The First Seed To Sprout

March 27th, 0001:

Although a lot had happened in the past five days, it felt like nothing had. For one, we were finally able to finish all of the houses so that the new settlers could finally begin to make themselves at home.

As for the situation regarding the beds, although we weren't completely done as we still had to finish three more, we were basically done, and I would soon finally be able to go back to sleeping in my house like a normal person.

The biggest change by far though, was that one of the orange seeds had begun to sprout, meaning that I could finally move it into the soil on the other side of the river. As for why that was so important, it wasn't so much because I could start the farm, but more because getting the settlers here to understand the basics of agriculture would help jumpstart the settlement into a stage of constant 'discovery.'

This was because although there were certainly a lot of things to be still done when it came to improving the lives of everyone living here, they could all be considered luxuries as the only real requirements for survival were refuge, food, and water. Which we already had but would be forever guaranteed once we began to farm.

Plus, I couldn't wait to see everyone else's reaction once they saw the orange seed. After all, this would be their first time seeing how plants grow thanks to the nomad lifestyle. They were used to only leaving seeds behind, never staying for long enough to see the seeds germinate.

Since some people were still near the fireplace and the rest were either in the soccer court or their houses, I just decided to say 'Come over here' in a loud enough voice for everyone to hear. Although I had stopped talking out loud for a while, mainly because everyone already knew the names for everything we used, I had decided to just say everything out loud in basic phrases so that they could hopefully begin to use them as well.

Regardless after waiting for a while, all of them came over to where I was, not because they knew what I was saying, of course, but because they recognized my voice. Once we were all in a group, I just took them to the 'dining' area (still unused because none of them could sit without hurting their backs) and pointed at the orange seeds that were all there.

At first, they were confused, not knowing what I was talking about, but then I uncovered the dirt on top of the seeds. Most of them seemed to stop while the rest just looked confused. From their perspective, one of the seeds they had planted had suddenly grown small white libs from it but seemed not to move.

Some tried poking the roots that had begun to grow, trying to see if it reacted, probably to make sure it was alive. When they saw no reaction, they were even more puzzled. I couldn't even try to explain it to them either because anything alive had to move from their point of view, so it would be hard to convey the message that an unmoving thing was alive.

Regardless since they had already seen the change that the seeds had undergone, I grabbed the tray the seed was on and slowly walked to the other side of the river, making sure they could all follow me.

Once I made it to the other side, I began digging a small hole to put the seed in while everyone was still admiring the seed's odd traits. Finally, I just put the seed into the hole and covered it up before grabbing a piece of wood from the settlement and put it right next to where I had planted the seed to mark the area.

This was so that when the seed began to grow above the land, everyone would be able to see it from where we actually had breakfast every day and recognize that the plant would have come from the seed that I had planted.

From there, I had nothing else to do, so I just went onto finish my workout routine before joining Omar, Leo, and now Mateo in working on the last remaining three beds. I found it odd that I hadn't received any RP for finishing the houses and the beds that I had made so far.

It was then that the thought came to my head that I would not be able to get any RP from the children after what happened, which, if that was the case, was more than ok by me as it truly would be fair. But, it was weird; although I felt remorseful and still had the image of him ingrained in my head, I seemed to have slowly begun to move on from that; as for what that said about me, I didn't know.

Now that thought back upon it had already been almost a week since the last time I visited his grave, and none of the other kids had had the chance to be there yet, apart from when it happened, of course. And although I could get them all to visit his grave, I doubt they would remember as they would have probably repressed the memory or begun to move on already. Plus, if they didn't, all it would bring them would be more pain.

So after some consideration, I signaled for Leo to come with me to the dead kid's grave since he seemed to be the closest to the kid and had shown to have not have forgotten about the kid as he had still been angry at me a couple of days ago and to some extent still was. Meaning that he hadn't forgotten but was slowly coming to acceptance of what happened.

As usual, he simply looked at me in a questioning, and slightly threatening manner yet followed me none the less with Omar and Mateo following close behind. Once we got there, Leo stood there blankly; I had no idea what was going through his head at that moment; as for Mateo, he was simply silently with his head down. I just offered a prayer and waited for the kids to do what they had to. As for Omar, he waited to the side with me and seemed to want to console them, not knowing how.