Chapter 11

Chapter 11: Hello and Goodbye (Part 3)

“Mother! I’m home!”

Anne shouted when she entered her house. Her mother, Martha walks to her and flicks her nose.

“Naughty girl, don’t be so loud, we have patients in our clinic.” Said Martha, smiling at her daughter.

“Hehe... Sorry, mother. Let me put my bag, I’ll go bring Father the food, immediately.”

After she throw her bag into her room, Martha handed her a large bag full of food. Anne looks at the large bag in disbelief.

“Mother, this is too much, for father alone?”

“Of course not, you silly girl, this is for everyone, who’s helping at the lake.”

.....

“Oh, right.” Anne embarrassingly smiled at her mother while sticking her tongue out.

Her mother, giggles at her, and once again flicked her nose, “See, you’re doing it again, that bad habit of yours,”

Brushing her nose, she laughed at her mother and gave her a warm hug. Martha looks at her daughter at the front door, while Anne waved her goodbye. She borrowed her neighbor’s bicycle and ride to the lake, they have a bicycle as well, but Ed uses it to go to the lake. She could go to the lake on foot, but with a tremendous amount of food that she need to carry, Anne prefer a bicycle, after all.

The new world that she lives in, already engineered some of the modern vehicles besides carriage. Bicycle is a cheaper option for peasants, horse although faster, were expensive to keep. Although, Anne’s parents considered buying a horse and a carriage for such a long time, now. For a middle-income household like Martha and Ed, keeping one horse and a carriage is reasonable, sadly, they need to build a stable for the horse to live in.

She was humming for the entire journey to the lake, a place for recreational activity, the lake or in Viora village, known as lake crystallium, a beautiful lake with lush vegetation and a variety of fish. Anne and her parents love to have a picnic there, the place is popular for family. now she begins to worry, there must be lots of children when something happened at the lake.

She arrived at the lake and felt devastated by the view in front of her. the lake is almost drained, and there’s only murky water inside it, also, the vegetation around the lake was dried up, like someone just torch the whole section of the lake.

“What in the God?”

“Anne!”

Someone called her from behind, she turn around and saw Ed with Vale, both of them were standing beside a dead tree, their clothes were dirty, in her father’s clothes, there was blood. She hurries into her father.

“Father, what happened to you?!” Asked Anne with a concerned look.

“It’s okay, sweety, it wasn’t mine.”

“It was mine.” Said, Vale.

Anne turned her attention to Vale, she finally saw an open wound on his palm. She took a medicine bag from the bicycle as fast as she could, and begin to bandage his wound.

“What happened?” Asked Anne while she treated Vale’s wound.

“A large tree fell, I need to do my magic to disperse the tree before it falls into people, but I was a bit late, one of the branches cut my palm,” Vale answered while sighing.

“Thankfully, it wasn’t severe, but it will be hurting like hell, for a while.”

“Thank you, Anne, you’re so good, I couldn’t even feel the... Oh wow! That’s hurt like hell!”

Anne smirked at him, “I told you. Now, have you eaten something?”

“I don’t even remember the last time I ate, today.”

Sighed at his pitiful look, she took his hands and have him sit with her father, she goes to the bicycle and opened all of the food boxes. Her father gratefully ate, while Vale is still a bit hesitant.

“What’s the matter? Come on, eat.”

He looks at the arrays of food, and then looks at Anne, “You... you don’t bring any utensils with you?”

“Utensils? As in fork and spoon? But these are fingers food?”

“Yes, but I don’t like to eat with a dirty hand.”

Ed and Anne share glances and begin to chuckle. This time, she could see how different Vale truly is. For a country girl like her, table manner is not very important, apparently, not for Vale. Anne looked around the boxes and saw dozens of spoons and forks, she gave a pair to Vale, who accepted them gratefully.

Ed, patted Anne’s shoulder, and then said, “Anne, could you help Vale? Justice and Xavier are in the inner area of the lake, please search for them.”

“Of course, please asked everyone to join you, they must be hungry.”

“I will, but be careful, there was debris everywhere.”

Nodded her head to Ed, she left them, and begin to walk into the inner area of the lake. People worked very hard to clean up the area, some even dared to swim in the murky water of the lake, saving the fish. One of the rescuers inside the lake, was a tall and lean person, helping the villagers carry a humongous fish into a makeshift pond.

“Xavier!” Shouted Anne, to the tall person.

Xavier looks up at the source of the voice, his eyes lit up when he saw Anne, who waved at him. he excused himself to go to Anne. He was shirtless, Anne feast with her eyes, Xavier, have an ideal body in her mind, tall and with abs and broad shoulders. She even cleared her throat.

“Anne?”

She throw her mind out of the gutter, and forced a smile on his face, “Ah sorry, Vale is looking for you.”

There are sweats all over Xavier’s body, Anne feels a bit uncomfortable to see his almost naked body in front of her face. Her eyes begin to shift around. Xavier senses her nervousness, he deliberately closed the gap between them. Anne’s eyes grew wider, and she instinctively retreated. Xavier smirked at her, while his hand took his shirt from one of the branches behind Anne.

“Oh, your shirt.”

“What? You thought about something else?” Tease Xavier at her.

“Huh! You’re so full of yourself!” Said Anne, trying to save a bit of her dignity, her hand then pointed at the outer area of the lake, “Vale was there, with my father. You haven’t eaten anything yet? There’s also food.”

“What?! you should tell me about the food, first!” He put his shirt in a hurry and run into the outer area, not before he told Anne, that Justice goes inside the forest, inside the inner lake area.

She took a long sigh and begin to walk, into the forest. The devastation to the forest was sadly much more severe than the lake. The charred trees and some of the dead animals, make her uncomfortable. She prayed that she will meet Justice, sooner. Until the sound of footsteps almost made her run away.

“Who... Who’s there?!” Shouted Anne.

A shadow from one of the dead trees, becoming much clearer, Anne screamed as loud as she could. Hoping help will come or even the arrogant Justice, to come and save her.