157 Promised ever-young country (1/2)

Wendy, the village girl from Sanchos

The mother in my dream tells me a story.

It's a story about a boy with a little fairy who takes me to the land of the everlasting youth.

If such a country exists, I want to go there too.

Why do I dream about this?

I'm sure it's because I remembered that my sister Nana was taken.

I don't want to grow up.

If I remain a child, I won't be taken away by scary people.

I wake up.

I look out the window.

The sky is dark as usual.

I haven't seen a beautiful blue sky since I was brought to this village in San Shos.

The sky is still dark here, even after the night has passed.

The cold wind from the northern sea is blowing against the mountains and dumping snow on this village.

It's okay now, though.

I get up from my bunk.

My brothers are still asleep. It's time to wake them up.

I'll have to be the oldest one to be the mother when Nana's sister is gone.

But I have some things to do before I wake my brothers up.

I get dressed and get ready to go outside.

'Wendy, big sister ......'

Mikal, who was sleeping with me, calls my name.

Mikal is four years old. He is a spoiled child and wants to sleep with me.

But he should learn to sleep by himself soon.

I'm twelve years old.

I'm going to be gone soon.

”I'm sorry, Mikal. You just need to go to your usual place so you can go back to sleep, okay?

Soothe Mikal.

He's a boy and he has to put up with it.

Mikal gagged a bit, but he finally agreed, probably because he always does.

I go outside and head to a place.

An abandoned house where no one lives.

There is a secret flower garden here.

The miasma in this area is so intense that it is difficult to grow beautiful flowers.

But flowers bloom here.

Many years before I came to this place, someone had grown these flowers.

And now I've taken over the plant.

Before I came here, my sister Nana was taking care of it.

She told me that this flower is resistant to the miasma and doesn't need much care.

But I make it a routine to check on the flower every morning.

I walked into an abandoned house.

The roof is broken and the skylights are gone, and the floor is bare, the ground is bare.

The bare ground is covered with tiny purple flowers.

I love looking at these flowers.

I want to be as strong as this flower.

It was then that I noticed something strange. I notice something is wrong.

Who's there?　Who's there?

Behind the abandoned house, someone is there.

I look into the back with my eyes. Someone is lying there.

Are they scary adults?

But it's not like that.

As I get closer, I see a man sleeping.

I've never seen his face before. They're not scary adults.

And that's when I looked away from the face for a moment.

Something is moving on the man's chest.

At first I thought it was a clean cloth or something. But it seemed to be moving of its own volition.

Curious, I sat down beside the man and took a closer look.

It was a small man with butterfly wings on his back.

The lapis lazuli butterfly wings were pale and shiny.

It was those butterfly wings that I thought were beautiful cloth.

'What?　Really?　Are you a little fairy?

The little man looked like a fairy in a fairy tale.

The little fairy was sleeping peacefully on the man's chest.

It was definitely a fairy tale.

My heart thumped.

Why?　There are faeries here, right?

A lot of emotions are building up inside me.

I have never felt like this since I was brought to this place.

I look at the man.

He has jet black hair and a well-defined face. If I look closely, I see that he has a face as beautiful as my lord's.

The man is asleep as if he is tired or dead.

Who could it be?

At least it doesn't seem to be the adults of this village.

I don't think they are with the adults in this village. If they were, they wouldn't be sleeping here.

The man with the faerie must have come from outside the village.

And then he washed up in this village.

It was going to be the beginning of a story of some kind.

If you can, take me into the story, too.

So I reached out to the man.

'No. ......'

I hear a voice from the little fairy.

I look at the little fairy and see her sitting up and rubbing her eyes.

And our eyes meet.

'No!　Humans?　Why?　Why?　You didn't notice that?　Mr. Kuroki!　Mr. Kuroki!　Oh, my God!　Please wake up~!

The little fairy (faerie) sees me and starts to panic.

And then she tries to wake up the man in a hurry.

Seeing that, I panic too.

If I don't, they will find me. These people have to keep it a secret from the adults.

I feel like that.