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The crow of a rooster is what wakes me up; nothing else. I truly hate when this happens. Despite me being a light sleeper, I don't often get woken up this early in the morning. I look at my clock. 3 in the morning. I groan. I never wake up this early.

Despite my better judgement, I get up. I have to do chores, anyway, and it's better to get them out of the way. Otherwise, I'd be late for work.

I go outside. The light from the sun burns my eyes, but I ignore it. I go out to the wheat fields. Not very much wheat has grown since I went to bed; I could only bake a few pieces of bread with this.

I sigh. I hate it when my family goes hungry.

I live in a poor town. It only gets a few gold nuggets a year, which means most of what my family gets is from farming, mining, etc. The only person who can afford to buy things regularly is the Mayor. He's not all that bad, though; sometimes, he gives well-brewed mushroom stew to the younger kids. Despite him being able to buy things regularly, he rarely did, because he liked to work for his food, so he can feel like we do. He did occasionally buy things, though, if he didn't get enough leather or wheat from his farms one day.

I reluctantly finish harvesting the wheat and go over to the community chest. Bleh, nothing again. Just some seeds and some cobblestone. Occasionally, if we're lucky, we'll find a piece of iron in there before people went there and started up a bid on it, but that hasn't happened in years. Probably because it's all been mined out. Or they're greedy.

I sigh and take the cobblestone; who knows, maybe I'll get enough to expand the house. Though, I know I'll have to collect for months for that to happen.

I go back to my home and find a sign outside the house. I'm watching you

I shake my head and take it down. It's not the first time something like this has happened; often, kids who are scared or hungry will leave this calling card to signify they've stolen something. I go in, search the house, but find nothing. In fact, my family's been inside the whole time. I find this puzzling, but I shrug it off.

I go up to my room, to be greeted by my pet dog, Sparky. He barks and jumps up on me and licks my face. I pet him and slowly process the situation in my mind: I dropped off excess wheat at the market for credit for gold nuggets (1 piece of wheat is worth a 20th of a golden nugget. I've stocked up 9) and baked the rest into a bread. It's not the good kind you'd find at a bakery; it's the thin, grainy kind.

I then remember the sign. No sign of break-in, no sign of anything. Maybe it was just a child seeking attention. Maybe he needed food. 'Sorry, kid.' I think to myself. 'I don't have any to spare.'

I breathe deeply and go outside. Maybe I could go fishing for some extra food. Then again, the fish has gone into hiding since that soldier came into town.

Uugh, that soldier. So what if he's fighting in the war? How does that give him the right to demand peoples' food, and shoot into the lake, scaring most of the fish away? The month that he was in town was the worst in my life. He took wheat from our fields in the morning before I could wake up, he demanded I give him apples from wood cutting if I bring some back to the village (apples are a special delicacy that only come rarely to our town; I think we were all mad at him for that specific incident.) The only thing he didn't take was fish; for some reason, he didn't like it very much, I guess. I scowl as I throw my hook into the water for the 6th time, without any fish. I think he's the only person who's ever lived inside this town (besides the Mayor) who could be picky with what he ate.

I shrug it off and continue fishing. At least he's not here anymore.

I slowly start to close my eyes, listening. Listening to the sound of the leaves whistling, the apples dropping. Apples dropping.

I jump up and turn all around. I'm certain it was an apple. Could it have been far away? No, it couldn't have. I heard it, and it was very close to me. I turn all around, and then eventually just start walking around. I abandon my fishing rod; my family has plenty of string. We find it all the time in the community chest. Most of the time, adventurers come back with it. If they don't, they at least come back with spider eyes and rotten flesh.

I shudder as I think of the one night I had to eat those 2 things: Rotten flesh and spider eyes. I hated it. I closed my eyes as the disgusting flavor spread across my tongue and eventually my throat. I ended up actually feeling worse after eating these things. Ugh… I never want to do it again.

Another apple dropped. I get my mind back on topic; if I can sell some apples to the mayor, I might be able to get a golden nugget. That would buy me 20 grains of wheat. That would last the family a week.

I scout around for a little while, going rather slowly; while I did have enough food to survive, I didn't ever have enough to sprint, and potions were something people scoffed at in this town. If we had even one potion, we would be twice as rich as we are now.

I eventually give up. I just resolve that I imagined it, despite it sounding so real.

Then I hear it again.

I'm certain of it this time. It was directly behind me, only 2 or 3 blocks. I turn around, and… there's an adventurer there.

But something's wrong with him. He has no armor on, he has various bruises and cuts all around him and he appears to have a broken ankle.

"W---what's wrong, sir? Where were you adventuring? Why are you so beat up? What happened?" I say to him, but he appears not to be listening.

"Y-yes, whatever you say. I must get back to the village. They'll be expecting me. No, I will not disappoint you again. I will not… I will not…" he appears to say to himself. He turns around and is shocked by my face. "What the bloody hell are you doing here, boy? Don't you know it's dangerous?!" he says as if nothing happened. I stare at him.

"What? What's wrong?" he says. He pulls out an apple. I stare at it hungrily.

Just before the fruit reaches his lips, he notices me staring at it. He drops his hand and tosses it over to me.

I'm so taken by surprise that the apple rolls onto the ground. I don't particularly care; the dirt has been the hottest it ever has in the past month, and it won't bother the apple.

I pick it up and stare at it. To sell, or to eat? Apples are worth 1 golden nugget a piece, but it's so delicious…

But then I stop. This is a delicacy that I would be foolish not to share. I look up to thank the man who gave it to me.

"Thank you, sir." I say. He looks at me with a slight sadness in his eyes.

"Please don't thank me. You will be cursing me in a few months' time." and with that, he left. I'm intrigued by what he said, both before and just now. Ah well, time to head to work.