Page 25

“Run!”

“Every man, child, and idiot for themselves!”

“Why are you telling yourself that?!”

“Quiet it, Billy!”

“Don’t let her catch you!”

Panic had ensued, friendships were abandoned and hope was quickly being lost.

“Argh! Don’t stand near me!”

“No, you came next to me!”

“What are you idiots doing!” Yelled, a small girl from atop a tree as two boys struggled to climb the same tree to safety.

“Ella help me up!” Immediately the boys begun to argue.

“Screw off, I was here first!”

“No, I was you dimwit!”

“ArghhhhEREEEEIIIIHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERRRR!” An unearthly shriek echoed across the orchard.

Unable to see where the scream came from, the boys panicked and pulled on each other as they climbed the tree.

“Stop grabbing me!”

“I should be saying that to you!”

“Ow! My hair!”

The girl reprimanded, “Will you guys be quiet?! You are just going to drive the wolf here!”

“Not like you are being any less noisy!”

One of the boys calmed down, “Quiet… She's right.”

“You be quiet! It’s not my fault you two can’t control your voice.”

The girl tightened her grip around a branch and stretched her other hand out, “You know what, Elliot grab my hand.”

“Thank you…” The boy quickly took the opportunity and jumped for the hand before the other boy could stop him.

“Hey! You two cheaters, no climbing trees!” Failing to grab him before he was pulled up the boy decided to condemn the two in the tree.

“Ain’t my fault you couldn’t be bothered to learn how to climb a tree.”

“Elliot can’t either!”

“And he is four years younger than you, he is a literal five-year-old, and I helped him because he was nice enough to be quiet when asked. What’s your excuse?”

“I… Haven’t had my growth spurt yet!”

The girl laughed, “Anna is half your height and can make it by grabbing and climbing on a branch in a single good jump.”

“Don’t mention the beast's name here–”

As he spoke a cold claw grabbed his arm.

“FOUND YOU.”

“Argh!” The boy screamed and bumped into the tree.

As he did, the black-haired beast’s brown eyes focused on the next pair of sheep.

It leapt off the ground, grabbed onto a branch and swung into the tree.

“Wanna jump down?” The wolf asked.

And the two of the children panicked and immediately jumped down. But as they did, the wolf was right behind them and immediately caught them.

…So what was exactly happening?

Basically, it was just a game of tag called Wolf Sheep. Everyone caught had to go to walk to the den (the start area) afterwards. The chaser was the wolf, and everyone else was the sheep.

It was a game they had played many times but for the last two weeks, the role of the wolf has been held by one individual, Anna.

To stop being the wolf in the next round at least one of the sheep had to survive for ten minutes, but safe to say that hasn’t happened yet.

“Arghh!” As the final collection of kids got jumped, the parents just sat in the distance watching on.

“I’m impressed… your child basically made it into a horror game.”

Jen tried to form a smile, “Yeah… I told her to have fun and be creative… She sure did both.”

Another parent spoke up, “Yeah. I think I should be angry about Susan being scared, but she has finally stopped having nightmares about the end of year incident.”

After a few more rounds the games finally stopped for the day.

Parents went to their child and after a few more minutes of idle chit-chat, everyone began to return home.

“Did you have fun, Anna?” Jen scratched Syrus’s head.

“Yeah, it was alright.” Syrus shrugged, “I should make one of the other two play as a sheep next time though. I think that might be funny.”

“That would be a sight to see…” Jen placed her hand over her mouth and lightly chuckled.

Jen and Anna walked back home and reunited with George who was still struggling to take his boots off in the house.

Jen went over to George, “Let me help.”

George apologised, “Sorry, I’m sure what’s wrong with me…”

“It’s fine dear, there is nothing wrong.” Jen pulled off the boot and released an exhausted sigh.

She slowly stood up, pulled out a chair and plopped down.

“Ah….” Jen groaned.

Luna (White) asked, “Mum is everything well?”

“Yes, sweetie.” Jen patted Anna’s head and smiled.

However, Anna just turned to George and asked, “Dad, are you going to lie as well?”

“Well no, 'cause everything is fine. It will take a lot more trouble to happen before things will stop being well.”

Lilly (Eva) muttered, “Liar…” And walked away to her room.

After shutting the door behind her, she leaned on the window.

Luna sighed, “If there was only something we could do.”

Syrus reminded, [We have talked about this before, we are literally a child. There is nothing we can do to help with bad crops]

Luna (White) sighed and remembered the state of the plants, [I’m not sure what the problem could be. I haven’t read about anything matching the state of these plants.]

[From where I’m from, we always say, if you cook it, feed it to a donkey and the donkey still doesn’t want to eat then there is no hope for it.] (Syrus)

[I think the village has already long decided the food is inedible.] (Luna)

[Yeah I know that ain’t hard to figure out.] Syrus (Red) replied, [It is always important that if you can, not to eat food that is bad for your health. From my experience, we didn’t eat any food that had a discolouring that was outside the expected colours. We always had to be careful with what we ate, the last thing we needed was to get sick on the job. I know what type of moulds not to eat and what ones aren’t bad, blah, blah, etc. The only thing I can really say from my practical experience of protecting farmers and eating food is that these crops don’t look like plants that are just naturally sick.]

[That still doesn’t get us anywhere–] As Luna was replying, Lilly replied to Syrus as well.

[Agreed.] Speaking over Luna.

Luna momentarily paused and asked confused, [What’s there to agree with Lilly?]

Lilly quickly gave out the simple report of the situation, [Statistically speaking. The reason the plants haven’t been growing properly would be one of the following reasons: Malnourished, Sick, Diseased, Poisoned, Animals, or Other Environmental factors like heat or overwatered. Technically there is some overlap, an animal could dig into the soil and chew a bit of a plant passing on a possible disease. And being diseased can make a plant sick, but that isn’t the only reason why a plant can be sick.]

Lilly went to their bed side table, pulled out a piece of paper and drew a table of options, where she began writing positive and negative points about each possibility. [While we haven't been fully conscious for the previous years, comments from our parents and the other adults have made it clear nothing has been unusual about the weather or the environment this time.

The animal attack was recent but the crops have no signs of bite marks or internal consumption from insects or parasites.

Malnourishment… seems unlikely, like the other possibilities I won’t fully rule it out but these people have worked on the land and in the fields for years, it would be unusual if the plants were only malnourished now.

That leaves only sickness, diseased or poisoned. I don’t know the state of the river, but the plants probably could’ve gotten sick if the upstream river was polluted. If it is a disease spreading around then we can only wait until a cure or the cause is found, we should probably ask if the same thing is happening in the other farming towns. They have different water sources and types of land if I remember the accounts of them Mum provided in her lessons.]

Syrus looked over the quickly completed table and complimented, [Wow, impressed me again. You really do have a good head on your shoulders.]

[I just had the opportunity…] Lilly quieted down while Luna stayed silent.

Lilly folded up the paper and walked back to the window, “Burn please.”

[Sure?] Syrus did as asked and made the paper disappear with its ashes flying in the wind.

Lilly continued, [Not much we can do, we don’t have the equipment to even make a proper experiment.]

[An experiment huh…] Syrus wondered, [What would we do if we could conduct one?]

[Test the quality of the water and soil. Some artefacts let you compare material, compare normal water and river water for example. I would also like to test if the crops were diseased or poisoned. I can’t test for the former, but the latter I may be able to test with an advanced restoration potion.]

Hearing that Syrus asked, [Hey Luna, what exactly can your Moonlight healing do?]

[Why?] (Luna)

[Well, do you want to be a part of an experiment?] (Syrus)