Chapter Text
I stared out of the window of the plane with increasing anticipation. The pilot had just announced that we were about to start our descent, which meant that I would soon finally come face to face with Mayor Lewis. I had only ever talked with the mayor a few times before on the phone and had never met him in person, so I had no idea what to expect.
It had been almost two months since Mayor Lewis had first contacted me and it had really come at the most perfect time in my life. I just found out that my girlfriend of three years was cheating on me with my best friend. I was originally supposed to have been out of town for Valentine’s day for a work conference, but had come home early to surprise her for the holiday. You can imagine how happy I was whenever I got home and saw my Valentine’s gift waiting for me in the bedroom: a front row viewing of my childhood best friend and my long term girlfriend hooking up on my bed. Suffice to say, it was a pretty ugly break up. Then, because I had left the work conference early, my job decided that I wasn’t loyal enough to the company and gave my promotion to someone else.
While I was wallowing away in self pity, I had received a strange phone call from an unknown caller. A man claiming to have been long time friends with my grandpa introduced himself to me as Lewis, mayor of Stardew Valley. At first, I thought it was just a scam caller. But then I remembered my grandpa mentioning a friend named Lewis in a few of the snail mail letters that he used to write to my mom whenever I was a kid. Grandpa had passed away a few years ago and I had assumed that the farm was sold for some extra cash by my struggling parents. But Lewis told me that he had recently found a letter from Grandpa in his mailbox stating that the entire farm was to go to me if I wanted it.
If that call had come just a few weeks earlier, I probably would have declined the offer. Before recent events, I had a pretty cushy life in the city. Yeah I was slowly dying under the crushing weight of the expectations in my workplace and the monotony of the nine to five office life, but at least I had a roof over my head and wasn’t begging for money on the streets.
But since my life had recently gone to shit, I decided why the hell not take up Lewis on his offer. The whole thing seemed supremely sketchy, but in the midst of my post break up depression, I figured that I actually didn’t have much to lose. It took a couple of weeks and a lot of coordination with Lewis, but eventually I was able to finally leave my soulless city life and set out to start anew in the country.
The plane’s seatbelt lights flashed on, startling me out of my sad reminiscing of the past. We were now fully into the descent, with the ground quickly hurtling closer to us. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes against the sight. On a good day, I was terrified of flying. Take this phobia and combine it with the anxieties I had of starting over in the middle of nowhere and it was almost enough to send me into a full blown panic attack.
As the plane finally landed, I released the breath I hadn’t realized that I was holding in. I took my phone out of my pocket and sent a quick text to Lewis to let him know that the plane had landed and that I would soon be out to meet him. The mayor was supposed to pick me up from the airport and drive me the two hours to Stardew Valley. It felt like an awful lot of effort to put into someone that he had never even met before, but he insisted that it was no trouble at all.
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The sun was setting by the time Mayor Lewis’s truck finally pulled into the driveway of the farm. The drive had been relatively uneventful, if not a bit annoying. I thought that a mayor of a small town would have been a kind, humble person. But the mayor seemed to be quite full of himself and thought very highly of his status. He spent almost the entire two hour drive talking about what it had been like to grow up in the town and everything that he has done for Stardew Valley since becoming the mayor. He had run unopposed for nearly a decade, and claimed that the reason for it was because everyone absolutely loved him and everything that he did for them. In fact, he spent so much time talking about himself that I could barely get a word in edgewise.
I was so annoyed with Lewis by the time that he had parked in front of the farmhouse that I hadn’t even realized that we were there. “Well, welcome to Hope’s Peak Farm,” Lewis announced. I quickly climbed out of the truck, eager to see where I would now be living.
All my hopes were quickly dashed as soon as I set eyes on the house. The farmhouse looked decrepit, almost dangerous to stay in. The surrounding farmland was hardly any better. It was severely overgrown, with fallen logs and boulders taking up most of the area. My heart sank at the realization of what exactly I had just gotten myself into. I couldn’t believe that I would have to spend the night here, let alone live here.
Lewis must have sensed what I was thinking. “I know that it doesn’t seem like much right now, but this place was your grandfather’s pride and joy. It’ll take a little hard work, but I’m sure you can get it looking even better than it used to,” he declared.
I couldn’t muster up any form of enthusiasm to match his. I was starting to regret my decision to move here. The thought of everything that I would have to do to the land to even turn the barest of profits was overwhelming and suddenly didn’t seem worth it.
I sighed heavily as Lewis unlocked the front door, fighting back tears as the door swung open to reveal the desolate inside of the farmhouse. “Alright, well don’t be afraid to call if you need anything. I’ll be over in the morning to check on you and see how your first night went.” I refused to break down in front of the old man, so I merely thanked him as he sauntered out the door. But as I watched his tail lights fade into the distance, I couldn’t hold back the tears anymore. I threw myself onto the bed, not even caring enough to take my shoes off first, and eventually cried myself to sleep.