Chapter 9

Dragon and his brothers continued walking through the mountains, climbing over rocks and stepping over dead trees. They had to pause countless times and when finally were on somewhat even ground they all fell to the ground, panting heavily.

“Shit…I really despise my own body of being this weak…!” Hawk said through his teeth while breathing rapidly.

“Me too…but we will start to train as soon as we find some place save! We just have to continue walking until we are there! It shouldn’t take that long” Dragon said with a confident voice and stood up again.

He extended a hand towards Hawk, which the brother gratefully took and pulled him up.

“Let’s go guys..!” Dragon said and walked at the front towards another, higher mountain.

They moved like this for almost the whole day and still…they didn’t find a place that suited their needs. It was like they were cursed, as their stamina was already running low. They could, at most, travel for two more hours.

Suddenly, out of no where, the whole area they were walking through was filled with fog. Instantly all sounds perished, you couldn’t even hear yourself breathing. Dragon signalled to stop and took off his scarf. The others, who understood his intentions, did the same. They ripped their scarfs in half, knotting them together to create a rope.

Dragon bound one end of the rope to the back of his belt, gave the rope to Tiger, who put it between his side and his belt. Then Tiger gave the rope to Hawk, who did the same, and so on until the rope was picked up by Turtle who bound it to the front of his belt.

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Like this they built a chain, which made it very difficult, if not impossible to lose each other. Dragon signalled again and they started moving forward.

They didn’t go into a special direction, as they couldn’t orientate themselves at all, which made it even more difficult not to fall or bump against rocks.

Somehow they made it through the thickest fog and they arrived on a clearing.

The fog was still everywhere and the sounds were missing, but they could at least hear their breathing again, which let them sigh in relief.

It was not that they were afraid of the fog, it was just that the feeling of being deaf and almost blind wasn’t very pleasant, but rather oppressive.

“Where the hell did that come from?!” Snake asked with a low voice, as if he had the fear of waking someone up.

Or something.

The others didn’t give him an answer and just shook their head helplessly.

Dragon was just opening his mouth to tell them his theory, as he was interrupted by a sound.

It was the sound of howling wind and an unidentifiable rumbling sound.

All of a sudden, big black shadows appeared in the fog, slowly moving near the edge of the clearing. The five brothers all became big eyes out of shock and Turtles mouth stood open.

What was going on here?

What were these creatures?

Were they hostile?

Would they be able to fight them?

Should they flee?

All those questions shot through the minds of the five martial brothers as they saw more and more shadows moving near the clearing.

They appeared, one after the other, with howling and rumbling, then they vanished into the fog again.

It was like they were ghosts. But that wasn’t possible, was it?

Dragon wasn’t really sure about it and thus wasn’t eager to try it out. And even if they were ghosts…who said they couldn’t kill him and his brothers?

Soon he discovered that the black shadows in the fog, never stepped into the clearing, not even a little bit.

‘Seems like this is kind of a protected area…or something like that?’ Dragon thought and signalled his brothers to follow him.

He walked towards the other end of the clearing, carefully trying to move as silent as possible.

Soon they reached the opposite end of where they came from and to their surprise, the clearing shifted. With a quit whistling sound the whole clearing behind them was engulfed by fog and the fog in front of them changed into an area similar to the clearing before.

The only differences were the things lying on the ground, as the rocks, braches, leaves and patches of grass were now in a complete different order.

‘This…I don’t think that we are walking in circles, but…why…how is the clearing shifting itself? And why can the black shadows not enter into it at all?’

Dragon thought and a deep frown appeared on his face. He felt like someone was playing with him. He didn’t like that feeling at all.