Michael was an extremely chatty person. Before we even started walking, he already told us he wasn't from here, that he arrived a while back and that he liked Genevieve and found Amelia a bit strange.
"You know, I'm really glad you came here. Being the new kid in a village always feels strange, doesn't it?"
"I can't really say anything about that. I was never the new kid in a place for long," I replied.
"Oh? So people always show up after you?" Michael asked.
"Not really. I mean, more in the sense that I never stayed in a place long enough to be considered the new kid, you know?" I admitted. That was true, after the Hidden Horn Village, I barely spent a couple of weeks in Madison. And after that, my time in each new village never was longer than a couple of days.
"Well, honestly, that never happened to me before, either. I just know the stories that my parents used to tell me."
"And where are your parents?" I asked.
"Oh, they're gone. Died a few months ago. During winter."
Way to go, Cassandra, that's a great way to make friends. Talking about their dead parents.
"I'm sorry to hear about that." I tried to give a comforting smile, but I wasn't sure if that landed as I wanted.
Michael nodded awkwardly. "It's hard, I'm not going to lie. But at least I'm a little better now."
"What happened?" Astrid asked, making me to glance at her with wide eyes. I wanted to tell her that she shouldn't ask that kind of thing, but this didn't really feel like the right place to do that. Not in front of Michael, at least.
"They died because of a disease. You see, our village was struck by a wave of cold and I don't mean just the weather. Everybody was coughing and sneezing. It wasn't good. The real problem began when it started to rain. We were depending on a medicine made out with a few plants that existed in a nearby forest. But, with the heavy rain, no one was willing to go there pick them up. Unless you were going to get it for your own family, of course. And that's what everybody did. Even against the recommendation of the doctors and the people running the village. It wasn't hard to see one family sending their youngest to the forest, searching for those plants. Or at least the youngest that wasn't a child. No one wanted to have to go searching for kids in the middle of a storm. But at the same time no one told anyone about what they were dong. So those people who went into the forest got soaking wet, came back, and got sick. Everybody assumed they were just with the same sickness that everybody else had. But instead they had something different. Pneumonia."
"Oh no," I gasped.
I remember the time one of the kids back in the Hidden Horn Village got pneumonia. It was a nasty thing. If it wasn't treated properly, it could have killed them, but thankfully, Pops knew what to do. And he had a few vials of medicine that solved the problem.
"Yeah," Michael said. "Because no one told anybody that they had sent people after the plants and the symptoms were similar early on, we all assumed it was the cold. As a result, we ended up wasting a lot of medicine on people who didn't get any benefit from it. According to our doctor, the treatment for a cold and for pneumonia is very different. But it took a long time for us to figure out that this new batch of sick people had something else. We burned through our medicine reserves. Even the ones that were being gathered by people going into the woods. In the end, because of all that, there wasn't enough medicine to save everybody. No matter how much we tried."
"Did they have to choose who to save?" that sounded like an awful thing to do and an awful thing to have to do. And didn't know which side had it worst.
"Not really. They were talking about that, but in the end, there was not enough time for a decision to be made. Those who got sick started to die off and the ones that were saved were the ones that survived for the longest. My parents, unfortunately, didn't make it."
Michael looks down with a sad expression. Even if he said everything was fine and he was okay with this, it was clear that the loss weighed on his mind. Which was completely understandable after all it hadn't only been a few months since winter.
"You know what's funny? I'm pretty sure my dad chose to die. My mother was weak. Always had been. But when she passed, my dad just stopped trying. He refused medicine and just mumbled along until he was no longer there."
Astrid nodded but simply stated, "I'm sorry."
"Thanks. But honestly, I'm more mad than anything. I mean, I get it. He lost his wife. I lost my mom. And she was amazing. But, still, I was there, you know. It doesn't feel great knowing that my existence wasn't enough for him to try harder."
I nodded. "I can only imagine how it feels. And I'm sorry you had to go through that."
I was trying to be polite and understanding, but at the same time there was a part of me asking why was he telling us all that. I mean, we had just met. He learned our names less than 2 minutes ago, just a few meters away from here. I was really trying not to be paranoid, but that wasn't helping. And sure, maybe he just needed to talk this out, and we just ended up being the first people who he felt comfortable talking about his past. Or he was just that friendly, and I generally didn't know what option I found stranger.
But despite my hesitation, Astrid seemed to be completely fine with this man. She was listening intently to the story, and I could see in her eyes that she really cared about what he was saying. Because of that, I decided maybe against my better judgment to just let it go. Like Michael said, he was the new guy here and maybe telling someone about his parents was just something he had to do.
