1 Prologue

"Tomatoes! Fresh Tomatoes!" A woman picked a tomato from the stand, and the man behind the stand smiled brightly.

"Aren't these nice?" she asked to her husband standing beside her, and handed it to him.

"One pound of these please," her husband said to the man behind the stand, who started to fill up a bag happily.

The woman turned around to check on her two children. She smiled when she saw them. Her four year old daughter was easy to find in between the crowd of people in the town. With her brown hair underneath a pink flowery hat, and a beautiful rose dress she was playing around, and nearly bumped into a person walking past, when a hand suddenly grabbed her wrist and pulled her back. The hand belonged to her older brother, who frowned when a gust of wind blew a strand of his dark brown hair in his eye. Frustrated, he tried to blow it away while bring both his sister and himself closer to their parents near the tomato selling stand. Once he was there, wiped away the hair with his hand.

"You frown too much for an eleven year old boy," his mother sighed.

"Wait until he gets in his teens! I rememering frowning so much that my face hurt!" his dad joked, and payed the man, then took the bag of tomatoes from him and thanked the man.

"This place is too crowded! Our old home wasn't this crowded.." the boy whined.

"Oh, Len, you need to get used to these type of crowds. You're a growing boy after all," the boy's mother reminded him. "Plus today this village has some sort of festival.." At the mention of the festival, the man behind the tomato stand perked up.

"Yes! Today, fifty years ago, it was the day everyone who lived in this town's lives were saved! The gate after months was finally finished..." The man hesitated and glanced at the family. If they knew about the truth behind the gate, they were sure to leave. So he told them, about some things that weren't realated to the truth, but related to the festival instead.

The young girl however, had no interest in this stuff, so she decided that she would look around for a bit, and would come back before her family got worried.

So after a few minutes of wandering she came to a place that caught her eye. Then without a second thought she ran inside.

Len sighed. He looked back down at his younger sister only to find out she was gone! Panicking, he glanced around. She was nowhere in sight.

"Mom... H-have you seen Daisy?" The mother turned quickly when the question reached her ears. Her fears came true when she could only see her son and not her daughter.

"Oh God! Where is she!?" Worried the mother also frantically looked, in hope to see her daughter somewhere. The father put down the bag of tomatoes. The man behind the stand understood.

"I'll keep these here, until you find your daugher," the man told the father. The father nodded his thanks, and turned to his family.

"Let's split up, Len can go with-" the father's voice was cut off due to a loud voice booming from the speekers attatched to the shops and houses.

"THIS IS A CODE RED! IF ANYONE KNOWS OF A YOUNG GIRL WHO WORE A HAT WITH PINK ROSES EMBEDED ON IT, PLEASE REPORT THE GATE IMMEDIATELY! I REPEAT, IF ANYONE KNOWS OF A YOUNG GIRL WHO WORE A HAT WITH PINK ROSES EMBEDED ON IT, PLEASE REPORT THE GATE IMMEDIATELY! THIS IS A CODE RED!"

Around the village, people were terribly worried. Some decided to go and see if there was any hope left for whoever this was.

"Daisy! That's Daisy's hat! We need to get to this gate immediately!" The mother told her family hopefully. The Gate's metal outline could be seen from where they stood. So they ran that way quickly. Due to them only focused on finding their daughter, the parents had completely forgotten about the speaker saying code red. Len noticed, but did not want to crush his parents' hopes, so he kept quiet and quickly followed them.

Once they reached the Gate, Len was surprised to see people already gathered there. His mother took no notice and rushed over to a man holding a clipboard, standing in front of the doors of the gate.

"Where's my daughter!?" the mother asked him. The man his hand on his bald head and frowned.

"I'm sorry ma'am but, she ran inside the Gate-"

"WELL LET ME IN THEN! I NEED TO FIND MY DAUGHTER!!" The mother didn't wait for a reply, and ran towards the doors. The man saw what she was going to do and grabbed her hand.

"Ma'am! You cannot go in there! You won't come back alive- Think about your-"

"So you're saying my daughter's already dead!?" the mother asked furiously. Her eyes were glazed with anger, and her face was already streaming with tears. Without warning, she puller away ane ran inside.

Len was shocked, and quickly decided to run in with her. But the villagers were faster. They stopped him from chasing after her, and blocked his way. He struggled to get away from them. "Let me go! I need to-"

"Boy you will die if you go in," a woman told him sternly. Len ignored her and continued to try and get away.

"Dad! Go in after her, or tell them to let me go!" Len yelled. There was no answer. Len suddenly realized how quiet his dad had been. The villagers too, so they loosened their grip on the boy just a little. Len turned around. "Dad..?" he asked when he couldn't see his tall father there. He slowly, in dread, got away from the crowd of people and came in front of them to see better. There, in front of him, was another horrifying sight.

Len's father was lying on the sand, looking peacefully asleep. Len was petrified. Staring at the man who was no doubt his father, he took slow, heavy steps towards him. Once he reached him, he shook his father by his shoulders.

"Okay, dad it's time to wake up! Now is not a good time for pranks..." Len told his father. His eyes were already fulling up with tears. Somebody came over and checked if the father was breathing. Len looked up at them, and they shook their head.

[A/N; Their/they are only there to show that this person's gender does not matter, no because this person actually uses these pronouns.]

Len let the tears flow, and hugged his father, feeling the remaining warmth. He no longer cared if people were watching him or what tgey thought of him at that moment.

"Poor boy," someone whispered in the crowd. "He lost his family so very quickly... His father is dead right in front of them and his mother and sister are sure already devoured by those forty-one children..."

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