Darkness

Day Fourteen, Part Two

         We set off at a rather brisk pace. I took up the rear, with Yokoshima directly in front of me. From time to time I would rap his head sharply with the walking stick because he irritated me. There was nothing in the forest so far, but as we went along I took out the map I had managed to persuade Daniel to 'lend' to me. Kurama would stop the group once in a while to confer.
         AS we walked I muttered to myself. This map was next to useless. I might as well fly up on Kimoso, my Dragon Shikigami and get a better bearing. However, I had made a bet with my sister and flying would definately count as cheating. The fact that night air was clear, cool unbelievably light meant that it was a perfect night for flying. DAMN!
         We would reach the rendenzous point in a few minutes, but Peter suddenly stopped. "I thought I heard something," he said. *Note: Accounts may differ from Barb's POV and mine*
         "It's probably just the wind," Botan said, but the rest of us were alert anyway. It was also the perfect time for Yokoshima to behave like the fool he was.
         "I'm hungry! Should have had those ice-cream cakes... *ITAI!" he said as I rapped him sharply with my walking stick.
         "Urusai!" everyone was saying, which also meant, "SHUT THE HELL UP!"
         "I definately heard something," Kurama whispered to me as we gathered in a bunch.
         "Let's just move to the next clearing. At least there we have a fighting chance at getting a look at whatever that's stalking us," I concurred.
         We kept moving. Suddenly something jumped on us. Because it landed right on him, Yokoshima screamed and ran about like an idiot, which, IMHO, He was. THe rest of us immediately disappeared, as the being spoke in another language. Ne?
         The rest of us had immediately jumped back. Botan had done the only thing she could do, jump and hide in the bushes, while the rest of us prepared to attack.
         Interestingly enough, the thing just stood there and made no attempt to attack us. However, none of us liked the way it looked at us, and if there was anything any of us had learnt, it was shoot first and ask questions later. We ambushed the creature. Surprisingly it moved faster than we thought possible, and Kurama and I missed slicing each other in half. The creature, (a griffin according to Peter) was nowhere. Unspoken, we hid ourselves, treading silently in the forest.
         The other group came running towards us. We knew they had found something when someone went, "Who the $^#^&#@ put their basket here?!!"