>Chapter 4<

In a quiet forest, far and far away from any grassy plain, a group of people could be seen walking, sticking close together because of the thick fog that seemed to follow them anywhere they went.

Walking, walking and more walking…

That's what the group has been doing for the past few hours. Even though their throats were dry, their stomachs rumbling practically asking them for something, anything that could fill them up, they still kept going, never looking back.

A nearby tree could be seen containing some apples at the tips of its branches. As the boys spotted the tree, they didn't even think and just ran over to it in an instant. The thought of the fruit being poisonous didn't even cross their minds.

The branches were low enough for all the boys to pick up the suspiciously ordinary apple without any trouble at all.

Tim stretched out his hand and slowly grabbed the apple. He grabbed more forcefully and the stem snapped. Now that he's got the apple in his hand, he quickly brings it to his mouth and takes a slow and juicy bite of the sweet and bitter apple. He then started chewing… and ate the apple. Then, he took another bite… and ate it again.

The whole group ate like they haven't eaten in a week. The apples were the perfect fruit they could've found anywhere. They were juicy so you could get a lot of liquid this way and they had a lot of sugar so the energy that was depleted was now being slowly regained as their organs got to work properly again.

After eating about ten apples each, the boys slowly stopped eating as their hunger was sated. They wiped their mouth from the overflowing juices that the apples contained. After cleaning themselves with their sleeves, Patrick sighed in satisfaction.

"Fuuh... Finally, I was starving."

David looked at him and said.

"I don't think this was a good idea. I mean, what if these... apples were poisonous, we don't really know anything about the surrounding flora since we don't know where exactly we are located."

"But you ate them too, right?" Patrick shot back.

"Ehem ehem, let's talk about something more important. Even if the apples are poisonous, we already ate them so there is nothing we can do about it except from throwing it all up, but i kind of want to be full, so you guys can suit yourselves." Tim interrupted Patrick's and David's conversation.

Every one of the boys immediately shook their heads, quickly disagreeing. They didn't want to get rid of this feeling. Even though they didn't eat or drink for only like twelve hours, the hunger was as immense as if they didn't eat or drink for days. The boys were a little suspicious about this fact, so they started thinking up some explanations that could help them solve this problem.

"How long do you guys think we were unconscious for?" David asked, trying to confirm his suspicion.

"We may have been unconscious for a long time and we obviously couldn't have eaten anything during that time. You think that's why we were so hungry?" Phillip asked. He was trying to come up with an explanation as well. But it was quickly shot down.

"But didn't we only start getting hungry right after we had stopped running for the first time?" Timothy questioned.

"Hmm... that's true as well." David admitted.

"Well, i don't know about you guys but i have been hungry this whole time." Patrick chimed in with his own comment.

Again, the group just looked at him and then ignored his comment.

"So you think our hunger has something to do with our little sprint?" Jacob asked doubtfully.

"I think the thirst makes sense actually. I mean, who wouldn't have a dry throat after sprinting like we did? But i just can't understand the hunger we felt." Tim said.

"So then, something happened in the duration of that period." Said Patrick, not at all convinced.

"If not then what could've possibly happened." Timothy mumbled under his nose. Although he said it quietly, everybody could hear him, so as a result, downcast expressions started to appear as yet another mysterious thing happened with no explanation whatsoever. They started getting tired of this cycle of mysterious things happening followed up with many more mysteries with the addition of more mysteries.

"Sigh..."

A loud sigh reverberated throughout the still forest, adding on to the creepiness of the place. "Let's just continue." One of the boys said as they all got up and continued to walk through the forest.

Walking in between the unmoving trees shedding their colorful coil, otherwise known as the leaves, the boys didn't stop moving. Shriveled leaves were crying from getting stepped on heartlessly. Crunching sounds rang out and bounced off of the trees and created not so pleasant echoes, which just eerily continued to sound out along with our group as if following them.

They continued moving like this for a while before they saw a flickering light in the distance. The light was shaking from left to right in the direction the wind was blowing as the shadows of the trees danced along with the red flames.

"Should we...?" Patrick asked. He didn't need to go to any unnecessary lengths to explain because the other guys immediately nodded their heads solemnly and continued moving towards the fire.

As they got closer and closer to their destination, they noticed a flickering shadow of a person close next to the burning flames. The person didn't seem to have noticed them yet. Well they were still quite the distance away, but it still kept shrinking with them continuously moving.

The boys finally got a little more than twenty five meters away from what seemed like a camp, they could finally see the person in question more clearly. As soon as they could see his figure sitting there on what looked like a random log, a gasp could be heard from one of the boys from our group. As soon as the gasp rang out, the guy next to the fire quickly turned around a looked behind him where the boys were observing from him just a second ago. Seeing nothing but some trees and bushes, the man ignored the weird sound and turned around, getting back to his original siting position.

The boys who were now hiding in the tall bushes, crouching as low as they possibly could, were giving Patrick a death glare. Seeing the situation, Patrick immediately started explaining his case.

"Well you see..." Patrick interrupted his story with an audible gulp. "T-that was the guy i saw walking in and out of the carriage. You know, the man i was talking about earlier..."

The rest of the boys just stared at Patrick as their eyes widened to an unbelievable size.