Chapter Text
There is a house nestled in the forested foothills above Spawn Valley. You could be forgiven for thinking that it had been abandoned, what with the gaping hole in its blue-tiled roof, or the way there appears to be no clear path up the rocky slopes toward it. Some would call it dilapidated or ramshackle; others, attempting to be polite, might deem it quaint or past its prime.
Etho would call it his home, thank you very much.
It’s a perfectly fine home, all things considered, peaceful in its isolation and grounding in its imperfections. Sure, it has seen better days, but which buildings haven’t? Besides, he hadn’t really chosen it for any of that. People may not understand why he chooses to stay, but none of their protests will convince him to leave.
(Behind the house lies a pond, lily pads and fallen cherry blossoms floating on its surface, and something otherworldly lying beneath.)
It’s late spring, which means he is woken just before dawn as the rain starts falling. He opens bleary eyes, staring at the grey sky above as Water Wisps spatter down from on high. He feels the lesser spirits tugging on his blankets and nightshirt, their fingers soaking the fabric through, and sighs. It’s early, not quite sunrise, and he doesn’t really want to get out of bed just yet.
A raindrop kisses his cheek, lips leaving behind a puddle on his skin, and he resigns himself to his early morning with a groan.
This time of year, this is a common occurrence, and he knows that the dawn sun will banish the rain shortly. He slowly conducts his morning routine, bathing in the river outside and throwing on his crumpled and lightly stained work uniform. He spends twenty minutes looking for his hat before he’s forced to conclude that he’s lost it again, and then a further ten minutes fretting over how Pearl will react, before he remembers that Pearl doesn’t really care what he looks like, as long as he gets his job done.
By that point, the raindrops are beginning to disperse, spiralling up into the sky as they dance with glowing golden Shine Wisps, and if Etho isn’t careful he’s going to be late. He loops his bag over his shoulder, tugs his mask over his face, and heads out of the door, not bothering to lock it behind him.
The forest is coming alive, leaves rustling with Growth Wisps and squirrels alike, dirt Wisps dancing down by Etho’s feet. He takes a moment to gently kick them away before heading over to the large cherry blossom tree that overhangs his house, pink petals blowing in the breeze. He presses his hand against the bark, feels it sing against his palm.
“Good morning,” he greets the Wood Wisps that emerge from the tree, clustering around his fingers. There’s a familiar hum of power in his skin where they touch him, solidifying and stabilising. “Ready to head to work?”
A rush of responses, whispers that sound like the carving of wood, the creaking of branches, the snapping of twigs.
Etho beams beneath his mask.
“Let’s go, then,” he says, pulling his hand back and curling it into a fist.
He knocks three times on the trunk of the tree, golden light glowing through the bark as, with an echoing creak, a door materialises before him and swings open. The inside of the tree doesn’t look much like the inside of a tree but rather an endless plane of light. Etho enters without hesitation, narrowing his eyes against the glow. He steps forward, hand outstretched, and soon blindly finds the handle of another door. He pushes it open, emerging back into the forest, a couple hundred metres from where he’d started.
With practiced strides, he moves forward to the next tree in his path, raising his hand to knock on the wood before he’s even reached it. The door opens swiftly, Wood Wisps moving to facilitate his request, honouring the Petition between Etho and their kind. He once again passes through the liminal space between one tree and another, emerging further down the hill. He repeats the process, growing faster with each step, until he’s flying down the slope, Wind Wisps beginning to tug at his hair with the speed.
Finally, he reaches flat ground, skidding to a halt and panting. He’s not quite reached civilisation yet, but the trees have thinned, and the undergrowth is sparser. He picks his way through it until he finds himself on the old beaten path to Spawn Village.
The spring rains have brought lushness to the valley, everything bright and green and buzzing with life. He sees the remaining Water Wisps from the morning clinging onto leaves, chattering with the Growth Wisps that live there, dewdrop-voices filling the air. Most of the Wood Wisps he’s used to seeing in the forest have been left behind there, but the few that tend to stick around Etho at all times still cling to his knuckles, lining the skin there until it’s almost bark-like. He pays them little mind as he hikes his bag more securely on his shoulder and keeps walking.
