THE WOUNDED HUNTERS Episode 5

“I actually want to prove to them that I’m no longer a kid who must be followed around every time.” Anayo answered.
Sighing, “Now I understand”. Emeka said.
“So where are the fire woods you want to carry?” Anayo asked.
“They are under that tree”, Emeka said as he pointed to the direction of a tree.
Anayo helped his new friend to gather the firewood, tied them into a bunch and helped him put the bunch on his head.
“There you go”, Anayo said as he picked up his cutlass.
“Thank you very much”, Emeka said as they both started returning back to the bush path.
“You are very welcome”, He said as he started walking faster, leaving Emeka behind.
“I’m very sorry. I have to leave you behind because my friends will be worried if I don’t return back on time”, he added.
“There’s no problem. I can walk alone from here since you can do; thank you very much”,
Anayo couldn’t even hear the remaining things Emeka was saying as he had already walked far away really quickly.
He sighed with relief as he saw Sule’s hut in the distance.
“I got here at last”. He said to himself.
He entered Sule’s workshop and headed for the spot he last saw the strings.
He checked the whole place until he found them lying under a stool.
He picked them up immediately and headed for the door.
Sule came out of his room to see who just entered his workshop.
“What are you doing here”? He asked as he sighted Anayo.
“We forgot the strings papa”, Anayo answered.
“And you decided to come back alone?” Sule asked as he frowned his face.
“Yes papa, I wanted to prove that I’m not afraid of walking alone.” He said smiling.
“Don’t ever do that again”, Sule said with seriousness.
“Yes papa”. Anayo answered as he ran towards the forest.

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Meanwhile, the others were already done with the setting of the traps in the forest and were waiting quietly under the shade far away from their traps. They planned to go back to access the traps after one hour. There are
many possibilities that almost all their traps would have caught something since animals were always lurking around the forest looking for food to eat.
Just then, they could hear a strange sound of an animal. The sound coming from the direction was very clear that it was a bigger animal playing around the area.
“Shhhh”, Ifeanyi said to others.
“What’s that movement?” Obi asked whispering.
“I don’t know, but it doesn’t sound like that of a rat”, Chika answered also whispering.
“It’s something bigger”, Nkechi added.
Ifeanyi then walked silently towards the direction of the sound.
He came back with a very cheerful face.
“It’s an antelope”, He said almost yelling.
They all open their mouths widely with
surprise.
“An antelope?” They all asked with amazement.
“It’s a bigger one”. He added.
“So what’s the plan?” Obi asked anxiously.
“We are going to surround it quietly and move closer until it has nowhere to go again”, Ifeanyi explained.
“Then that means we are all going to attack it with our cutlasses at once from different angles”, Chika added.
They all picked up their cutlasses and surrounded the antelope quietly.
They attacked it immediately but it ran
speedily between Ada and Nkechi.
“It’s getting away!!!”, they all screamed.
They all started chasing the badly injured antelope deep into the forest without stopping.
“We are getting too deep, let’s leave it alone”, Nkechi shouted on top of her voice.
“Keep chasing it”, Obi yelled back.
They kept on chasing it until suddenly.
“Stop moving”, Ifeanyi shouted immediately.
They all halted immediately.
They then started feeling the earth crumbling under their feet. They all screamed as they started sinking into the pile of leaves underneath them.
They had fallen into a very large pit which had been probably dug by someone as a trap.
“Help!!!” They all screamed loudly but nobody could hear them since they were already too far into the forest.
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To be continued.