The ghostly procession

They approached me before dinner.
"What's wrong?" I looked in some surprise at the two faces staring so solemnly at me.
Guashen spoke up first, "I had a dream," and looking at his twin sister's pale face, he quickly amended, "and so did she. We had the same dream."
I froze, a chill running up my spine and lodging in my head so that every word I spoke seemed forced through stiff lips. "What kind of dream?"
I tried to be casual about it, but that immediately reminded me of my dreams.

I had dreamt of an old gentleman who lived with us in the same inn. He had, out of the blue, came to my room.
When I didn't move to invite him into my room, he merely cupped my face with his hands and spoke gently against my ear. What he said stopped me in the act of slapping his hands away.
"Two will die."
"What?" I recoiled in shock.
"Two will die, but you will be triumphant in the end if you keep them together."
He dropped his hands and left before I could ask more, a sad smile flickering along his lips.

Shaking my head slightly to clear the cobwebs, I focused on the four faces before me.
"Xuana and I shared a dream. We dreamed that we were all dead."
Before he could continue, Xuana burst out in a low but urgent whisper: "We were all dead because Antow betrayed us! He left us in some sort of maze and we all died!"
Eising and Yiya blanched and hurriedly shushed her.
I swallowed my fear and asked, "Did you tell the grownups?"
"No!" They chorused, their voices tight with despair.
"What will we do if we can't tell the grownups? Antow's taking us to the ruins tomorrow night."
Xuana's voice almost cracked on the last word and I hurriedly took her in my arms, patting her back awkwardly.
"It will be ok."
Looking at the various looks of disbelief on their face, I hurriedly amended myself. "It will be very hard and very dangerous, but we will be ok in the end. Most of us, anyways."
Taking a deep breath, I decided to tell them about my dreams. There was no point in pretending that they had all suddenly had the same nightmare for no reason.
"I dreamed that he took us to the ruins and left us there, saying that it was fun and he would see when we got out again. The parents started in first, and the ghosts followed. They waited until we split up and then picked us off one by one."
Motioning for them to wait, I continued. "I thought it was just a bad dream because, you know, going to ruins in the middle of the night is a creepy idea, right? Then I dreamed of this old man who came to my room and told me that 'two will die, but you will survive triumphant'".
"Two will die?" Yiya bit her lip. "Which two?"
I shrugged, "I have no idea. I don't even know if we can really prevent them from dying."
"We need to tell the others. Even if they don't believe us, they need to know. "
"Yes. The grownups will definitely not believe us -- and they're going to be the ones in the most danger. But I think that the other kids will believe us." I wondered briefly about my brother and Xina, but ruthlessly quashed the thought.
I waited until they had left my room before I started looking for my knives.

As we had thought, the parents just laughed indulgently at us when we suggested not going to the ruins in the middle of the night. I was beginning to think that they might be under his spell. Nothing Antow did could be wrong in their eyes, or so it seemed. Berhan had shown up briefly before I went to sleep the previous night, sliding the paper door open and flashing me a view of his knives in his bandolier before leaving again. I walked out the front door of the inn with my parents, trying to get them to stay home, when a bloodcurdling scream rang out.
"Xuana!" I lurched towards her, then looked back at my parents, torn.