Spawn Village greets him with the yellow-and-green walls of the marketplace, standing over the river. He uses it as a bridge, crossing through stalls that are beginning to set up for the day, and beyond it passes the sprawling mass of the town’s hall. It’s nestled into the hills, ancient ruins on one side, and something more modern and organic on the other. The community fields spill out from the building, lining the banks of the river, wheat and apples and carrots and beets. There are houses further beyond, he knows, hiding deeper in the valley, but his destination is much closer than that.
Adjacent to the town hall is the post office, constructed in the same modern, natural style, with space for the mail van out front. Etho slides his way past it and through the side door into the spacious interior, mail pigeons fluttering around the high ceiling. Cubbies line the walls, holding PO boxes and stamp sales and the complex mechanics required for the postal system to function. It smells like paper and feathers and ink and wood; it smells like his home away from home.
There are muffled mutters floating up from the floorboards beneath Etho’s feet—Tango must be down below, deep in the guts of the postal machine. Etho lets his footsteps fall a little heavier to let his friend know that he’s here, which also has the added effect of drawing Pearl’s attention from where she’s crouched behind the desk, elbow-deep in a mailbag. She rises to her full height and turns towards him, the Wind Wisps that live in her hair pulling it to the side in a self-sustained breeze. She raises her eyebrows at him and places her hands on her hips.
“Etho! You’re late!” Again, she doesn’t add, but it’s implied.
“No, I’m not,” Etho says, glancing at the ornate clock that hangs above her head amongst the postal pigeons’ perches. “Work starts at seven. It’s seven.”
“It’s seven-oh-two, actually,” Pearl corrects.
“Oh two?” Etho echoes, tone somewhere between disparaging and desperate. “Seriously, Pearl, two minutes?”
Her disapproving expression cracks into a smile and her posture relaxes as she shrugs. “I suppose I can let it slide this time,” she teases. Then, “Have you eaten this morning?”
“...No,” he admits sheepishly, wandering over to the counter and dropping his empty satchel onto it.
Pearl sighs. “C’mon, Etho, what did I tell you about breakfast?”
“I don’t need it! I’m fine! I’m not even hungry!”
“It’s the most important meal of the day!” she insists. She reaches under the counter and pulls out an apple, tossing it at him. Etho just barely catches it before it hits him in the head. “Here, eat this. I’ll get the mail sorted for you.”
Etho sighs, but begins to eat, crunching his way through the apple as Pearl bustles about transferring mail from the big mailbag behind the desk to his satchel. Most mail that gets distributed in the Village comes from further afield, delivered via the complex mechanisms of the subterranean mail system that connects the land. Tango is responsible for the upkeep of Spawn Village’s section of the system, though Etho himself is more than familiar with its inner workings, having covered for Tango more than once when the inventor was unavailable to take on a repair job. He enjoys the mechanical work, the problem-solving and fiddliness of a fix, and the privacy of the underground tunnels.
And speak of a spirit—Tango appears, scrambling his way up the ladder as Etho finishes his apple, hair wild and face stained with soot. He waves at Etho with his prosthetic arm, the Spark Wisps that live in the gears of it chattering with the motion. Etho waves back with one hand, chucking the core of the apple into the trash can below the counter with the other.
“Hey, E,” Tango greets, breathless from the climb. “How’s it going?”
“I’m getting my butt busted over here,” Etho says, shooting him a frazzled look. “She’s gonna work me into the ground.”
“Oi!” Pearl snaps shut the clasps on his satchel. “Watch your mouth, mister!”
Etho widens his eyes at Tango. “See?”
Tango laughs. “That’s our Pearl,” he says, jumping the counter and wrapping an arm around her. “This place would fall apart without her.”
Pearl sniffs. “You bet your butts it would. How’s the machine?”
“Eh, could be better. There’s still some glitches in the northbound rail that I don’t understand. I’ll get them figured out, though.”
“Glitches?” Etho asks, taking his bag from Pearl’s outstretched hands.
“Yeah, only fifty percent of the mail is actually winding up at the next post office down the line. The rest keeps getting rerouted south for some reason.”
“Huh.” Etho frowns, looping his satchel over his shoulder. “Maybe I can help you take a look once I’m done with deliveries for the day?”
“I’d love that, actually.” Tango grins at him sardonically. “Two heads are better than one, and your brain’s better than mine.”
