The New Light of Hope Book V: Corruption From Within.

Chapter IX: Breaking the News.

Summer:

Date: July 8, 2020.

That same evening when we met back up to go back home for the day and rest up for the next I went to tell everyone the news of MinnowHeart's sudden death and each one of them shared their empathy for the animal that had sadly died that day. "How did Chief TimberHeart react?" Jemma asked. "Well, surely enough, he was absolutely distraught about his passing," I replied, "But he went on to blame it on God and the Sky of Silver Souls when they were on no way to blame for what had happened to MinnowHeart and we argued about it. But I can't really blame the poor guy; he just lost his son, his firstborn from his first litter with DewFlower, the brother to DawnRain, NightShadow, GrayShine, MudSpots, GorseClaw, and ShySong. He was one year old, a young fighter who still had so much to live for and now, he won't be able to experience to be an older fighter, a mate, or even a father. I understand the fact that he's grievestrken over the loss of his son, but lashing out at God and the Sky of Silver Souls isn't going to help the situation in anyway possible."

Amethyst: "I think he just needs some time to grieve."

Summer: "I know, I know he and his family needs the time to grieve, but I didn't expect to get this sort of reaction out of him. I understand how he feels and needless to say, I've been down that same path before where one of my relatives die and I tell myself that there is no god out there in the world when in reality, there is."

Milly: "Well, what we need to do right now is to not only focus on our own duties as well as give Chief TimberHeart and the rest of his family the support that they need during this dark time and to hope that they will make it through during this hard time that they're going through right now."

Commander Aurora: "I hope so too, Mill."

"…"

Summer: "But something crossed my mind when I and the rest of the animas left to give the family some space to grieve."

Commander Aurora: "What's that?"

Summer: "Well, you know how there have been numerous feminist killings in the Northeast Forest of the Divisions' females and their bodies were found far from the outside of the camps?"

Commander Aurora: "Yeah, it's been going on as of recently. How come you ask?"

Summer: "Well, I find it oddly strange that all of the victims have been, and are always females. So why is it all of a sudden they're now targeting for males?"

Bellatrix: "I think you might have a point about all of this, Summer. It's strange to think that this threat is now targeting for males and not just females anymore. It's seems like they've decided to mix things up a little bit with TIO to go from a misogyny motivated carnage to a misogyny and misandry motivated carnage. But we are talking about one single male that had just recently been found dead outside of the Streams Echoes Division, but they're probably going to strike another male animal and maybe another female along with them as well."

Summer: "You have a valid point about the situation, Bellatrix. And it could be a good possibility as to what is currently going right now as we speak about this."

Commander Aurora: "I think it is a good possibility. But we need to dig deeper into this before we jump to conclusions right off the back without proper evidence to prove if it's true or not."

Amethyst: "I agree. While I still do believe that TIO may have something to do with all of this still, I still think that we should look more into this before we do jump to the wrong conclusions and possibly risk the chance of us spreading false information to the rest of the Divisions and everything just falls apart right afterwards."

Commander Aurora: "Thank you for bringing that up, Amethyst and you are absolutely right because if we were to do that, there is no telling what would happen next."

Sadie: "Chaos to say the least."

Amethyst: "Very chaotic."

We talked more and more about the situation until we made it back home, say our goodbyes and goodnights for the night before leaving to go back home where we would discuss more about the situation the next day when we headed to the forest like we always did, knowing that this was just the beginning of an even more gruesome macabre worse than it was before and we would find that out the hard way soon enough as days went by.