3 Chapter 3: Village in the Forest

In the forest, lies a town that is constructed on both the ground and on the side of trees. Small fairies are seen flying around different types of flowers while the presence of humans and elves were among them. There were elven and human couples as well as interracial ones, chattering around until they noticed the pillar of light.

"Has anyone seen my daughter?!"

An elven male with the attire of a librarian can be seen scurrying around the town looking for his child. But unfortunately, most of the residents were too entranced by the light to notice him.

A tall robust human calls out to the elf.

"Hey, your daughter probably ran off to the forest as usual."

"What do you mean?"

"Are you just so busy that you don't even remember what your daughter does?"

"Hey! I'm just worried about her, especially now out of all times."

"I know, it's happening again. Hopefully it'll be better this time."

"This time?! Even from these books about the history of this so called "selection" I still don't believe it'll be better."

"And... your point is?"

"My point is that, those who are still alive from the aftermath of the last one are still scarred from the experience. And to make matters worse, why is there still a selection? I thought all worlds were supposed to be at peace?"

"Maybe the supposive "Watchers" are having an internal conflict?"

"Impossible, there should've been someone that had been selected as king right?"

"Did your books ever recalled someone being selected as king?"

"It never said."

"Well there you go."

"But I assumed it's due to them wanting to be anonymous."

"Well, don't let it get to ya. Go ask Selene to help you find her. She usually knows where your daughter went."

"Alright. "

The father leaves while the other walked a few houses down.

'If I remember right, Selene works at an herbalist shop. I just hope I find her before anything happens.'

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In the middle of the forest, a girl is carrying a child while moving around to avoid monsters. She does her best to remain undetected to silver wolves, demonic spiders, and trackers as well as avoiding poisonous gas that surrounds different areas of the forest.

'This is becoming a bit too much. There usually isn't this much monsters roaming in the forest. Was the light a signal or something?'

As she progresses further through the forest and gets closer to home, she notices that several monsters were becoming more aggressive. Several of them were beginning to evolve as well as others were noticing her.

'This light, is it supposed to make all of these monsters crazy? I need to hurry.'

She begins to move after seeing the monsters' evolution and causes a bit of noise by going through bushes.

A pack of wolves that had gone through evolution heard the sound of her movement and turn their attention towards her direction. They growl menacingly and moved towards the noise.

The girl notices the group of wolves with fur that shined of silver, and started to hesitate. She breathes heavily and tries to keep herself calm.

'I need to get out of here… right now!'

A silver wolf in the group sniffs the surrounding area in search of the individual that made the noise. After a few minutes the silver wolf runs toward the direction of the girl, while the others followed.

Hearing the brushes rattle and growling behind her, her anxiety had confirmed her fears. Still carrying the child in her arms, more silver wolves had appeared behind the lead wolf. Devoid of reasoning, the pack of emotionless wolves picked up pace. In a matter of seconds, the wolves had shorten the gap..

The girl notices that the wolves were coming closer in an alarming speed.

'I need… to get home faster… why was I out here again?'

Running with all of her might towards home, a village surrounded by wooden walls slowly appear.

'Almost..there'

Running for her life, tears of fear sprouted. Her vision slowly blurred. Her stamina draining, and her arms became heavier. However, the baby she carried with her was as light as a feather.

Grasping onto hope and treading on the threads of fate, the girl only asks for someone to appear, or for someone to notice.

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Ding...ding..ding.

The sound of a large bell rings and breaks the attention of the crowd. The residents of the town turned their head towards the sound and sees a man in distress as he tugs on the rope.

In their minds, he was nothing more than a nuisance as they slowly turn their attention back to the pillar of light.

The father, tugging the rope of the bell, was drenched in sweat and exhausted. His breathing becomes more rough as his heart beats faster while his mentality slowly breaks.

'Why… Why won't they help…'

Holding onto the rope, he looks towards the outskirts of the gates. The sun blinds his sight and his sweat flows down like a river. His stamina drains rapidly as his body was ready to forfeit.

'Damn this light… and damn this village. In times of emergency, I guess this is all they could do huh?'

A couple of minutes passed while he stared towards the distance. He begins to see a silhouette of a girl. The father, distraught, tugs on the rope again hoping that his annoyance would bother the public.

With all of his might, he tugged even more. With all of his hope resting in the palm of his hands, he continues.

"What now? Is that crazy guy still at it?"

The crowd became more agitated at the father ringing the bell that they had walked towards the bell tower in anger.

The father sees this, but he doesn't care. Since what was most important to him was outside of the gates.

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The girl running towards the village hears the bell. In her heart, she can feel a sense of security as she rushes towards the gates.

