy shop parking lot. She pulled a piece of gum from her pocket and popped it in her mouth. "I'd like to see water… I hope it's water, anyway." She grinned. "All these trees are getting on my nerves."
Then, she glanced at Laurel, a question growing in her mind. "Do we want to go to my brother's house, to drop off any unnecessary stuff, or should we try to get all of the weapons and stuff first?"
Laurel nodded slightly and glanced over her shoulder at the road behind them. It was empty again. "Ha, yeah. This place is great, but there really are a lot of trees." She laughed and shook her head. "What do you mean, you hope it's water?" Laurel frowned lightly. Did Ana think the water would be changed to something else? "Oh… I mean, I'd like to get the weapons first, just in case we run into a pack of monsters on our way to your brother's house. But we can go there first if you want to."
“There are,” Ana agreed. “Trees are cool, but I don’t like too many of them. Water is better.” She lifted one hand from the steering wheel to brush some hair from her face.
“And yeah, we can go get the weapons first. I was just wondering if you’d like a break or not.” She chewed on her lip thoughtfully. “Where do you think we should sleep during the night? Or should we take turns driving?”
Laurel smiled softly. "Trees are nice because that's what forests are made of. I don't know about you, but forests seem really magical." She pressed her lips together and shook her head slightly, eyes full of humor. "But yeah, water can be really nice too." Laurel sighed softly, glad that they were going to get the weapon first. "I mean, a break would be nice, but I don't think I could truly relax knowing those monsters could appear any second. Especially if we can't fight them off. Oh… it would be nice if we could find somewhere to crash, but if that doesn't work I'd be fine with taking turns driving." She looked over at Ana and shrugged.
“I wonder if there are any hotels that are open,” Ana mused. “We could stay in one of the rooms in a place like that. Although the risk is that there might be no one there, or the Jeep might get stolen.” She frowned. “But it’s up to you. And I agree. I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep well tonight if I know that there are things out there that we can’t beat.” She hit the gas. “Let’s try to get to the lake or whatever this place is before the sun starts to set.”