18.DH Path

Finally! I was holding my chest in excitement. Once we get around the peak, we will have the view from the other side of the mountain. From there we should see it, the last bit of our journey, the city of gods. I bit my lip in anticipation and followed closely behind the llama. The rocky mountain was on the left and I tentatively watched the grey stone move aside more and more. I gulped dryly and kept peeking behind the corner until Eunhyuk scolded me to calm down or else I would fall down from the slope on the other side. But I couldn´t help myself, any moment I should be able to see the end of our journey.

“Alright and now down,” Eunhyuk announced and turned to walk downhill where it wasn´t too steep.

“Wait, this is the other side of the mountain? We´ve crossed it already?” I stopped in my tracks.

“Yeah, isn´t that good?” The morpheles shrugged.

“But Hyukkie,” I frowned, “the city of gods should be right in front of us. Can you see it?”

Eunhyuk didn´t say anything but we all looked in the same direction. It was like a sea, or so I think as I´ve never seen a sea. The jungle seemed endless, the wind was making the tops of the trees move in large waves. Nobody said anything but I knew that we had the same thought in mind. It was helpless, we got lost.

Our guide then quietly began walking again and I had no choice but to follow. We began descending carefully in complete silence. Up until now it was me who was talking, but I was so shocked by what I just saw that I couldn´t say a single word. It was Zhoumi who spoke up instead.

“Excuse me but what is the problem? Was there supposed to be a city?” The oriental man asked with such sincerity that we all took a second to let his question soak in. And then I realised something.

“Kyuhyun, you didn´t tell him where we are going?” I asked in disbelief.

“Of course not,” Kyuhyun shrugged.

“What?” Zhoumi began doubting what he thought was the purpose of the journey. “We´re not crossing the continent?”

“Hahaha,” the llama suddenly laughed. “I´m glad that Kyuhyun was being careful when we decided to take Zhoumi with us. But I´m sure we´ve associated enough for Zhoumi to be told the truth.”

“If you think so,” Kyuhyun grinned. At the beginning, when we met for the first time on the steamboat, I thought that Zhoumi already knew everything. Now I understand that Kyuhyun did it all on purpose, I felt a little angry at him.

“We are looking for the city of gods,” I began and Eunhyuk, who knew how long the tale was, began slowly walking again.

“According to the legend, it´s a city either made of gold or at least filled with it. It was created by five ancient gods of the East, you might have heard about them,” I glanced behind me at Zhoumi who nodded his head.

“I do know of five great gods, that´s true,” he said seriously.

“The ancient nation that lived in the jungle for ages prayed hard to the gods until they descended and gifted the nation with enormous amount of gold. But the ancient tribe became cursed by the gold, people grew greedier and that cause their doom. Since then the city has been abandoned because local inhabitants are afraid of the curse and no traveller has managed to reach the treasure yet.”

“I see,” Zhoumi hummed, he was obviously deep in thoughts.

“I was confident that we would be the first to find the city of gods,” I mumbled, “because I was sure I knew the way and because,” then I glanced in front of me and didn´t finish the sentence. I didn´t want to put any more pressure on Eunhyuk. He was kind of sensitive when it came to his duties and I didn´t want to say out loud that we won´t be able to find the treasure without him. But I forgot that he was of course intelligent enough to guess what I was thinking.

“Let´s take a lunch break here, we are almost at the base of the mountain again. We can rest a little before entering the jungle,” Eunhyuk was on his two feet now and putting down the baggage.

We didn´t have any meat left anymore from Eunhyuk´s hunts but we still had other rations and even a little bit of honey that we got from Henry. But even though the lunch was filling, nobody was in mood to talk. After I finished telling Zhoumi about the city of gods, I quieted down too. The more I thought about the treasure, the sadder I felt. I had no idea where to go.

“What do we do now, Donghae?” Kyuhyun, to my fright asked me.

“I don´t know. I thought that the city would be certainly visible from the mountain,” I admitted.

“Maybe we will find some clues in the jungle?” Zhoumi showed some eagerness.

“It´s too vast,” Kyuhyun was thinking in a sober way. Yes, the jungle was too big.

“The weather is good, though,” Eunhyuk who wasn´t saying anything until then, spoke up, “the wind is refreshing and the fog dispersed.”

We were all looking at the calm man sitting next to us. I realised that Eunhyuk wasn´t as dejected as the rest of us. While we thought that the situation was hopeless and fatal, the morpheles stayed somehow above the water surface and even managed to cheer us on. My heart was beating against my ribcage, I felt respect for the strong man. Or perhaps he had another trick under his sleeve?

“Hyukkie? Is there something you could do?” I ended up asking. Hyuk´s lips turned upwards and his mischievous eye twinkled. And that was when my heartbeat suddenly stopped.

“This is our second journey, Hae,” he stood up and stretched his arms, “your memory must be very bad if you don´t remember how to look over endless horizons.”

After that he walked a few steps up the hill, behind us. I turned to look at his smiling face and began searching for lost memories. What did we do at the previous journey again? When we came to the lake, we asked Hyuk to swim but at that time there was no catfish, only an anchovy for some silly reason, and we couldn´t use him. Instead he, oh that´s right, he flew over the lake and found the island. My eyes widened in excitement again.

Eunhyuk didn´t say anything after that, only grinned. Then his body began morphing in a familiar manner. His face contorted in pain for a moment before it got covered by a strong black and yellow beak. Eunhyuk´s knees bent and feet turned into claws. After that his body grew hundreds of dark feathers. I was overwhelmed and surprised.

“My memory might be bad but I´m one hundred percent sure that the last time you were a white owl and not a damn falcon, Hyuk!” I laughed as Hyuk only screeched and wagged his enormous wings.

In a moment, he was in the air and high above us, leaving only the dust in our eyes. He doesn´t stop amazing me, this man. I jumped on my legs to see the falcon make a practice round around us and then fly towards the thick jungle. I didn´t want to expect anything but I couldn´t suppress the feeling. It was everything or nothing at this point. I clenched my teeth and prayed for Eunhyuk to return with good news.

The wait prolonged to scary six hours. Kyuhyun and Zhoumi even started building a camp at the side of the mountain. I knew I should help but I was too nervous to do so. After tangling the ropes of the tent and dropping some rations on the ground, I was kicked out of the camp to sit on the hill instead. To tell the truth, I wasn´t waiting for good news anymore. All I wanted was Hyuk returning safely. I prayed again.

After almost seven hours, I heard the falcon roar again. I was up on my legs again and squinting my eyes against the setting sun to catch a glimpse of the large bird. It was him, flying over my head, making me almost trip, he landed safely on the hill with something like a peacock in his claws. I began running toward him and when I arrived Eunhyuk already shook off the last feathers from his leather coat.

“I figured I would be pretty late,” Eunhyuk rubbed his neck nervously, “so I hunted down a dinner at least.” I wanted to tell him that it was alright to return with empty hands because I was worried to death, but by then Kyuhyun was already on the hill too.

“So?! Did you find it?” The hunter asked, his eyes checking the colourful bird in a habit.

“I know which path to take.”

Asa! Finally, the city is close! But the next chapter isn´t last yet... Eunhyuk surprised with another form and Donghae is still dense, or is he? I promise you some side characters showdown too. :3 Btw, any idea about the five gods? kkkkk Thank you for reading and sweet comments and have a nice day! - PandaHero