“Oh, that’s really not true,” Etho protests.
“No self depreciating in my post office!” Pearl announces, poking Tango in the face, prompting a yelp out of him. She points her other finger at Etho, shooting him a stern look. “You’re doing great work on the system, Tango, don’t worry about it. If you’re still having trouble by this afternoon, Etho can help, and in the meantime you can use me as your rubber duck.”
“Yes ma’am.” Tango throws up a joking salute.
Pearl rolls her eyes. “Speaking of, Etho…”
“I’m going, I’m going!” Etho takes a few steps back from the counter. “I’ll be super punctual. Every letter will be delivered right on time.”
“You better be!” she calls after him, but there’s a lilt to her voice and a wealth of experience that tells him that she won’t be mad even if he returns several hours late. Pearl’s good like that. Really, Etho lucked out, getting her for a boss.
He turns and strides the last few steps to the front door, the bell jingling behind him as he leaves. The sun beats down, the morning clouds fully chased away, and he takes a moment to breathe before getting on his way, dodging through clouds of Shine Wisps that fill the air.
“Did you see that they’re building something opposite the town hall?”
The gossip draws Etho’s attention as he browses a leatherworker’s market stall, weighing up price versus quality with a discernment that had once had him called stingy. While he’s never been one for big social events such as a market day, he’s always been a sucker for a good deal, and there are plenty to be had here.
“I did! Apparently they’re setting up a Post Office here.”
“A Post Office?”
“Yeah! Have you heard of that new-fangled postal system that sends mail between settlements through underground tunnels?”
“Now that you mention it, yeah, I did—my cousin out east mentioned that they were setting that up in her town.”
“They want to extend that up here.”
“Huh! Well, if I get my mail sooner, I can’t imagine it’ll be a bad thing.”
“I’m sure it’s better for the poor mail carriers too—I wouldn’t want to be venturing over the mountains and risking my life for the sake of some bugger’s package.”
Etho frowns down at the boots on display. Crossing the mountains really isn’t that dangerous if you know what you’re doing. There are far more dangerous pursuits in the world. He’s half tempted to inform the gossipers of such, but he’s not sure he feels like arguing with strangers today. Instead, he catches the vendor’s attention and barters for the price of a pair of hiking boots, eventually leaving with what he thinks is a deal well brokered.
He decides that, rather than sticking around the market or going home, he’s going to head further into the village—maybe check out some of the community spaces in the town hall, or head down to Beef’s farm near the river. Etho had only settled down here in Spawn Valley to be close to Beef, after all, and he’s found the experience to be much like trying to squeeze into a coat that’s a size too small. He can do it, but it doesn’t feel comfortable or right.
He takes the trees, if only because doing so is almost second nature at this point in his life. He emerges onto one of the many balconies that dot the hillside of the town hall, a light breeze ruffling his hair and making his ears twitch. He reaches up to rub at them absent-mindedly, glancing around for a signpost that might help him figure out his location in the maze that is the town hall.
“Whoa,” says an unfamiliar voice, making him jump with its sudden appearance. “That was so cool. And super convenient, too.”
He spins around and sees, sitting in the shadow of a building, a woman with bright blue eyes and long brown hair filled with Wind Wisps. He opens his mouth to reply to her, but all that comes out is a startled whine.
“Oh, gosh, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you!” she says.
“Well, you did!” His voice is strangled. “Don’t do that.”
“Sorry, sorry.” There’s equal amounts of apology and amusement in her tone. “What kind of Petition is that, anyway?”
“Wood.” He raises his hand to reveal the Wood Wisps that cling to the skin there.
She nods appreciatively. “Nice, nice. Don’t think I’ve seen one like that before. Creative.”
“It has its uses,” Etho says with a shrug. Then, “I don’t think I’ve seen you around before…?”
“Nope!” She pops the p and smiles at him. “Pearl. I’m here to oversee the new Post Office.”
“Oh, I heard about that. You’re here to stay, then?”
“That’s the plan! Currently we’re just building, but the company’ll be sending up a technician to do the tricky mechanical parts next week. I’ll need to hire an on-foot mail carrier or two, of course, but it won’t be anything like my old job. Just in the valley, nothing much further!”
