16.DH Fog

When I woke up in the morning, I was surprisingly the first one awake. Usually Eunhyuk would be first to rise and then Zhoumi, but both men were still deep asleep. The big wolf curled around me was breathing out and I slid with my hand over his silver fur. I had no idea why the morpheles was so adamant on breaking himself for us, I could see him getting hurt and it didn´t feel good at all. He didn´t need to overexert himself. I sighed and rubbed Eunhyuk behind his ears. The dark eye opened hazily.

“It´s morning, hm,” Eunhyuk growled tiredly and looked at me, “did you sleep well?”

“I always sleep well,” I told him with a smile and scratched him under his snout.

“That´s good,” the wolf yawned and stood up. Like that the next day of our amazing journey to the city of gods began.

On today´s program was to climb the mountain. Eunhyuk stuffed our pockets with strange hard leaves and told us to munch on them when we feel out of breath. I had no idea what it was about but for insurance kept the leaves. The llama was carrying most of the stuff again as some sort of precaution, I was dissatisfied with that but apparently Eunhyuk knew better. According to him climbing mountains here was much harder than climbing it back on the North. Me and Kyuhyun didn´t believe him, after all the travel up and down the snow-covered mountain has been the hardest ordeal of our lives. I felt like this was another Eunhyuk´s try to overwork himself. I would keep my eyes on him this time, no suffering was allowed.

“Llamas stink quite some, don´t they?” Kyuhyun asked and I heard the animal grunt. Here we go again.

“Kyuhyun, I don´t think you should provoke him all the time,” Zhoumi tried to stop the disaster still on time.

“Trust me, there´s a good reason for me to be here,” Kyuhyun smirked into Zhoumi´s face and rushed forward to chat with Eunhyuk. The oriental man only shook his head, obviously finding Kyuhyun´s presence quite difficult to comprehend. I on the other hand began worrying about the hunter´s safety. Hyukkie, to be honest, didn´t look very fresh this morning.

“Kyuhyun, spare your breath,” Eunhyuk said.

“Why? Don´t be such a prick,” Kyuhyun thought Hyuk was joking but I understood everything first when my head suddenly spun.

“Donghae? Everything okay?” Eunhyuk´s sixth sense kicked in and he turned around to check on me.

“Yeah,” I breathed out and put my hand into my pocket. I grabbed a leaf and put it into my mouth.

“Don´t swallow it, chew slowly and then spit it out,” Eunhyuk understood what was going on. I felt once again like everything was under his control, I could relax.

We took a short break after a while and I pulled out from my bag that was on the harness my book. That great book where I had stored all the know-hows. It was there, only I forgot all about it. The humidity and most importantly high altitude made it hard to breathe. I didn´t know how Eunhyuk learnt about the leaves but they did help to adjust. I was grateful we had a mean to get over the tough situation. I really wanted to find the treasure this time. I would give Eunhyuk happily all the gold I find, because I´m having a good time. Even if I get tired or hurt, I´m more than delighted to be here and with these people.

“What´s with that grin?” Kyuhyun asked me.

“He´s lightheaded,” Eunhyuk answered with a sigh. I didn´t say anything because he was somehow right. I felt so light I could fly, that´s how happy I was.

We continued walking, the jungle stepped away to rocks and boulders sitting in the tall grass. The slope became steeper and Eunhyuk took on himself the form of wolf. He couldn´t carry that many objects but his feet were faster on the slippery path. By now even Kyuhyun was quietly chewing on the hard-bitter leaves. Zhoumi´s forehead was sweaty; his long legs infirm.

“You were right, it´s probably harder,” I ripped my sentence in two to catch a breath, “harder than the previous mountain.”

“Don´t worry, Hae,” the wolf´s nostrils widened and he fumed, “the top is in front of us already. We already began the hike from a high altitude.”

“Good,” I breathed and followed behind the beast.

But although we were reaching the peak, the situation wasn´t brightening. The sun hasn´t set yet but we were already close to seeing nothing. An enormous cloud swallowed the top of the mountain like a hungry cotton-candy monster. If I wasn´t munching on the leaf I would have tried taking a bite of the fog, that´s how dense it was. Even Eunhyuk was surprised by this sudden change of weather.

“Everyone!” He howled. “Make sure you grab the person in front of you, once you lose your grip, call immediately and we will stop. Look under your feet and try not to slip.”

We probably looked silly, all holding onto each other like a human train. But we couldn´t see more than the coat of the person in front of us anyway. This weird way of walking was our only chance to get somewhere. I was holding onto Eunhyuk´s harness and praying he could lead the way using his smell only. I don´t know what we would do if we had to depend on our sight only. Good we had a morpheles with us, it was unavoidable to depend on him in the end.

But soon not even Eunhyuk’s top notch senses couldn´t save us. The wolf abruptly stopped and the rest of the silly train followed his example. Eunhyuk failed to find a path and now we couldn´t even move from the spot or else we could easily fall of a cliff or something like that. I could hear the animal breathe heavily. Then I felt tugging on my arm and instead of fur, a familiar leather coat was creating a dark spot in that damned whiteness. I couldn´t think of cotton candy anymore, the situation was serious.

“I´m sorry,” Eunhyuk turned around and we all gathered in one small place to be able to see into each other´s face. “I can´t find the way anymore, we have to wait for the fog to disperse.”

“How long?” Zhoumi asked.

“Minutes, hours, days,” Eunhyuk answered, “I can´t predict anything. The cloud could have been stopped by the peak of the mountain and until the wind takes it away, we can´t do anything. It´s too dangerous.”

“Can´t you do the owl and take a look?” Kyuhyun tried to come up with a constructive idea for once.

“First, I´m very uncomfortable with that form and that by itself is a hazard in these mountains,” Eunhyuk gritted his teeth in despair, “and second, I might be able to fly above the fog but at that moment I will lose you all. We might not be able to meet again.”

“That´s a no then,” I decided quickly.

“But I could,” Eunhyuk had that wild expression on him again and I hurried stop him before he comes with some new dangerous idea.

“No, I won´t allow any risks,” I stated firmly, Eunhyuk opened his mouth, “as the leader I say no, do you understand?!” It was pregnant silence after my outburst, Eunhyuk was recovering slowly. Then we heard the echo. After a while we realised it wasn´t an echo, though.

“Hello? Is anyone there?” A stranger´s voice called through the whiteness. And the next moment we even saw a green light above us!

“Here!” I was still in rage and so I quickly screamed back. “Hyuk!” Eunhyuk jerked and sniffed.

“Donghae, it´s a human,” he said and I rolled my eyes, of course it was a human, “south-west, only about eighty metres above us.”

“Then what are you waiting for, Wolf?” I chuckled, my heart once again as light as a feather.

Hello, gyus! I´m sorry it took so long to update. I had exams (passed everything kkk) and my connection is very bad now too. I will try to update soon again. :) Thank you very much for waiting, enjoy the great supply of suju instagram events and have a niiiiice day! - PandaHero