Chapter 5: Beware Of My Warning!

Ethan's POV:

I was shaken inside by the horrific tarot prediction, and couldn’t stop rolling my gaze over that sentence repeatedly for a few times. My throat felt parched from the harrowing anxiety, making it difficult for me to swallow along with the cold shivers crawling down my spine. 

I have been using this app for over a year and most of the time, it has given me accurate readings for the day. 

But today when I was eagerly looking forward to this fresher’s party…reading those scary words turned my blood cold as it was the very first time I had obtained such an eerie prediction. 

What would I do now if this was truly a bad omen? 

Initially biting my nails, I thought of skipping the party and staying inside my room to avoid any possible danger. But when I looked around myself, I realized being cooped inside this tiny room with poor ventilation would drive me even crazier from overthinking. 

At that moment, I mustered my inner courage, thinking that the wise choice would be to attend the party and face my fear instead of staying behind like a goddamn coward. 

Besides, it’s just a damn app prediction…I shouldn’t be taking it too seriously in the first place!

With all that self-encouragement, I booked a cab to reach the location, carefully tucking the invitation pass inside my wallet. No matter how many times I tried to avert my attention, those words kept haunting my mind, making me reminisce it repeatedly as a clear warning sign of a possible danger!

It was over an hour's ride from the campus gate to reach the lavish Mio Amore Restaurant entrance and finally, when I arrived at my location, the cab driver coldly asked me, “Are you okay, boy?” 

“H-Huh?” He was a kind-looking middle-aged guy, and I jolted from his voice. I lifted my eyes and saw he was gazing at me through the small front mirror before him. 

When our eyes met, I tried offering him a clumsy smile, as I answered, “Y-Yes, I am fine. Have we reached already?”

“Your fingers are bleeding. You were biting were nails so hard all this time looking quite distressed throughout the way here that you didn’t even notice it.” 

His revelation made me catch a glance and I realized three of my fingertips were covered in blood. I was too deeply indulged in my perplexed thoughts to even realize I was hurting myself to bleed, which made me feel a bit ashamed. 

“Oh, it’s nothing much. T-Thank you for letting me know though, I guess I was a bit out of my mind since it’s my first day here after arriving in this town.” As I spoke, I averted my glance outside the window and saw the lavishly built giant glass entrance gates of that restaurant which prompted me to step outside the cab. 

“Thank you for the drive, Sir.” Grabbing out my wallet, I politely handed him the cab fare but now that I had retrieved my senses, I felt the sharp throbbing pain in my fingers, which made me wince. 

Accepting the fare, I felt that man was staring at me for a brief moment. While I was struggling to put that wallet inside my back pocket, he suddenly urged in a cold voice, “Since you’re new here, I will give you a piece of advice. Don’t go roaming on your own to unknown shady places, because today is also the full moon night.” 

“What…do you mean?” A little baffled by his response, when I turned my gaze back on him, I felt a shiver crawl down my spine, watching him make a disdainful expression on his round face before he elaborated. 

“Our Luminapost Town was always known to be a peaceful place…but from a few years back, strange things kept happening here, mostly on the full moon nights. People are disappearing and despite countless investigations, police and detectives are unable to track down any information about those missing ones. 

“Even my son went missing after he was released on a parol a year ago and until now…I couldn’t find anything about him…except his bloody torn shirt from the Black Woods…” 

“Black Woods?” I could sense his voice turning heavy as if that man was barely choking his tears inside from grief while mentioning his lost son. 

Hearing my curious mumble, he stayed quiet for a few seconds before exhaling a heavy huff, “It is a Cursed Eucalyptus Forest where sunlight does not reach, even during bright daylight. It is located quite close from the distance of the backyard of this restaurant. 

“People might try to convince you otherwise, but since you are close to my son’s age and new here…I am warning you, don’t even think of going near it alone, no matter what happens! Most of the people who went missing here had gone alone to the Black Woods and were never found again. Beware of my warning, okay?” 

As felt goosebumps around my body with this shocking dark revelation about this town, soon after he was finished, I watched that man drive his car away. While standing still, I had a strong gut feeling that his words were some kind of prophecy the universe might be trying to warn me about. 

Thus, I was determined to abide by his words and stay inside in a group with my department students, to make sure I would never do something stupid like thinking to go near that cursed forest. 

Though I necessarily never believed in ghosts or evil spirits, but I remember my Mom used to say to me when I was small, that there have been so many mysterious creatures existing in this nature that should better stay hidden from human society for everyone’s sake. 

But what kind of creatures existed in this world, whenever I insisted on asking this to her, she never answered me that… I wonder, why?

Not further ruining my mood from any unnecessary overthinking, I walked up to the glass door of the restaurant where two tall muscular guards stood firmly. 

Just from a glance, that place looked crazy expensive and only reserved for elite people. It would’ve been only a dream for someone belonging to a commoner background like me to visit here if I didn’t have the invitation pass that Hermes gave me. 

Feeling a bit of gratitude towards him, when I marched close to them, one of those guards asked me in a gruff voice, “Pass?” 

“Yeah, of course, I brought it.” Holding a jovial grin of excitement on my face, I proudly took out my wallet to grab the invitation pass, though my fingers ached hard from that sharp stinging pain. 

But when I opened my wallet, my jaw almost dropped in shock as I saw except for some cash and cards, my invitation pass was missing where I had tucked it carefully before coming here!

Unable to process the reality, I desperately checked every pocket of my wallet while panicking hard. Aside from me, there were also plenty of other students entering the restaurant but each of them was only permitted after checking the pass. While I kept going on with my frantic search, unable to understand how could it suddenly disappear on its own…my gaze fell on that giant guard who had a stiff glower towards me. 

“No pass means no entry. Go back.” He ordered me in a sharp pitch while proceeding to check the crowd of other students walking past me. 

I could feel those students glancing pitifully at me, and some of them were heartless enough to even mock my situation. I desperately shuffled my hair above my sweaty forehead when I tried to convince that guard, “Sir, I swear I carried the pass along with me while coming here but, I don’t know where it suddenly disappeared now. I am a scholarship student at Bordwell University this year, and I came here for the Fresher’s party. Please, I can show you my ID and—”

“Didn’t you hear what I said?” That guard sounded very cranky from his tone when he interrupted my plea. 

He frowned his thick brows at me and his dark eyes looked spooky enough when he didn’t bother intimidating me, “I am not in the mood to deal with fraudsters like you today, we have a big event going inside. So, unless you want a good beating, would you just get lost!?”