BEGAN THEIR JOURNEY

Almathea woke up feeling hazy.

Her eyelids felt heavy as she pushed them open. The first thing that registered in her mind was her rumbling stomach.

She pushed herself up, feeling as if she was in motion although she was still laying down.

The sound of hooves clopping registered in her ears.

She was laying on her stomach, so when she opened her eyes, the first thing that registered in her eyes was the wooden cart.

She stretched her hand to feel the course wood.

For some reason, she felt extremely giddy when she realized she was outside. However, she realized that she did not remember anything apart from her name. Almathea Bastete. She tried to remember where she was from, and where she was going. Why was she in this cart? What was her destination, and why was she alone?

These thoughts were slowly consumed by the fact that she was outside. For some unexplainable reason, the thought that she was outside was actually very exciting. Why it was exciting was quite a mystery to her.

After that passed, she realized she still did not know where she was. She sat up, her head still pounding heavily.

She sat up in the cart that was strapped to a donkey. The donkey that was pulling her was walking slowly, making the bumps that were on the road more prominent. She felt her butt begin to hurt thanks to this.

She went to stand on the cart to relieve her pain of sitting when she realized that there was something heavy on her shoulders. She placed her hand on her shoulders only to notice that there was a backpack strapped on her back.

The cart was moving on an empty path. There was heavy shrubbery on either side. It was almost as if she was in a forest. There was also no one aside from her in this forest. She did not feel like any of it was familiar to her so she pulled the backpack off of her and opened it up.

Inside, there were many different containers all of which contained food. There were also some bottles which had water in them. All her troubles were forgotten for a few minutes as she shoved food from one of the containers into her mouth. She ate so fast that she literally did not taste the food. After just a few minutes, a whole container was emptied.

After her stomach was filled, she continued to rummage through the backpack. There was some change of clothes in addition to the food and bottles of water. On looking through the smaller pockets, she found some gold coins and silver coins.

Although she did not have her memory, she immediately knew that this was very important if she needed to buy something. She returned it into the backpack.

In another one of the smaller pockets, she removed another object. This time, she didn't feel any familiarity when holding the object. However, the black mirror on the object brought only one word to her mind. It was a phone. She had no recollection of ever owning one. She could remember that they were very expensive little objects.

If they were, then how was it that she had gotten her hands on one of them? Her head suddenly throbbed after she tried to recall her memories. She placed her hand on her head, feeling like she had hit herself on the back of her head. That would probably explain why she could not remember anything.

However, if that was the case, then why could she remember some of the little things? Like her name. Having no idea where she had read it, she felt that one who lost their memories would probably not remember their name.

She pushed her worries aside for the moment and turned back to the phone. The object also stared back at her without making any noise. Following her memories, it still took her a few tries for her to manage to switch it on.

Information on the phone filtered into her mind. It had been created to assist in communication. However, the way it was created still remained a mystery. She remembered having pored through books to try and figure out how the expensive little screen was created. On the onslaught of the memory, her head began to pound once more.

The screen of the phone had the background of the color blue. The color vaguely resembled the day sky. The time displayed on the screen was half past four. On looking up at the sky, she nodded. It did look like it was in the afternoon.

Again, she had no idea how she had figured that out. With a sigh, she switched the phone off and pushed it back into the backpack before rummaging through the backpack once more. There were a few knives and a gun. The gun felt heavy in her hands. The last thing she found in the backpack was a small book.

It was not that the size of the book was small, rather, the pages were so little that the book was so thin.

Looking at the characters written on the front page of the book brought a lot of familiarlity to her. This resulted in her head beginning to throb once more. She rubbed her head again before reading the title of the book, 'THE BOY AND THE HAT,' in a low voice.

The book did not pop up with any memories of who she was. So she stuffed it back into the backpack.

When she was sure she had looked through everything, she pushed it to the side.

This action caused her shirt to move forward, and a necklace fell out from the inside of the shirt. The necklace had a half moon pendant dangling on the end. When she pulled it out, she realized that it had left a dark patch in the middle of her chest.

She frowned, licked her fingers, and tried to rub off the patch. No matter how she rubbed, the patch stubbornly refused to fade.

She left it with sigh, and stuffed the pendant back into her shirt. She felt that everything was just a little bit odd at the moment. She did not have memories of who she was and anything about who she was, but she could read. She had read the title of the little book after all.

She opened her mouth, and spoke, "Hello."

Her voice was perfectly normal and she could hear and see. In addition to that, she did not have a problem with her taste buds.

She stood up from the position she was in. Her legs were functioning quite alright.

She sat back down.

If she did not have anything wrong with her, then why had she been abandoned? She had thought of the chance that she had probably gone on a journey on her own. She did seem old enough. However, there was a gut feeling that she had been living with other people. Hadn't she?

Trying to remember the memories made her head ache once more.

With a sigh, she sat back on the cart. If she had really been abandoned, then those people did not deserve her in the slightest. Her mind paused on the gold and silver coins that were in her backpack.

She did not know what to think anymore. She decided to stay on the cart a little longer and see where it will take her. There was no way she was going to walk when she had no idea who she was and where she was.

The bag was also too heavy for her to carry.

Just like that, the donkey and human duo began their journey.

S/T:

Maore stands in the middle of dead bodies.

Lebwin immediately runs up to her with a clean cloth that had been soaked in water. Without a word, he begins to wipe her bloody face.

Lebwin: Was that all of them?

Maore smiles: I would not let anyone who dared call my child a monster live, now would I, venerable husband?

Lebwin smiles with her: Of course not darling wife. Now, how about we clean up the house next?

Maore: Of course. Shall I bring my sword?

Lebwin: (Shakes his head) No. No. I will be the one to do the work this time, my wife.

Maore: I entrust it to you then, husband.

Fazian: (Shivers on looking at his parents speak about death as if speaking of the weather)