In 14 Days

Day 0 - Exposed

Part 1 ~ BEFORE THE BEACON
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I WAS PART of a tale of a land once far far away but no longer. And it had all started with a village. Quaint and humble. Perfect in every way. That was where I spent the first thirteen years of my life. Until pestiliyas came to our home village.

Growing up, I had heard stories of the cursed plague that started around the time of the fourteenth decade but they always spoke of it in past tense— Father and mother too, before she died. Maybe it was just stupid of me to never ever worry about it much. I was oblivious of it until it striked down my village.

My father and I, along with our neighbors, were some of the only people who had made it out alive. As soon as the first few village folks had been diagnosed with pestiliyas, my father had made it a matter of fleeing the village as fast as possible with me. Our neighbors, knowing the dangers of disease, had escaped with us too, to go on a journey to find a place where we could be safe— The Farlands. And more specifically— The Beacon.

Back in my old village, everyone had known the tale of the Farlands. A place where the world ended. A place where the land rifted upwards, where the cliffs were ragged and unnatural, but most importantly, it held a place known as the Beacon where it was safe. A place completely protected from the plague. About a year ago, when the four of us started the journey to find this place, we didn't know how long it would take. Months, years, decades maybe. But since then, we've may have learned a thing or two of survival. Or most of us did...

"I feel bad," Cried Iris, who was a few yards away from me, holding a small sparrow that I had shot down with my trusty bow and arrow. Immediately, I had felt bad too, but when it came to survival, we had to eat. Sometimes I wish I wasn't as hardened like Iris. She could look at the world and see it as a land of opportunity and on the other hand, I'd say it was a battle to see who survives. Maybe I was once like Iris too, but when the plague came, I changed. I had a purpose and that was to help us survive. Nothing could change that.

"It looks good. Bet it tastes like chicken," Cad stated, coming up in between us. One thing about Cad was that his real name was Cadby, but after the two siblings' parents had vanished from the village while on a chief's mission, he changed his name due to the fact that he couldn't bear to be called by the name they raised him with. Another thing about Cad though was that his taste buds were apparently just confused, or maybe he was confused himself, since for some reason, everything tasted like chicken to him (Besides fish surprisingly). He could be eating a rabbit, and he'd still say it tastes like chicken. I can't tell if he's even being serious these days.

"Nah, it's probably gonna taste like sparrow," I joked sarcastically, ripping the arrow out of the bird's wings, and then holding it out towards Iris teasingly. "Hungry?"

"AAaack!" She took a few steps back, making a classic "bleh" face, and Cad and I bursted into a laugh. To me, it was crazy how the two siblings could act so differently. They shared some facial features— narrow, well-defined jaws and cheeks with dark brown, almost black hair, bushy eyebrows, and green eyes, the colors of dark leaves of a forest. The only significant feature that wasn't similar was their skin color. Iris was a pale, sandy white coloring while Cad was darker, more like a tannish color. However, despite their physical features, they had completely opposing personalities. Cad was much more of a jokester and a pessimist while Iris was more carefree, adventurous, optimistic, and would be the main character if a book was written about us.

Cad grinned cheekily, before gesturing to us, "Come on, we gotta go find father." One final thing: This journey has definitely brought us way closer than we were before. I view them as siblings and they view my father as a parental figure. Our group is like a family traveling together to scout a new home.