“Won’t you miss it?” Etho finds himself asking the question without even thinking the words. “Uh, travelling, I mean?”
Pearl’s eyes crinkle at the edges. “You know, that’s not the normal reaction I get when I tell people about my job.”
“I’ve been told that I’m not exactly a normal person.”
“I’m beginning to get the impression. Yeah, I am gonna miss it. But times are changing, and we’ve gotta change with them, you know? No point staying stuck. I don’t think I could.” She gestures to the Wind Wisps in her hair as she speaks, the green glowing creatures pulling at her hair in an ever-blowing breeze. Then, “What about you? Do you miss travelling?”
Etho starts, sure he hadn’t told her that information. “Hey, now, I never said—”
“You didn’t have to. So? Do you?”
“Sometimes,” Etho admits, not quite willing to admit the truth. “I mean, it’s nice here and all, it’s home, but—you know.”
“I do,” she agrees, voice dipping into something soft before rising back out of it. “Hey, stranger, mind sharing your name?”
Right. He had forgotten that, hadn’t he? “Etho.”
“Nice to meet you, Etho.” She reaches out a hand towards him. Hesitantly, he reaches back, accepting her firm handshake. “I don’t suppose you’re looking for a job?”
Etho knows he’s found his first letter recipient when he stops hearing his footsteps.
This deep in the old ruins, it’s practically all he can hear, the echo of his steps and the soft huff of his breathing—and then he steps forwards and it’s gone, replaced by a deafening silence that leaves him momentarily disoriented. He takes a moment to shake his head, ears flat against his scalp, attempting to regain his bearings.
On the one hand, this is a good thing, because it means he’s close; on the other, considering he still can’t see Xisuma, it’s not exactly helpful. He could call out to the man, but the silence would swallow his words before Xisuma ever heard them, and he’d be no closer to locating him.
He tilts his head to the side, eyes narrowed, and it takes him a moment to spot what he’s looking for: the silvery, nearly-transparent form of a Sound Wisp. He waits, for a moment, just watching it—then lunges, attempting to snatch it out of the air. Predictably, the Wisp dances out of his way, disappearing into the haze of his peripheral vision.
Etho curses. The sound is swallowed up and his ears hear nothing but silence.
Sound Wisps are slippery things. Really, it speaks to Xisuma’s capabilities that he was ever able to Petition them. Etho spares a longing glance at the Wood Wisps on his fingers, but the spirits are useless here, not a single tree in sight.
Well then. The hard way it is.
It’s funny, walking in a space without vibration—you don’t realise how much of the world’s feedback to you is haptic-based until it’s gone. Without the sound of his footsteps reverberating around him, Etho loses his bearings. He lets his eyes unfocus, and he’s not exactly looking at the corridor around him anymore. He’s just looking for the Sound Wisps as they eat all the noise around him. He knows Xisuma well enough to understand somewhat how his Petition works—the Wisps spread out from him in a radius, more clustered closer around him, and less towards the edges of the circle. If he looks for the Wisps, he should be able to follow them by their thickness in the air, and find Xisuma at the centre.
So he looks around him through half-focused eyes, lets his brain register where more of the Wisps are clustered, and moves in that direction, one hand dragging against the cold and damp stone wall. It helps with the disorientation, and jerks him back to his senses when the wall runs out and he’s stumbling into a large chamber. The ceiling is covered in vegetation, the floor covered in cracked mosaic tiles, and there’s a small water feature on one wall. Xisuma sits in the centre of it all, surrounded by papers, deep in focus as he scribbles something down in his field journal.
Etho lets out an unheard sigh of relief, walks over, and waves a hand between X’s face and the book.
It’s funny, watching someone startle with no sound: Xisuma jerks upwards and falls back, dislodging papers from their position as he falls, mouth open in a silent scream. There’s a sudden rush of air, and then silence is replaced with the dizzying absence of it, the echo of rushing water and the scuttling of scavengers and Xisuma’s ragged breathing and Etho’s breathless laughter.
“Sorry, sorry,” he apologises, but there’s a shit-eating grin on his face as the words leave him.
“Jeez, Etho,” Xisuma gasps, one hand pressed to his chest. “Don’t do that to a man, my gosh.”
“I couldn’t warn you!” Etho protests. “It was too quiet!”
