“Why did the seed grow again?” Kael’s mind is racing as this isn’t normal. The only other time it grew is when disaster struck. “That’s it! The city is about to be wiped!” Kael jumps out of bed, without even brushing his teeth he sprints downstairs to find Emric.

“Emric!” he says while out of breath, bent over trying to breath.

“What do you want kid” Emric says with his arms crossed.

“The city… its.. about to.. get wiped..” Kael staggers in his sentence.

“How do you know?” Emric gives Kael a suspicious look.

“I don’t have time to explain, we need to tell Sera and her family, hopefully they’ll believe us!” Kael rushes out of the house to go to Sera’s house. Emric following behind, they finally make it to the house. Kael see’s Sera outside the house staring into the outskirts of her farm,

“Sera! We’re out of time, we need to leave now!” Sera immediately snapped her had at him, without time to question she runs inside and Kael audibly hears Sera convincing her parents to leave. Kael waits for Emric to open the door and they run into their house.

“Mom, Dad, I've been trying to tell you the animals and plants have been acting weird! They have been dying! And now two refugees from the 9th are saying we’re next, we need to go!” Sera is fighting tears while saying this. Her parents on the other hand look scared but for another reason.

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”I have an idea.” Emric tells him.

“what’s the idea? Anything is better than just staying here.” Kael leans against the wall, crossing his arms.

“We’re going back to my buddies farm, Im going to tell him what happened.” When Kael heard those words he immediately though of his friend looking like a ghoul, and snapped his head out of it.

“Doesn’t sound like a bad idea. But how do we know he’ll listen?”

“I don’t think he will. But i can’t just let my friend die without me even trying” Emric shows a hint of a sad expression for once. Its so subtle a normal person wouldn’t think that was his sad face.

“Alright, sounds good. Let’s go.” Kael starts heading towards the door and they leave the house. On their way to the friends place. As they’re on the way there Kael is staring off into the many fields and he can’t help but notice that some crops aren’t growing well. They’re oddly dead. But only the ones in the outskirts.

“We’re here Kael, stop staring off.” Kael cant help but stare in the friends field. There’s this girl near the outskirts as well, staring into them. She has long beautiful blonde hair. Its almost doll like. Kael stops staring and goes into the house with Emric.

As Emric and his friend are catching up Kael cant help but feel like a weirdo. He’s so out of place here. Doesn’t know what to say or do, so he’s just standing there calmly.

“Hey, you noticed that too, right?” Kael hears from a soft voice behind him. He turns around and the girl is right there. She’s so different from Kael.

“She has blue eyes, like a sapphire, blond hair like a doll, and clear skin. I have Brown hair, brown eyes. Nothing like her.” He thinks to himself before responding. “Noticed what?”

“The crops! I know you saw them!” She says as she gets very close up into his face. After she realizes how close she was she backs off and blushes a little out of embarrassment.

“You noticed them too? It was like that in the 9th city before..” Kael froze, he wants to mention it but doesn’t want to get shut down again. Kael doesn’t care anymore, he doesn’t want this girl to not listen and die. “my city died. It started with the crops, then it out of nowhere went to the animals and the entire city.”

Kael bracing for impact of the girl laughing in his face looks at the girl. She’s thinking about what he said.

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“Why did i see him dead? Why was it only me?” Kael is in bed tossing and turning but cant sleep, the image keeps popping up in his head. Instead of staring at a ceiling that he has memorized at this point he decides to go outside and clear his head. The silence of the city at night compared to his old one makes him think about home. Kael takes out the seed of his pocket for the first time since the city and stares at it. “Is it growing? or is it all in my head?” The seed grew. Not a lot, but it’s undeniable.

As he’s staring at the seed he watched a dead version the street bleed through. All life of plants, sleeping cats and dogs that are on the street are gone, it looks run down and abandoned. Its darker, colder, something is wrong about it. Down at the end of the street and can see a tall, lanky, figure looking at him. He can’t make any details because of the distance but he knows it is looking directly at him. Its just as pale as the last guy he saw in the vision.

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Kael walks into the kitchen to see Emric finishing up breakfast. “Hey kid, here. Have some food, we need to talk.” says Emric while placing a plate of eggs and sausage on the table. Kael sits down, excited to finally eat some food again after what happened yesterday.

