THE LAND OF SILENCE

As they dropped down from the river where they just encountered mermaids, everywhere was quiet, no single noise was heard anywhere.

Dike signaled everyone to remain quiet and as they carefully toss each step so as to avoid dry woods and grasses; dry woods might break under their weight and cause some noise and dry grasses when stepped on may make some crispy sound.

So they were carefully throwing steps as they were moving along. They kept moving, they could see nothing dangerous though. So they were gradually losing their guard despite Dike repeatedly making gestures to them to remain as quiet as possible as they walk through this strange land.

So one of them shouted when bitten by an insect and before other warriors could look back, he got whisked away.

The warrior who saw the movement of what took him away shouted and wanted to pursue, another strange creature also carries him away instantly.

These creatures look like aliens, they are blind and they have no sense of smell and transparency but to make up for that, they have the incredible hearing ability.

They hunt with sound and are attracted to a place where there is noise and their transparency makes it difficult for any warrior to launch an attack on them even if you are anything as fast as them.

Some say that these creatures were aliens chased down from space, that they see but our atmosphere makes it impossible for them to see humans down here on earth but that they see themselves.

This creature’s skin can repeal the strongest and sharpest spears and are about 20 times faster than humans so the warriors have no chance against these creatures. Their only way is to remain quiet and avoid being detected and hunted by these creatures.

What you see after each attack from these creatures is shaking bush and trees because of their transparency.

So the rest of the warriors just went flat on the floor and remained quiet as they saw movements which they suspected to be the movement of these creatures. 

They couldn’t figure out their shape or size or exact location just for the shaking of bushes that gives them clues that these creatures were around listening for the slightest disturbance.

They remained flatted on till Dike signaled that the creatures that just attacked them have gone. So they rose and continued tiptoeing till they came out of that land to a safe place where they could finally talk.

Some of the warriors were already discouraged, one started murmuring that he wants to go back, that he is tired, that he doesn’t want to die like the warriors who have died.

Dike tried to tell him that there is no going back till they get the Magic Beans but he refused and turned back to run so he ran as fast as possible but as he ran back into the land of Silence, he got whisked away also by these creatures.

They could see now see some part of the face of these creatures as they devour the fleeing warrior, his blood-stained their mouth and part of their faces, and this gave visibility to the warriors looking from afar.

Just like these creatures are transparent to humans, humans are transparent to it also.

The rest of the warriors could see from afar how he met with his death.

The distance didn’t allow them to see the image well as they stopped to watch and mourn the death of their fellow warrior.

They gave him a minute's silence and promised never to tell anyone at home that he died while fleeing because the memories of cowards are said not to be worthy of remembrance.

One of the warriors who has earlier inquired why the land was called the land of silence now understands the reason.

‘Who else wants to return home’ Dike asked, ‘no one indicated’ so let’s go fetch the Magic Bean so as to save our King and return to our families.

They’ve lost another 3 warriors making it a total of 10 warriors and the journey has not even started yet Obiokwu the supposed weakling whom everyone thought would be the first to die is still alive.