Chapter 1: Prologue - part 1
Jack opened his eyes. It was dawn, time to wake up and work. He got out of bed and put on his clothes: a pair of dirty pants, a shirt that barely covered the arms of a seventeen year old boy like him, and a handmade scarf to keep him warm.
He left his room and went to look for his mom outside. He left the house and, as he did, he felt a cold breeze touching his body
"Hchoo!!", he sneezed
Summer was ending and winter was getting nearer and nearer; "this is a big problem", he thought to himself while looking for his mom.
Jack's family was composed by him, his older brother Joe, his younger brother James, his mom and his dad.
Considering that they were farmers, a family of five was very small and the amount of work that wheighted on the father and the two older brothers was far too much; however, since they were only five, they needed less food than the standard family of farmers. Thanks to that, in one way or another they had managed to survive.
Unfortunately, Jack's dad and his older brother had left during summer because the heads of the Alliance needed more troops for the war against the "felines", as they were called by the common people without an education.
Without his dad and his older brother Jack was left alone to take care of his mom and brother.
A simple farmer that had lived his entire life working in the country couldn't become a soldier in just a few days.
Jack's dad and his older brother weren't going to come back, both his mom and him were aware of that, but he couldn't let those thoughts weigh him down.
The plants were slowly dying because of the winter's curse and he had to find some way to overcome this problem.
As these thoughts were troubling his mind he saw his mom taking their only cow, Molly, out of the barn.
"Mom." Jack called his mother
"Oh, I see you're up", Jack's mom said in a somber tone
"What are you doing?" Jack asked
"Despite all the food I'm giving her, Molly is getting weaker and weaker and now she's stopped making milk: I'm certain the winter's curse has touched her."
The winter's curse was the worst fear of any farmer, but, what is the winter's curse? Nobody actually knew.
Reaserchers, ever since the birth of society, wondered what it was, but they never found out. While it may have seemed like a normal desease on the outside, the winter's curse was far, far worse.
A desease is something that attacks the body, and as such it can be cured through medicine and some types of miracles. However, the winter's curse didn't attack the body, it attacked the life force of its victim, stealing it until there was nothing left.
Sometimes it attacked someone only to disappear at the end of the season, sometimes it sticked with people for their entire life making them feel unimaginable pain, and sometimes it didn't even appear.
Because of its unpredictability some people worshipped it like an evil god that brought misery to whoever angered it.
However, it wasn't the same for everyone: there were some places around the world where people didn't live in fear, places like the village of Ronto or the town of Tawa.
These places were known as "oases". But Jack didn't live in one of those places, he lived in a much crueler world, and no matter how much he wanted to change that, he couldn't do anything about it. He couldn't accept the reality his mom had shown him, but he had to.
"What are we going to do?", he asked
"I'll go to town and sell Molly", she replied
"B-but nobody is going to buy a skinny cow that could die at any moment! Wouldn't it be better if we just kept her?", he said worriedly
"Even if we keep her, we aren't going to get much food out of her anyway. On the other hand, if we sell her, we can earn enough money to buy more food than what we would get eating her. Do you understand?", she asked
"I-I do.", he replied
"Tomorrow the open air markets in town are going to get new supplies, and there will be a lot of people for this event.
If we want to sell Molly, that will be our only chance." she said
He kept silent. He didn't know what to say. He didn't want to disturb his mother, but he had to ask her.
"Mom, how are we going to survive without Molly and the vegetables?"
"I will find a way"
"The plants are slowly dying, and now we are losing Molly! How are we going to..."
As he was repeating his question, his mom hugged him, and in a gentle voice she said: "I will find a way. Can you believe in me?", she asked him
He hesitated for a moment and then he said: "Yes."
As he left her mother's embrace the cold breeze touched his skin again, and he went to work.