"Anyway," the man continued. "After I lost my parents, I decided to start traveling. It didn't really make sense for me to stay there in the village with people that I was honestly blaming for having killed my parents. I get that they weren't really at fault, but at the same time it's hard to let this kind of thing go. So I just picked up my stuff and left. I do feel bad for leaving my house and the place where my parents raised me behind, but I couldn't stay there. You know. Too many memories. In fact, a lot of people decided to go somewhere else too. Many had died and it would be hard to maintain things back in the village. Can you believe that most of those who died were the hunters?"
"Yes," Astrid replied bluntly. I turned out to her with a confused expression but the Frosted Lumberjack instead of understanding that I was just not getting her reactions thought it was questioning what she said.
"People search plant. Strong people. People familiar with forest. Hunters. They get pneumonia. More dangerous than cold. They died, others live."
"Yeah," Michael gave Astrid a nod. "That's exactly why. I think you're the first person who didn't need me to explain that part."
Astrid didn't say anything, but she gave the man a proud smile. And it was at that time that I gave up trying to understand what was going on here. This village was weird. The people here were weird. The whole lake thing was weird. Astrid was acting weird. And I was just going to stay for a few days and move on.
"By the way, I heard Genevieve saying that the two of you want to go to the ocean?"
"Yeah, that's the plan. I have to wait around for a month or so before I can go back to where my grandfather is. There was some stuff that happened and I needed to just not be there for a while."
Michael stared at me for a moment. "That doesn't sound cryptic at all. Did you kill someone or something?"
I just shook my head. "No, not really. It was just more of a people were scared of me because I escaped an Eater and they just believe that the Eater was going to come after me. So they kick me out. They were afraid that me being there meant the Eater was going to come after us again. When I was leaving, I just asked if we could agree that if I survive a month in a wild, I can come back without a problem. They felt it was a fair deal, so after a month I can go back."
"I can understand why they're worried. But you're going to the ocean now? Aren't you?"
I turn to Astrid, who nodded in response. "That's the plan. But we're not rushing. I said I was going to go back in a month, but it's the first time I'm leaving my village, so I'm just enjoying the sights."
"Yeah. That's pretty much what I did, too. Do you mind if I tag along? I always wanted to see the ocean. It feels a bit weird that I'm Hawaiian but never seen it. It was my idea when I started traveling too, but I stopped here and they start talking about this great festival that was going to happen in a couple of weeks and I decided to stay."
Astrid was about to say something, but I cut her off. By her expression, she was just going to accept his company without saying another word.
"Look, Michael, I don't want to be rude, but we literally just met. I'm not super comfortable saying you can join us right away. Like you said, there's still a festival in we are going to stay for it. But before saying you can come or not, let us talk a bit more, get to know each other. Just so we can be sure you're not just a crazy guy who's trying to rob us or do something else."
Michael paused and looked at me with the confused expression, but suddenly realization came to his face. "Oh no, yeah, no, yeah, yeah. I get it. Sorry, I didn't even think that. No, you're absolutely right. We just met. It's weird. I appreciate you giving me a chance to get to know you, but I get if you decide it's not the best idea. Again, I'm sorry I didn't even think…"
I interrupted him, "Don't worry about it. It's just…. you know."
"No, yeah, I do. Just wow. Sorry, okay?" Well, he turned forward, showing that we were already a few meters away from the start of the village, "I'm going to leave you the two of you to eat. I think you know how to get to Genevieve's house, don't you?"
I nodded.
"Okay then. It was lovely to meet you and again, I'm sorry. Anyway bye," he turned around and started marching down the same path we were going to take. He rushed along before either of us could say anything else. I considered walking, but I could feel Astrid's stare on the back of my head. And decided to talk before continuing.
"Look, I know that he wouldn't be able to do anything with us. But that doesn't mean we should just accept anyone who wants to travel with us, you know. Despite what we can do, we still need to be a bit careful."
"He's nice," Astrid replied.
"I think he's a nice guy, too. But again. It's too soon. Let's be a bit more careful just for a few days so we can get to know him a bit better. Then we can have a conversation and, both of us, together, decide if we're okay traveling with him. Would that work?" I asked Astrid, not mentioning the main complication of that plan.
If we were going to travel with someone else, we would likely need to give them the System. And I still didn't trust Michael enough to offer him something like that. Then again, if I was being honest, the only reason I gave the System to Astrid was because of the situation we were in at the time. So maybe having someone else to join our little duo would take a bit more convincing either way.
We continued walking, and it seems that Michael wasn't living that far away from us. Just a couple houses down. Genevieve gave us a quick scolding for not letting anyone know where we were going, which was very understandable, but still. After that, we sat down for dinner, had a very lovely seafood meal with various types of fish and even some lobsters before we went to bed. It wasn't that long of a day, but it seemed like people woke up early here and the last thing we needed was to start our first day of work while being exhausted.