Chapter 16: A Village in the Middle of Snowhere

In a village covered in snow and ice, where houses and streets were decorated by the forever present pure white. Where small and large huts laid around randomly, villagers can be seen walking around and doing their daily routines unfazed by the cold that haunts them dauntingly like it was nonexistent. Some of the women among them were bucketing out thawed water from large, wide jars the height of 3 year olds and width of the fattest pigs.

This small village situated in the middle of a zone called Snow Streams, also known as the land of ice and snow, has a freezing cold temperature all year round and hardly anything can grow here besides some tough trees that grew accustomed to this extreme temperature and weather. This zone is dominated by tons and tons of snow and ice, the bare earth can hardly be seen, or if ever. The ground is frozen and covered in slippery ice all the time once the snow is gone, that's why it's known for being an iceland more than a snowland.

Using the bucket of water, one woman went home to cook up supper for her family. Pouring some of the water from the bucket into a wide curvy-half-oval-shaped-bottom pot commonly used among the villagers to boil food and water that's neither swallow nor deep, the woman crouched down to light up a fire.

She scraped two flint rocks against each other to light a fire for the stove. Once the sparks appeared, she hurriedly moved them closer to the inner part of the stone hearth where there sat patches of dry red grass.

Every time that a spark would land onto a blade of grass, the red would become yellow, yet the grass didn't catch on fire. It was only when multiple sparks landed on a single blade of grass that it finally gave a reaction, starting to burn. The small flame spread its wings onto the other blades of grass next to it and underneath it, causing a large fire to finally come into form.

At the same time, the originally red grass turned completely yellow. As long as a part of them were licked by the fire, they would change colors. These grass are special. They tend to burn for longer, allowing fires to not extinguish for a long time. These red blades of grass are called Longlife Crescent. It's obvious that the first part of its name came from the fact that it can cause fires to linger for a long time, while the last part of its name came from the fact that after the fire goes out and the grasses get burned completely, they never get burned into ashes, instead, they always end up in a crescent shape.

These Longlife Crescents are specialty resources that only exists in this freezing iceland that wouldn't allow fires to burn for long, nor exist at all, if not for the people there discovering them. Thus preventing the human beings inhabiting there from freezing into ice cubes.

Slowly, the water sitting inside of the weirdly shaped pot began to boil from the arising heat of the raging fire even amidst the frigid cold. While the water was being boiled, the woman brought out some vegetables that had been bought from the village outside of this snow-laden village.

Cutting them up and then throwing them into the hot water, the woman was planning on making soup for supper.

Suddenly, the sound of children laughter entered the humble hut, bringing the woman to a stop in her actions. Turning around, the woman called Alice spotted her child Ren and his friend Dean who are both around 7 years old and at their most mischievous ages.

The two naughty children came into the room covered from head to toe in snow.

"I'm back, mom!"

"Hi, Aunty Alice!"

Both of them greeted Alice politely and energetically with boyish grins revealing their white baby teeth. Alice smiled warmly and put down the things in her hands and walked to them.

Patting off the layers of snow on her son, Alice showed a helpless expression to the two boys and sighed, "Sigh~ You two troublesome kids never listen. Dean I understand, but you...You, Ren, why are you not listening to your mom?" She rebuked with a gentle tone, unlike what she was saying.

Even though he was being scolded by his mother, Ren still persisted with an innocent look on his face, as if he had no idea what his mother was going on about while his friend covered his mouth and snickered at him.

Rolling her eyes at her beloved son, Alice gave a relenting smile. Seeing that smile, as if signaled by a cue, Ren hurriedly pulled his friends with him into the house.

He shouted to his mother with a turned head, "Thanks mom for being so understanding!" Then returned his neck back to its original position while pulling away his friend who was waving to Ren's mom.

Meanwhile, Alice could only huff and put both hands on her waist. Shaking her head, she resumed her cooking. While chopping on some lettuce, it was as if she suddenly remembered something.

Without turning or even ceasing the cutting of the veggies, Alice yelled, "Food's almost ready! Den, call them to come out as well!"

"Ok!" Came the loud voice of Ren from the inner area of the hut.

Ren happily ran to the room that was next to his. Even Dean was mindlessly following along.

Pounding on the door, Ren shouted in excitement, "Big brothers! It's time for supper!"

The sound of boots kicking against rocks was heard before the door slowly creaked open and two violet-purple gems flashed.

A kind and youthful voice was heard concurrently giving off a soothing feeling, "We'll go soon. Tell your mother that we appreciate everything she has done for us."

Ren shook his head up and down like a bobblehead before he suddenly looked up at the young man in front of him with sparkling eyes.

