CHRONICLES OF THE FOURTH HORSEMAN

TOM AND THE MYSTERIOUS CASE OF MISSING UDDERS

A group of angry farmers were gathering at the community ranch.It was the third night this had happened.A team had been appointed to stay on the lookout and catch whoever or whatever was attacking the ranch and taking with them cow udder, leaving the poor creatures to bleed out.The villagers could never think of anything supernatural as in those parts of Vietnam cow udder was a known delicacy.Some animals were also known to fancy that particular part of the cow and no one would ever suspect something unusual was going on.The villagers had therefore just put out the strongest men to stay watch as they thought it was probably an animal's doing.

The guards had stayed out all night but never saw a thing.It was however getting super cold and one of the village elders called them and offered them hot drinks.Before they could even take a first sip, the cattle went all crazy again.The group rushed out just in time to see something disappear into the dark thicket at the edge of the ranch.The commotion had woken up the other villagers who were half sleeping.In three days they had lost over fourty cows and it seemed like this wasn't going to stop any time soon.

Four more cows were lying on the ground , bleeding out and in pain.The village elders came forward to examine the wounds which just like all the previous ones were made by what seemed like teeth.Before the elders had managed to convince the community that it was animal teeth but this time it was hard to tell the same tell.The bite marks looked pretty much like those of a human than animal.The villagers were starting to raise angry voices, asking questions and demanding to know what was going on.The village elders managed to cool the angry people down but promised to find out what was happening as soon as possible.The people went back to their houses and the watch guards were left to watch the cattle for the remaining hours.Morning was just a couple of hours away and they could manage.

The elders however never went back to their houses, they all went to Mr Duong Le's house.While with the other villagers, the elders seemed sure and confident that things would turn out fine, however, they were all more scared than they would have liked to admit."Elder Duong, we need to tell them.You know we can't hide this from them for long, not when it is happening so frequently," one of the elders said.Three others joined in and agreed but all the other six disagreed.A hitted argument followed and Duong had to say something to resolve the fight which was escalating way much quicker than he could handle.

"Hey elders, fighting amongst each other will not resolve the problem, nor will telling the community make it easier.They are scared and scaring them even more won't do any better.We have a group of strong men we could send out into the forest to look.Of course we will have to convince them to stay quiet about it which will be hard, but they will be the elders of tomorrow and I know if we explain everything to them, they will understand.They will hunt the two down and lock them away, hopefully for longer this time," all the elders agreed and that morning the young gentleman outside were called in and the doors were locked for three hours.

All that while, the villagers were up and forming groups to discuss.Whenever that happened, rumors always surfaced.Sometimes true other times lies that would make the situation much worse.The people were in punic and as always, scared people always wide up doing stupid things.The elders were still in the house and had no idea just how bad the situation had escalated.The rumors that something had been seen running to the forest had circulated throughout the village.A group had then been formed by the village's "know it alls".They convinced the villagers that to go out hunting for whatever was killing the cows and so the the villagers paraded with their farming tools or whatever weapon they could get their hands on.The elders and the young men walked out just in time to watch the angry villagers march into the woods. "This Is bad, this is very bad," Mr Le said to the others.

Thousand of miles away, i was watching the crowd go to bed one after the other. The time right after dinner was the most peaceful and yet the most messy time. Peaceful in that everyone was quiet and looking forward to a goodnight and therefore avoided fighting and even talking.However, dirty dishes, books and sometimes even feathers were left all over the place.The bunker would of course clean the mess up.So far no one knew how Grumpy did all that.He would never answer and always gave a lame reason why he could not tell.We all had tried to find out how he did it but so far we had no answer to that.

In half an hour, they were all gone and as usual it was just me and Ophie.I always chose to stay up until Ophie was asleep.I would watch him slowly transform and lay still on the cold floor sometimes he coiled up into a perfect cylinder that Ally loved to sit on.His skin was shiny with yellow and green patches that made him look even more beautiful, it was slippery though.I had watched him grow from a little baby to the fine well, young looking old man he was.The dude was almost a millennia old and yet he looked late twenties.I still loved him despite having him around for that long.Even after all that time, watching him.transform and sleep were the two things I never got used to.

I was so focused on him that I never realized it was not just me and him that night.Phanu was still seated in the corner.She had finished skimming through the books and she had nothing else to do at the moment.She could not sleep and she didn't like the human beds yet.She hated being alone in her room and if it were up to her, she could suggest we all sleep in the hall together. The human need for privacy was the one thing she couldn't quite comprehend. "You seen to care for him a lot," she had said.Her word were what made me realize she was around." Yes I do.He is exemptional," I answered still looking at Ophie who had not finished transforming yet.It fascinated me how slow he transformed and even much more how he never even felt it happen.It only slowly happened as he fell asleep and it felt like a perfect prove of the statement " fade off to sleep.

"It seems more than just exemptional to me.Tell me, why do you really love him so much?," Phanu asked." Well, Ophie and I have been through soo much together.I rescued him from one of the Magix scientists who were experimenting on children.He and a few others had been abducted from their homes.I followed in an attempt to save them but by the time i arrived, only Ophie was still alive.I took him with me as it was the only thing i could have done.I brought him up, taught him to control both his sides and spent lifetimes convincing him that he was not a monster.In every lifetime i went back to heaven and made my way into babies corner, i would come back on earth and find my way back to Ophie.He is more than a friend to me," Memories of the past flew through my mind as i told Ophie the s********e good, some bad, some beautiful and some ugly ones as well.

