The Pied Piper

The Town of Hamelin

The Mayor was woken up by the sound of a high-pitched scream. 

Jolting up from where his bald head was resting crookedly on his grand chair, he moved his head worriedly side to side, looking for the source of interruption. The afternoon sun rays filtered through the large windows behind him and cast everything in the office in a honey gold glow. His desk, built from the finest wood and polished till it shined, was empty; except for a bottle of pens and a grand gold nameplate sitting at the very front. The chair squeaked as he straightened himself to observe the clean marble floor of his office. A trickle of drool was plastered to his face. He absentmindedly tried to wipe it.   

His bushy brows furrowed as he scanned his empty room. Everything was quiet. 

There was another scream right outside his door. It seemed very like that of a woman. It was immediately followed by a shrill squeaking which seemed not very human.

He stood up from his seat, wiping his chin properly and fixing a long white wig on his scalp. He marched towards the rectangle door of his office, a frown already forming on his face, his eyes already burning with anger.  

"What is the meaning of this-! This is a respectable establishment!-" he roared as he pulled open the door, revealing the narrow corridor beyond. The corridor held a shivering maid, disheveled and dirty; elegantly balanced on a wooden stool and aiming her long broom at.......

"Quacking Crickets!......It's a rat!" He screamed and immediately scrambled back three steps into his room.   

The little brown creature scuttled across the floor of the corridor, turning and rushing out of sight. It was as unsightly as the reports from the village had said. Fat and furry, the color of dark damp earth, twitching its nose, looking around at them with the tiny black eyes and rushing around its pointy claws around the Civil Hall as if it were own.

The mayor shivered. 

His gaze caught the maid; pressed back against a wall, still standing on the wooden stool, holding her broom and looking uncertainly at the corner where the vermin had disappeared. 

"What are you doing!?" he screeched at her. "Go after it! Throw it out! Hurry, now!" 

The maid looked at the rotund Mayor, noticing him for the first time. Her eyes caught the anger in his puffy face and widened with uncertainty. She held the broom close to her bosom, shaking her head from side to side trying to look for an excuse or exit out of this new, dangerous situation. 

"I said hurry, woman! DO you think we pay you for this-?" the sweaty Mayor began again, but was interrupted by the arrival of another man; this a bald, serious looking person, with height more than the Mayor's and a figure much slimmer. A pair of spectacles rested on his large nose, and his brown forehead was lined not with age, but with stress. He wore the black robes of the Town Council, gilted at the sleeves and edges and fixed with a gold brooch the size of an egg at the center. 

He was somber, even more so than was his norm. Almost as if he was on the edge of his reason, about to break down over a crisis. His arms were empty of the books that were his constant companions, his brow was lined with sweat unnatural in the airy rooms of the Civil House, and there was only the subtlest tremor in his mouth.      

The Mayor's heart sank in his chest. 

The maid pulled the broom closer to her chest, leaning forwards with interest. 

"Chief Councilman! What brings you here in such a hurry!? I hope it bodes well." he asked, rying to sound cheerful. 

The Chief Councilman sighed.