"Big brother Abner, can you tell big brother Arlo to teach me how to leap over walls?! I reallllyy want to learn!" Ren excitedly said with anticipation written all over his face.

At the side, on Dean's face was also a look that like of a dog able to play with its master.

Grabbing Dean's arm and dragging him away, Ren happily turned and waved at Abner before leaving with Dean. The whole process was like the blowing of wind; swift and sudden.

Waving bye to the two little boys, Abner closed the door when their shadows can no longer be seen. Turning around to look at the inside of the small room he was residing in, he saw a sprawled out Arlo over the "hay" bed that they shared.

The dull golden-colored stuffing underneath Arlo's body is not really hay but more of a kind of specialty of this zone. It's property to keep the user warm in this cold, freezing land, and not affected by external forces makes it very exotic and sold at a good price for those collectors and common people who needs material to keep warm as well.

Its real name is Body Warmer. If you ask the people outside of this place what they think of this name, they will reply that it's lackluster compared to its beautiful color and amazing property. Prompting others to make up a nickname for this "hay" which is [Halcyon]. Its meaning obvious. Giving warmth in a time of cold need thus bringing happiness and peace.

So why was it named that horrible name? Simple. Because the person that discovered it named it. (As he/she should have the right to even if nobody else agrees with such a distasteful name:)

This Body Warmer is dull-golden in color, bendable and soft in nature, smells like the cold snow, and can even be added to soup—which the people in this cold zone thinks it tastes wonderful. As it melts and rolls into itself when it touches boiling water, even when it comes into contact with the warm steam it shows a slight curl of a reaction.

Arlo who was sleeping on this wide stack of Body Warmer was rudely awaken when his body touched the cold stone floor, that should be known for its yin property unlike the Body Warmers.

This chilling sensation caused Arlo to abruptly open his eyes and roll back to the center of the makeshift bed, curl into himself like a ball and close his two lemon-colored

eyes once again.

Abner walked to the closer side of the Body Warmer makeshift bed and shook Arlo's body. Making a faint smile, he sat down close to Arlo's head and leaned down close to his ear and whispered, "The freshly made supper is about to run out."

This simple 9-worded sentence that wasn't even true sparked a jolt in Arlo's brain, flipping the previously off-switch to on.

Jolting straight out of the bed and onto the cold stone floor shocked away the tiny bit of sleepiness left in Arlo. It took only a second before Arlo's intelligent brain worked out a reminder that Abner is only joking with him.

Without getting angry, Arlo turned to Abner and...jumped at him.

Even though Abner had the ability to avoid the heavy Arlo, he didn't dodge.

Hence, two youths, one 21 and the other 24, laid one on top of the other on top of the bed.

Exactly like how they were found.

It was two days ago when they were found by the villagers under a thin layer of snow. The terrible blizzard had gone on for only a day—quite short for those who are already accustomed to living in this environment—which greatly surprised the people living here.

After the blizzard had ended, some village men discovered slight movement within a pile of snow in front of the entrance to the village.

They were suspicious of what the bump in the otherwise flat snow could be.

Digging into the snow, they first found a person lying back up and stomach down. Digging him out, they found another person lying face up.

To their surprise, both of them were alive. This news sent shockwaves through the whole village. Young and old. Women and men. All chatted about this incident.

It was surprising because no one who has gotten swept up by the snow storm could've ever survived or even be seen again. Especially with a storm that terrible, the likes of which they have never seen in tens of years.

The people here deemed them a miracle, that they must bring blessing, and were curious about them. The moment Abner and Arlo woke up, they were surrounded by questions without a moment to rest.

The query were dominated by questions about how they survived, how they felt being whirled away by the storm, and etc.

In addition, they were left to be taken care of by a family in this village who had volunteered to look after them.

Once the crowd had their fill, Abner and Arlo were finally left alone to think about their present circumstances.

Abner and Arlo had been traveling from place to place, region to region, city to city following the different clues they obtained. From sunny grasslands to rainy bays. From summer year-round regions to seasonal regions.

All those clues had led them to this year-round cold zone covered in ice and frequent with blizzards and avalanches capable of wiping out armies.

Walking out of the room, Abner and Arlo walked to the living room where everyone in the family has their meals at.

Sitting down, Abner, Arlo, and the rest of Alice's family sat down together to have supper.

☀️☀️☀️☀️☀️☀️☀️☀️☀️☀️☀️☀️☀️☀️

Outside in the chill-inducing air.

Abner and Arlo stood in the open air and breathed out white fog as they conversed.

"I mean we've been going from place to place without any results to show for it. Always winding up with dead ends and not any substantial leads that will help us actually find the Mono organization or even about them," Arlo said as he kicked the snow under his boots.