Phanu looked at me and was about to say something when the machine went off.It Startled Ophie who was always on guard even when he was asleep.I walked to the machine and it was showing a certain place in Vietnam.Tom had upgraded it so that it would show the seriousness of a situation by color code.Green meant concerning, white meant probably nothing but worth checking, blue meant serious while red meant deadly.The screen showed code blue.We had not had anything more than green ever since I came back from Somali.It was still dark and I wasn't sure waking up the others was a good idea.Phanu was however excited for her first case and she couldn't want to miss it.She went from one bedroom to the other.

She had no idea though that Geo was an angry sleeper and when she shook him to wake up, he punched her on the nose.Lucky for her she was indestructible as she could have had a broken nose and a black eye for the next few days.Ophie was the only one who knew how to wake Geo up without getting punched or worse.In a few minutes everyone was awake except for Ally.By then we had gotten used to her and we no longer judged or questioned her.Nandi still thought she was a bit lazy and she would curse her in her strange Sudanese language that only made her laugh.The tall extremely dark and super beautiful Nandi would then get offended for a split second but then cool down. She was totally incapable of staying mad and we all loved that quality in her.Her push for a harmonious environment bored everyone though.

We could always wait for morning to come, but Phanu was way too excited to Wait.In all our lives I had never seen her so eager.I didn't understand why she so longed for the hunt but I never asked her.The boys and girls were sleepy.Even super Ophie looked tired.Luckily, we had a way to cheer them up and give them enough strength to make it through the night.Geo took out one of his tear bottles and as usual gave some really serious instructions.Non of them was supposed to take more than a drop and the angels were in no way supposed to take any.The tear was highly addictive to humans if they were not taking it to cure a disease.The angels would get drunk almost immediately after ingestion.Geo had to make sure he never left them unattended.

After they were all awake, we started off on our journey.At that point we had four sets if wings.Even though the flight for angels was in an impossible speed, together with Phanu we could create a strong enough bond to help Geo and Miss Griffin fly almost as fast.I had Ophie and Tom, Geo as usual had John and Duke, Miss Griffin had Ally and Squishy, Phanu had Nandi and we were all out.The flight would take an angel seconds and for a strong one like Michael a fraction of a second.However, with Geo and Miss Griffin relying on some of our powers, the flight took a minute and a few seconds.That was much faster than when relying only on my power.

I never liked that most of the magix liked to hide in the woods.I hated that hunting them meant we had to lay low in the forest which was not my favorite place.This time however there was a village super close to the forest.It didn't take us long to get to it but before we could show ourselves we heard a noises coming from the direction of the village which I could tell was only a few meters ahead of us.Squishy went on to explain that the people around this place were not welcoming to strangers.The had crazy rules that guarded and kept them together and one of them was keeping away strangers.From the noises, I could tell it was a group of about a hundred if not more.They were angry over their cows and were sweeping through the forest looking for anyone or anything that may have killed them.Phanu was listening too and she told the group.Given the fact that we strangers and in the forest, it was only reasonable they would think we were the culprits. There was no time to run or fly away and we needed a plan.

I was not sure I was powerful enough to form an invisibility bubble for all of us.I kept forgetting I was not the only angel around and even though we all didn't have the same set of powers, we all had one in common that was invisibility, it helped angels to stay hidden from humans.Together with Phanu we could create a bubble for everyone so we could stay hidden but not together.The crowd was approaching fast.The went past is still chatting about how weird the bite marks seemed.Some believed it was a human while others had different and much scary ideas.Soon after they were all gone, a group of young men armed to the teeth followed.They were quiet way more careful than their friends.Our group of course came up with theories about what might have happened or was happening.In the end we decided to split up and follow the crowd while listening in on their conversation.

I found myself following two of the young gentlemen.They seemed to know what they were looking for.The never talked out loud but ever ones in a while the would stop and show signs to each other.They were not signs from any language I knew and that meant i had no clue what they were saying.I just kept following at a close distance."I feel like we are being watched," one of them finally said.The other shushed him and told him to focus.I stepped on a dry twig and broke making a cracking sound.The two looked back and I could not tell them apart.The had to be twins.I stood still for a while and waited for them to move on.The could not see me as I was invisible but that didn't mean I wasn't there.The strength I was using to keep the others invisible was significant and that meant I couldn't totally make my presence angel like.I still left prints and if they hit me with something it would not go through.I had to be very careful or the next thing they would be hunting was an invisible cow eating creature.

The two had their weapons on standby and I hated to think what the damn things would to me now that I was part human.They were about to walk to my direction when the heard a sharp scream ahead.The ren forward and o followed them.I knew it was not scream from my team but it sounded terrible and terrifying.I listened in and I could tell it was from one of the villagers we had seen earlier I quietly walked behind the brothers.As it turned out, the others had heard the scream as well and we all met at the sight.Terrified Villagers were crowded up in a circle looking at something we couldn't see.I had to enhance my vision and what I saw was truly terrifying.Three of the villagers were lying on the ground in pain.Their breast ripped off and they were bleeding badly.Some of the other villagers were trying to help stop the bleeding but the others surrounded in a tight circle trying to see what was going on and they were making it hard for the helpers to do their job.We could not show ourselves and we just had to stand back and watch as three women died.