As Kael is devouring his food like a wild animals Emric speaks up, “So, how did you get out of.. Whatever that was?” Kael pauses. He wonders whether he should tell the truth or not, he doesn’t want to be looked at as a liar again.

He speaks up regardless, “i was running as fast as i could to escape the “thing” yet i fell and knocked myself out. I woke up, went to the city and everyone was gone.” Emric goes silent thinking.

“So you didn’t die from the wave? hm.” Emric is thinking on just what happened out there, wondering just what it was that could’ve been for Kael to survive. “After you made it back to the city, did you see anything?”

Kael goes cold. Questioning if he should tell Emric or not, he felt a whisper on his ear, it was a chilling breath of air. Kael snapped his head around and saw nothing. “Woah are you okay?”

“Yeah I’m fine. I didn’t see anything out in the city, no people, no living plants, no animals, anything with life was like stripped away.” Kael says while looking down at his plate, it hurts him to even think about it. “How did you make it out Old man?” The old man looks at him, showing little to no emotion as usual.

“I ran, I ran and ran and ran until i couldn’t anymore. I didn’t look back once. Before i knew it i was back in the city.” Kael goes silent.

“Why did i make it out alive when he was the only one who escaped? Maybe this seed is the answer i need.” He thinks to himself as he doesn’t want Emric to know about the seed just yet.

“What are you going to do now?” Emric says to Kael. Kael’s face went pale. He has no idea, no direction, nothing. He has nothing left to him besides a seed that was in his house for whatever reason.

“Well lets stop wasting time lets go to the city” Emric says to Kael while grabbing his empty plate, placing it in the sink. When they go into the city Kael cant help but feel like he’s being watched.

“I can’t seem to shake this paranoia away” Kael thinks to himself. They approach a farmer and Emric knows them as a family friend. He starts talking to them and Kael’s chest feel heavy. His legs feel weak and he clenches onto his seed in his pocket.

“W-what is that?” Kael says with a scared look in his eyes. Emric too busy in the conversation didn’t hear him but what Kael is witnessing is more important. He sees what looks like a dead version of Emrics friend. Its a pale white, dead eyes version. After a second it goes back to normal. As if he never saw the vision.

“What was that? What did it mean? Is he gonna die? Is this city next?” as Kael is racing through his thoughts Emric calls his name.

“Kael! Kael! You okay?” He says while waving his hand Infront of Emric’s face.

“Yeah, I’m fine, just a stomach ache.”

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Looking past the gate Kael see’s the amount of land this city has compared to his. He never left the 9th city. He was a trader in the city of trading, plain and simple, no reason to leave. Now he’s going into the 8th, the city of farming. There’s mountains and valleys, rivers and streams, deer and birds. Its nothing like the 9th.

Kael approaches the gate and a guard stops him. “Where are you coming from?” says the guard.

“The 9th, the people, they all died, I’m the only one alive.” Kael says with desperation in his voice. There’s a pause in the air.

“Yeah right, you’re telling me everyone suddenly died?” the guard says with sarcasm in his voice.

“You have to believe me! I watched the birds, squirrels, trees and everything die! And every person!” Kael says with what almost sounds like he’s in agony, holding back tears, clenching the seed in his pocket.

“Oh, yeah? If everything died why are you here?” When Kael heard those words come out of the guards mouth he stopped hearing everything. His heart sunk, spaced out, he nearly fell to the floor from the thoughts of the city once again.

“Let me into the city, I need medical care, as you can see i may have a concussion.” Kael says with sternness in his voice.

“Sure thing, you might wanna get your head checked out for anything else while you’re at it.” the guard says with a chuckle in the end.

“It makes sense he didn’t believe me, i just wish he did. Now i need to find a place to rest for a night.” Kael thinks to himself as he’s entering the city. Looking around Kael finds and Inn but realizes he never brought his money bag with him. He has nothing to him, no money, no place to call home, no friends. Nothing. “Dammit. How am i gonna find a place to stay?” While walking through the streets looking for a comfortable place to sleep he feels a tap on his shoulder.

“You okay boy?” Kael whips his head around and see’s Emric.

