Strength In Unity

Chapter 7: Cracks in the mold

"Urgh" Tigress groaned as she grabbed her head and set her elbows on the table. She and the five sat at a table inside mr. Ping's shop behind the kitchen as the six of them ate together. They had been searching the village for the second time that day to get answers behind the attack on the wolf house and so far had come up with nil. What had bothered them all was the fact several of the villagers they'd suspected at first were now gone from the valley, leaving no trace of where or when they'd departed to.

As if they'd just vanished from the valley.

Po patted Tigress on the back to ease her nerves,

"Hey it's alright Tigress, there could be plenty of reasons they aren't around right now, how much ya wanna bet they left a note and it blew off the door from all that wind we got last night?" He said trying to give any kind of optimism to the fact they were missing villagers, Tigress sighed and rested her chin on her paws.

"I know, but something's wrong still, didn't you notice none of the doors were locked? The Hinga family never leaves an open door, you know that." She said, not trying to shoot down her friend but she could sense there was something more to the fact the villagers weren't around. Crane took a sip of his water with his right leg and set his cup down.

"Tigress has a point, didn't you notice how no one even noticed they were gone? This isn't good." Po nodded at the bird's point, wondering what other explanations there could be. It had bothered him to see that in their tight knit community that few to none of the others had realized the disappearances. With every event that occurred in the village, nearly each and every villager was accounted for and aided with everything they needed. Viper took another sip from her steaming soup bowl and then looked over at Crane, wiping her lips with the napkin held in her tail.

"It is odd but we cannot let this get too out of proportion, like Po said we need to keep an open mind until we find out exactly what is going on."

"Thanks Viper, look guys let's keep poking around and maybe we'll come up with something okay, just a few more hours and then we'll call it a day how's that?" The panda said as he stared at the five before him.

"Okay but what about the wolves? We can't just keep them locked in the palace forever, they have to go back to their own house sometime." Tigress implied,

"Yes but for the time being I am sure they are okay." Po said as his vision came about the wolves sitting around lazily on pillows, sleeping off their intoxication, leaving very little to damage. The six warriors cleared their bowls and thanked the goose owner on their way back out into the city. They split up once more to recover their ground but each warrior switched the homes they came to, hoping to catch something perhaps the previous set of eyes had missed. The Dragon Warrior headed for the Hinga household, Crane had been the first to check their residence and had come up with nothing but an unlocked door.

Tapping on the door lightly, Po called out to the family, "um...hello? Hinga residence? Anyone? Anybody here?" He felt the door give and creak open, allowing him inside.

The panda looked around the home, it was dark and somewhat dusty of a place, the owners were two elder geese who had originally came over from two cities over to get away from the fast pace lifestyle they'd been forced to lead. Their interior was somewhat foreboding in it's dark silence, nothing moved, much was left on the table, the panda came in closer to inspect what looked to be a day old newspaper and some curdled cereal half eaten. He soon felt very aware of how alone he was inside the residence, the door still open and he could hear the other villagers out and about which helped.

But he then was washed over with a sense of dread that came from nowhere. Everything at that moment just looked...wrong. These geese weren't the type to leave such a neglected mess in their home and with how the whole setting was as if they'd been right at the table one moment and gone the next just made him very uncomfortable.