Abner stayed silent.

"The last lead led us here to the middle of nowhere, with nothing except for snow and ice. We even got swept up and blown away by a humongous snow storm!" Arlo exaggerated by spreading his arms wide to the side above his head.

Abner continued to maintain his silence leading to more blathering and complaining on Arlo's part.

It wasn't until Arlo ran out of words to say and things to complain that he finally realized the abnormality of Abner's silence.

Curious, Arlo quieted down and listened carefully to what Abner looked like he was hearing.

Perking up his ears, Arlo listened real intently and actually caught onto something! Glancing at the silent Abner, Arlo finally figured it out. He wasn't being taciturn, he was being serious!

Peeking at the people chatting some distance away from them, Arlo saw that there were four women in their late 20s and early 30s talking amongst themselves about their own family. They praised, they complained, and they bragged. It looked like a typical conversation between married women to Arlo, so he didn't know what it was that attracted Abner's attention.

That is, it wasn't until Arlo heard deeper into their chat about their children...

"Hey, Old Ewn, I heard that your son was chosen to be given special privileges to. How envious! I wish my child was chosen!" One of the women with the loudest voice and a chatty appearance looked enviously at another woman who appeared somewhat embarrassed by the other's comment. The other two women nodded their heads in agreement. They too wished that their children could've been chosen, that way, their children will have a much brighter future than what this bleak village can offer.

"Yes, yes! How lucky must you be, Old Ewn, what good deeds could you have done in your past life to have obtained such a chance for your son!" One woman praised yet at the same time her heart was full of bitterness just waiting to be spilled, because her own worthless son wasn't able to catch the eye of those esteemed people.

"Now that I think about it. Old Ewn's son has always been very smart! That Liam has always been very diligent and smart! More hardworking than all the other children in this village, he definitely deserves this chance!" The fourth woman eulogized as she took the timid Old Ewn's hands in hers, Bettie was Ewn's best friend.

"You know how they say that the Care Program Service guarantees that one's child would become successful by providing them with good clothes, food, shelter, and high education! Just thinking of all these ideal conditions to grow up in makes me want to go back to when I was 5 so that I would get a chance to be chosen!" The gossipy woman said as she watched the reactions of her fellow village sisters.

It was only now that Ewn decided to interrupt the endless train of chatter between the three women around her by saying, "Ah... I am still nervous thinking about how my child is faring right now..." But her words were quickly cut off by the gossipy woman.

The gossipy woman named Wes snorted and waved her hand dismissing Ewn's heartfelt concern for her child's wellbeing. "What are you thinking? Of course your child's living like a prince now! You should be proud of being picked! You should be bragging this to the whole village!" She exclaims.

Ewn said nothing, only revealed a mild smile that seemed to contain a deep set of unfathomable emotions running turbulent in her eyes.

In such a way, the four women stringed along their conversation into other subjects and matters of family and non-family idle talk.

Retracting his ears, Arlo turned to face Abner who similarly zoomed out of the chitter-chatter.

They had overheard something unbelievable! He couldn't believe that after all this time, all this hardship, they would find out something about the Care Program Service here! In the middle of nowhere, full of snow and ice!

The truth is like this, originally, Abner and Arlo was heading beyond this iceland zone and to the forest next to it which is completely unaffected by the natural phenomena occurring all the time in Snow Streams.

Frankly, Abner had a little suspicion in his heart when he found out that the last clue they found had them heading to a forest. In the end, his suspicion had been confirmed true.

By directing the one who had found the clue in the direction of that forest, it inevitably had them cross Snow Streams first which would undoubtedly result in them getting catch by a snow storm or avalanche. Either way, it would lead to their death and the end of that person's search.

All this points to the possibility that Abner and Arlo had been chasing after false leads this entire time. It seems like before they even started, they were outsmarted by their unknown opponent.

And Abner's guess isn't far from reality. All the false leads, including the ones they hadn't found, had been planted long ago by the Mono organization and the Care Program Service to prevent people from finding out more about them.

Before anyone can find out about them, they nipped the flower in the bud.

"It appears that we have been on the wrong track the whole time," Abner said to Arlo as he stared at the snow surrounding them, the white mass covering everything the eye can see. "That's why we have never progressed and why we were led here. It was all a trap."

Arlo appeared shocked and stunned, his eyes wide and mouth formed an "O" subconsciously.

Then Arlo clenched his fist and took a shaky breath. He had been frost-bitten, wind-blown, swept away, and nearly died just to get to where it wasn't even their designated location.

He was full of frustration. Yet...