"Finally… someone that.."

Her anxiety slowly leaves her as she looks back to see the flock of wolves still on her tail.

The wolves, however, hears the bells but ends up staring at the pillar of light as they gave chase towards the girl. And slowly, they begin to evolve again.

The girl sees that one of the wolves had started to shine even brighter as well as growing larger by the second.

Her heart trembled as her fears began to race.

'It can't be..'

The wolf that had gone into another stage of evolution had shown itself from the bright light.

`It's.. a fenrir.'

In a matter of seconds the fenrir had appeared 50 meters in front of her as it raises its head towards the sky and howls. It knew that it had won, and that its prey was right in front of it.

'Is this the end?'

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Two guards on top of the wall near the gates can be seen while the angry crowd walk towards the bell ringer. One of the guards looked quite sharp while the other was more of a jester.

"Hey hey, someone go check on that guy up there and get him down."

"What? You want me to find someone to do it?"

"Yeah."

"Nah, forget that. It must be some town drunk.."

"C'mon man. We gotta do our job and keeping the peace is important."

The guard looked astute with pride in his eyes as he spoke towards the other guard.

"Why can't we just let the crowd have at him? It'll probably shut him up."

"No can do. You see, that pillar of light is suspicious."

"It's just light. What's so bad about it?"

"I've heard rumors that things went kind of crazy when people started looking at it."

"What do you mean?"

"I'm saying these folks are gonna turn into psychopaths."

"Nah, you just crazy."

"No? Then take a look."

"What's up?"

The two look towards the crowd and sees that some of them had a dark aura surrounding them.

"You see that darkness surrounding them?"

"Yea?"

"I've heard it's what caused all of the chaos during the first selection."

"Really.. Now."

"Don't believe me?"

"Sure.. Sure."

"Alright then…"

The two guards watch as the crowd becomes more agitated. Those enwrapped in the dark aura spilled out more as the crowd is slowly covered by the darkness.

"Look, if we don't stop that now. Someone might die."

"Alright… whatever you say.. Captain."

One of the guards left towards the angry crowd as instructed by the guard captain.

"Hmph, this is getting worse by the minute."

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A woman, dressed in green, sees that there was a girl running from a flock of wolves. She became annoyed by the sound of the bell as she watches from within the forest.

'This doesn't seem good.'

She continues to watch the girl run while the wolves begin their evolution.

'It's starting again isn't it. More innocent lives are at stake again.'

'I thought this was over.'

She sees that one of the wolves had shined brightly and quickly moves in front of the girl.

'A fenrir… born from chaos. This is a bad omen.'

'It seems like I will need to interfere and save this child as well as the one she holds. That child holds the answer to this problem.'

She quickly moves from her position in the forest towards the girl that was running from the wolves, in hopes to intercept the fenrir.

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Grandma Lyra holds onto both sides of the book and closes it. As she closes the book, the dome that surrounded them fades away and time seemed to flow as normally.

"That's enough for tonight kids."

"Aww.."

A young girl raises her hand in question towards Grandma Lyra.

"But what happens to the girl? "

"Who knows. Maybe we'll save that for tomorrow."

"But why not right now?"

"It's getting late… and you young ones need your sleep."

"Okay…"

A boy bursts out of the group of kids that were listening to Grandma Lyra's words.

"But grandma… it's not too late!!"

"Haha… I know you're excited Ari, but that's going to have to wait until tomorrow."

"Fine…. But promise right?"

"Sure."

The kids return to the forest while Grandma Lyra is still at the same spot, reminiscing about her life while sitting on top of a wooden log.

'It seems that I'm out of time.'

She looks at her right hand and notices that parts of it was slowly dispersing into fragments of crystallized mana and disappearing into the world.

'I might had used a bit too much to show the contents in that book. But thankfully, It ended where it should have. If these children are the ones who could see through our efforts, then maybe I can leave this to them. But it's sad that I will have to break my promises with these children. Even if they try to read the rest of the story in… they will only find that it was only up to where we left off. The rest, they will have to find.'

Grandma Lyra looks up towards the vast sky with sincerity.

'With this, my role is done. I had led a good life and had found where my heart belonged. Thank you teacher Sofia, the Sage of Space and Time.'

With her final thoughts gathered into one place, the rest of her body disperses into the air and all that is left is a book on top of the log, and the remnants of what used to be a person sitting there.

The wind blows and the sound of crickets and cicadas resonate in the open air, while storm clouds quickly flow in. In minutes, the rain begins pouring as a symbol of Lyra's passing while the villagers are fast asleep.

'I pray that these children are safe, but for now my soul will return to where my teacher is.'