So, in this chapter I will revert a little to the story before this one. It's also a help for myself to pull a little back to where this all started... :P


Problems



Two weeks passed quickly.

Rico and Private used the time to return to their old strengths. Rico spent nearly all time sleeping.

Private was mostly sitting on the entrance of the oak hole and watched the branches of the birch trees waving above Kowalski's grave. But the others weren't sure if he really saw them…

Private changed Mehr and more. His happy, life loving nature vanished. Therefore, he became earnest and silent. Du hardly heard him speak anymore. He let the others do their stuff and hold himself Mehr than ever in the background. Closing himself Mehr and Mehr to the outside, especially Marlene noticed he was floating in his own world. It was a world build up of memories. Of bad and good ones. A world that changed its face all the time. On one Tag there, it could all be filled with joy, laughter, sunlight a crowded zoo and snow cones… but from one Sekunde to the other, it all went up in flames, burning everything and smothering desperate screams, returning the storm …

Marlene could see which side of this world hold Private captured in one moment: Sometimes he looked into emptiness, softly smiling… sometimes he cried silently for himself alone.

Marlene wished she could help him, but he didn't let her get to his heart. When she tried to talk with him, he gave an elusive respond and went away.

But it wasn't just Private who behaved strangely. All of them hadn't come over the shock yet. They all had their nightmares. Everyone for oneself alone.

King Julien remembered two children who had once sat on a bench near his kingly habitat. They both had got two thick Bücher with them, and were talking excitedly. He had hidden behind the bench with Maurice and Mort and listened. The girls talked about flying horses. Skeleton familiar, black Pferde with leathery wings… which ate meat. The two girls had suddenly lowered their voices to a whisper and Julien had to cock his ears to understand them. One of the girls had sagte that those strange Pferde were invisible, except for someone who had seen a person dying before. Only then they appeared for you.

Julien thought how he had seen the chameleons dying… It had gone so quickly. They had been dead before he'd seen their blood. And in addition to this image he couldn't forget, he was now also afraid to see those freaky Pferde when he looked at the sky. He already dreamed of them…


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Marlene had rather dreams of things that had really happened. The fire… the dead… Private when she had found him…

One time, she dreamed of the old eichhörnchen lady Mrs. Jankins, who she had met in the park short time before the inferno in the zoo had broken out. Marlene had been desperately worried about Skipper at that time, as she had experienced how he had beaten down Kowalski and Rico, terrorized Private and everyone else coming his way…

'Never heard of those evil spirits, bringing destruction, death and pain to all its habitants?', she heard the squirrel's rough voice say in her dream. She had talked about evil spirits from the Madagascar island. They had been bent once, but for some reason they had escaped now. oder was it only one spirit?

Marlene noticed that she seemed to have a hole in her memory: things that had happened shortly before and after the feuer in the zoo, she couldn't remember. Sometimes she sat still just like Private and tried to order her thoughts. She remembered that the old eichhörnchen lady had suddenly broken down unconsciously on the floor. When Marlene had looked out the baum in which Mrs. Jenkins Home had been, she had discovered everything outside being dark – the first time that the storm had appeared.

But before that, they had talked… and she remembered the feeling of having something realized. Something important. Something that had shocked her… Marlene pressed her fists against her eyeballs. Red lines and sparks flashed up in the darkness. Everything went deep black and then suddenly white.

Her head flipped up. Everything was a bit overexposed now. She stared into the forest, without seeing the branches actually. Instead, she had a picture before her inner eye. An image of Skipper. She looked him right into the face, behind his head she could see the gray sky and the whirling dark clouds on it. He was pressing her down to the ground, his beak above her nose. His look was rightful, terrifying.

'You pitiful mammal, I've finally got the chance to stroke Du to death', he shouted into her face. Marlene shuttered Von the memory of the sensation of his flippers that had crawled up to her neck. She had been able to kick him of… she had had luck.

But she remembered now. As she was starring into the darking forest and the Blumen on Kowalski's grave beside her were nodding their heads in the wind.

'Skipper is possessed Von an evil spirit? But Mrs. Jenkins! What am I supposed to do?'

Skipper stared down on her. With an expression that didn't resemble his own the least. And then something had flickered over his irises. A shadow. How could she have forgotten this? The scene was so clear now. As if it had just happened; and not Mehr than two weeks ago…

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Nightmares, bad memories and being crowded on one little place; all that lead to a tense atmosphere in the oak-house. Little disputes and aggressive reactions happened several times a day. Private hold himself out of everything. Marlene tried desperately to hold the society together, but even she Lost her nerves at some points.

°.

On the 18th Tag after Private and Rico had joined the 'oak-house community', the Tiere discovered that they had run out of food. Since Darla and her friend had arrived, they had needed even Mehr food. And the sardine cans of Rico were all empty now, too.

The mood dropped further.

In the afternoon, they crowded around the tabelle in the oak and disputed. They had to get new food, but everyone was afraid of the possibility of meeting Skipper when they left the forest…

In the end, they decided that a group of them would leave the Central Park to look in the city for food.

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Hope, Du got my little link to Harry Potter here XD

Oh, and Von speaking of links: My friend, HalonaEopia, made a little pic to this story... I guess it fits best with this chapter.