Withinhoe wakes up in her wooden shack in the small farming village of Plathill. Despite her drowsy state, she realises something quite odd - Her stepfather didn't wake her up this morning, and the ushal noise of people rushing past the shack to get to thier various jobs around Plathill farm were absent.
"Mmmm. . . Must be a Sunday." She says to herself as she turns around to go back to sleep. As she does so, she thinks to herself to try and think why it feels so odd somehow. . .
"If it's Sunday today. . . Why was I working yesterday?
She sits up suddenly as she realises. . .
"Wait a moment! It was Wednesday yesterday!"
She glances at the sun out of her window, and sees that it is quite high in the sky. At that same momet, she hears the sound of someone being violently sick in one the upstairs rooms. A few seconds later, she hears groaning from elsesware in the upstairs rooms. Someone coughs weakly from the next door room shortly afterwards.
Sensing something isn't right at all, Withinhoe jumps out of bed. Being quite tall for a mudokon, she is careful not to hit her head on the ceiling as she takes off her bed robes. Withinhoe appears to be very strong looking, dark blue in skin colour, with aqua green eyes. Her webbed fingers seem very noticeable as she reaches out for her cheaply made lose brown trousers. Her webbed toes also seem noticeable as she slips on a pair of sandles. She then slips on her baggy cream-coloured shirt, which covers her feminine physique, before proceeding to tie her shoulder length pale-blue hair into a ponytail with a bit of twine.
Having gotten dressed, she leaves her room. The smell of illness and vomit hits her as soon as she enters the landing. Pulling the top of her shirt over her mouth and holding it there with her hand, she climbs the stairs and enters her step-fathers bedroom, to find a rather disgusting site.
The floor and the bed is covered in red, bloody vomit, and in the bed, looking rather pale and sweating all over, is her step father, with vomit all around his mouth. He seems to be asleep, or unconcience.
"DAD!!!" Withinhoe yells trough her hand as she goes to the bed as fast as she can, without stepping on the puddle of puke on the floor.
Withinhoe's step father coughs and opens his eyes.
"Don't. . . get close!" He says in a rather weak and feeble voice.
"Dad?" She replies, looking quite distraught, but she does as she's told and steps back.
The poor mudokon lying in the bed groans, and coughs again.
"Withinhoe. . . le- leave here! Now!"
"But what about-"
But her stepdad interrupts.
"The whole village. . . Everyone. . . Infected by epidemic. . . I've. . . seen for myself. . ."
"But I ought to stay here to help you!"
"Go. . . Please go. . . You must. . . before. . . before you-"
Withinhoe's Step Father vomits once again all over the floor and has a viloent coughing fit. Withinhoe steps back, looking even more distraught, and very replused. Her stepfather speaks again in an even weaker voice.
". . . g-get out of here. . . save yourself while. . . w-while there is s-still. . . t. . . time. . ."
And he blacks out. Almost crying, Withinhoe leaves the room imediately, and heads for her room as fast as she can. She then shoves all her small and nessesary personal belongings into a small home-made backpack, and picks up her long bronze staff, which was always leaning by her bedroom door.
As she heads off outside, and starts heading toward the forest, she notices that almost everything around her is dying, making her more distraught. She just had to find someone - anyone who wasn't ill or dying. . . Anyone, or anything.
- DH
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