“Old man!” Kael says with tears of joy seeing someone he knew. “how did you make it out alive”

“I’ll tell you later, need a place to rest for now?” Says the old man while guiding Kael towards a little home. It turns out Emric had family in this city so he has a home he can stay at. The old man guides him through the house, shows him the bath and his bedroom.

“You can stay as long as you need Kael” the old man says with the only expression he’s ever shown, a hint of compassion. Kael lays down on the bed immediately and nearly falls asleep immediately. But he was startled out of his sleep by a tap on his shoulder. He opens his eyes, look around the room but see’s… nothing. Kael confused, goes back to sleep.

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He makes it to the entrance to the city. No birds chirping, no noise of the bustling people, no dogs barking, nothing. Kael’s mind starts to become overwhelmed “ why am i the only one here?” he thinks to himself.

After making it to the center of the city he takes a look around at everything. “That’s the market i was going to buy my steak, that’s the restaurant i would go to and eat at whenever i didn’t feel like cooking. My friends house over there, always so lively with his pet cats. Nothing.” As he is looking around he starts to hold back tears, nearly breaking down. Why is he the sole survivor?

“where are the people at? why are there no bones if they died like the animals did?” Kael starts walking up to the door of his house, despite having no family to take care of he cant help but to check on his home. “w-what is this?” He see’s a small strange seed, a seed about the size of an apple. He can’t help but pick it up. He walks outside towards his friends house this time. He sees the bowl of water the cats would drink out of. The cat toys they would play with. And the swing set he would sit on with his friend. “why was this seed in my house? why me? why not the merchant? why not the city mayor? why me? why me?” he starts to repeat while having a breakdown. He falls to the floor, crying, trembling not knowing what to do next. The weight of his legs, his arms and his hand with the seed still clenched inside is unbearable.

Kael collects himself, starting to stand up, slowly. “I need to find out what this seed is for, and warn the people in the next city.” Kael wipes the tears off of his face, puts the seed in his pocket and starts leaving his home. He hears what is almost like a whisper behind him. He turns around “what was that?”. After seeing nothing he shrugs it off and keeps going. “I hope the next city is okay” he says while leaving the 9th city. Now he is on the road to the 8th.

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“I hope he doesn’t give me any attitude ” Kael muttered to himself, kicking a root out of his path. “For being 30 minutes late again. Its not my fault these roads get worse over time with roots from trees near by.”

As Kael is walking along the path he always does, he cant help but wonder what he’s gonna cook when he gets home.

“Maybe i should buy myself some steak as a reward for this large trade.”

45 Minutes of walking in the blazing sun with only occasional shade he makes it to farm. He rolls the cart over near the old mans barn and walks up to his house with a tired stride.

“Hello! anybody home?”

As he goes to knock for the third time the old man opens the door. The old man has a dead straight face, seemingly never amused, looks at Kael with no emotion.

“It took you long enough,” the old man said. “You should’ve been here 30 minutes ago! One more time and I’m taking out some money!”

“I’m sorry!” Kael said. “Its not my fault that the roads keep getting worse every trip i make over here.”

“yeah yeah whatever you say”

The old man hands Kael a bag of coins, enough to make ends meet for Kael. Not a lot, but a comfortable amount. As he’s leaving the front of the house back over to his cart to take it home he see’s a sign with the old mans name. “Emric”

“huh.. So that’s his name. Cant believe i didn’t notice all this time”

A sudden stillness fills the air, his body freezes. Heart feels like it fell into his stomach he pauses and looks around, trying to find out what is wrong, but.. nothing. He sees nothing wrong. With nothing wrong he continues with what he’s doing. He throws his money into the cart and starts going home.

“that was weird. what was that about?”

As Kael says that it comes back. Except now the trees around him are starting to die out, from behind him closing in on him, onto the town. Birds start to fall from the sky, Squirrels start to die as they run from the decaying matter. In fear he starts to sprint, leaving his cart and money behind.

"What is going on!" he shouted, sprinting as the plants withered and collapsed in his wake, the darkness chasing him down, gaining with every step.

“I need to get home right now! No.. that makes no sense its going towards the town.. where do i go? What can i do?”

After a few more steps and trying to figure out what he’s going to do, he trips on one of the tree root sticking out of the ground, smacking his head on a rock and falling unconscious.

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