Cecil's POV
It wasn't long until the wind began to die down. My hat was finally pushed into the opening of a narrow alleyway, where it dropped to the ground beside a dusty brick wall. It was silent. Too silent. We should have still been able to hear the sounds of cars and buses from here. Unless we took a wrong turning. We must have gotten blown off course! ...Too early for jokes? Okay.

I decided to disregard the tugging sensation in my gut and hoped that there was no reason to be anxious. I turned around and saw Miles clutching his knees and panting quietly. Jeez, I didn't realise how fast I was running. He swished his caramel brown hair to the side, revealing his amber coloured eyes.

He didn't say anything so I assumed he was waiting for me to get my hat. I could've just let it fly off but that hat was one of the only nice things my dad had ever gotten me, even if I only wore it for a quarter of the year. As I reached down to grab it, I saw something glisten out of the corner of my eye. I felt a cold shiver run down my spine and glanced up ever so slightly. Right in front of me was a boy around nine years old, two years younger than Miles' brother. He was thinner than Jacob and his skin was a sickly shade of pale yellow. He looked like he hadn't eaten in days.

His blood-shot eyes were rimmed with bulging red veins. He had a small, blank frown and didn't blink once, but neither did I. His face was covered in dirt and his short hair was dark brown. The thing that caught my attention the most was the tag around his neck which had the words 'MY NAME IS _________' printed on it.

Below that, 'Look with new eyes' was scribbled in a permanent marker. 'Where have I seen that phrase before?' Where the boy's name was meant to be, were the characters E034. Right at the bottom was the name of the card company and their website link. Business Wings, www.busy-wings/cards.co.uk. I blinked and he was gone.

'That's not possible!' I couldn't think, I couldn't move, I couldn't breathe. Miles lightly slapped my back and I was brought back to reality. "Hey, Ceec. You okay?" he asked. I was still crouching down. I picked up my hat and stood up. Crushing it against my chest, I turned to face Miles and replied, "He's gone. He was there just a second ago." When he gave me his famous 'what-are-you-talking-about?' face, I realised that I did have a reason to be afraid. "The boy that was just here. You didn't see him?"

Miles shook his head. "What did he look like?" he asked. I gave him all the details and waited a while for him to say something. I counted a whole one and a half minutes before he replied, "Do you think this is connected to the missing children?"
"I don't know," I said, "but whatever it is, it has bad news written all over it." I was just about to suggest we get going when I heard a piercing scream coming from the other side of the alleyway. Being the sensible people we are, Miles and I did the only sane thing. We followed the sound.

This time, Miles was the one in front, running as fast yet silently as he could while I followed close behind. We entered the tunnel and slipped into the shadows. A few seconds later, we heard booming echoes bounce against the walls but the speech was too muffled to understand. We edged closer to the light and peeked our heads out the exit.

It took a lot of will-power to stop myself from gasping out loud. The sight was horrific. Outside, there was a large white van surrounded by two dozen wooden crates. There was a ramp leading up to the back of the van, and behind that were distraught kids carrying even more heavy crates into the vehicle. They looked like the boy I had seen earlier.

They wore the same plain clothes: a pale blue, cotton dress and knee-high socks with black school shoes for the girls, and a light grey T-Shirt with dark grey knee-length shorts and black trainers for the boys. All their clothes were either dirty or ripped - or both. And they were all wearing the same name tags. Watching the pain on their faces as they transported the boxes was terrible. I wanted to do something to help them but I didn't know what.

Even worse, looming over the line of children was a tall man with a heavily built body. He wore loose clothing and probably hadn't shaven in ages. He barely had any hair on his head but the tufts sticking out at the top were jet black. I guessed he was in his mid to late 40s. Every two seconds he would yell things like 'PICK UP THE PACE, IDIOTS!', 'HURRY UP, YOU SLACKERS!' and 'YOU SPEAK A WORD AND YOU'RE OUT! PERMANENTLY!' Even from here, I could smell his disgusting stench of alcohol and cigarettes. 'Man, I hate this guy already.'

I scanned the area and found a little girl, with her fawn hair tied into two pigtails, sitting on one of the crates away from the others. Her back was hunched over and her face was in her hands. I could tell she was crying but her sobs were so faint that I'd have to be centimetres away to hear. On her right knee was a large graze, dripping with deep red blood.

We exited the alleyway and hid behind a wall of crates. As we got closer, I realised that every box had the same symbol printed on the side, and so did the van. It was an image of two circles in the shape of a venn diagram with a purple circle in the middle and a smaller black circle in the centre of that. 'I have to get closer...'

I took a step forward and snap!

Staring down at the ground, I saw a broken twig lying by my foot. It was at that moment when I knew I wasn't hiding hard enough.