Xisuma, at least, has the decency to look sheepish at that. “Right, right, sorry,” he says. “The noise of the water was bothering me. I needed to concentrate, you know.”
Etho huffs. “Next time, make it a little less quiet,” he says, reaching into his bag and pulling out a letter. “For you,” he declares, holding it out.
Xisuma takes it with a quiet thanks, eyes gleaming when he sees the golden seal on the back of the envelope. He quickly slides his nail beneath the seal and opens it up, pulling out a sheath of thick paper, face splitting into a grin as he reads the words.
“Good news?” Etho asks.
X nods. “They’re extending my research funding,” he says brightly. “This is great news. There’s still so much of these old ruins to explore and I was worried I’d run out of time to.”
“Congrats,” Etho says. Then, “What happens when your funding does run out? Out of, uh, curiosity.”
“I return to the university, I guess.” Xisuma is only half paying attention to him as he reads the details of his extended research funding. “Finish my writeup from my desk.”
“Ah. You’d be leaving us, then?”
“I suppose.” X glances up at him. “Why? Would you miss me?”
Etho’s not sure how to answer that—in truth, his mind had wandered over the mountains, away from Spawn Valley and to the world beyond, that familiar nostalgia tugging at his heart. “Wouldn’t be the same without you,” he lands on.
“Oh, well.” Xisuma looks just as awkward as Etho feels. “That’s very sweet of you, Etho.”
“Well, I’d best be off,” Etho announces, rather than responding to that. “Stop turning the volume down.”
“Ha, well, I’ll do my best. No promises, though.”
Etho leaves him behind with a casual wave, footsteps once more echoing around him as he heads out of the ruins.
Predictably, he finds Ren and False together. She’s sitting in the low branches of a tree on the riverbed, not too far from where her houseboat is anchored, while Ren’s down in the roots, shovel in hand and a small pile of dirt by his feet. Etho raises his eyebrows as he approaches.
“What’s going on over here?”
False glances over at him, unsurprised; Ren jerks to attention, ears perking and tail wagging, a grin splitting his face. “Etho!” he greets brightly. “Hi! Good to see you, man, good to see you. What’s shakin’?”
“Your mail,” Etho tells him, fishing a letter and a package out of his mailbag. “You didn’t answer my question.”
“Ren says something good’s buried under this tree,” False comments from above. Her legs swing in the air, Water Wisps clinging to the soles of her boots and dripping down to the ground. There are more in her hair, clustered around her ears, giving her a strangely sodden appearance.
“Might take a bit of digging,” Ren admits. His petitioned Stone Wisps cluster around his hands, much like Etho’s, and as he digs they slide down his shovel, scratchy giggles filling the air as they scrape against the handle. “But it’s something good, I can feel it.” He drops the shovel, however, turning to Etho and holding out his hands. “That my package?”
“Sure is,” Etho replies, handing it over.
“Sweet!” Ren tugs at the string on the packaging as Etho steps past him to hand a nondescript envelope to False, who takes it with a nod of thanks. “Biscuits from Mama.” Ren turns the now opened package to reveal, sure enough, a box of cookies. “Outydse Soetkoekies,” he names them. “Here, try one.”
“Oh, I really shouldn’t,” Etho protests, even as he eyes the sugar cookies curiously.
“You sure, man? I really don’t mind.”
Etho almost, almost says yes, before biting it back at the last moment. “No, really. Thank you, though.”
Ren nods, shoving a cookie into his own mouth and offering the box to False. False takes one and begins to nibble on the edge of it. Ren notices the opened envelope in her other hand and asks, “Ooh, whatcha get?”
“Junk mail.” False shrugs. “Nothing important.”
Etho pulls a face at that. He and Tango have been talking about installing some kind of junk mail filter on the mail system for months, but it’s easier said than done on account of there’s no reliable way to tell junk mail from real mail. One man’s trash is another man’s treasure, after all.
“Sorry about that,” he apologises to False.
She waves him off. “No, don’t worry. It was nice seeing you, Etho.”
“Yeah, man!” Ren says, half muffled around a mouthful of cookie. “We should hang out more!”
“Ha, yeah, maybe…” Etho clears his throat, tail swishing uncomfortably behind him. “Well, I’d best be going. Pearl will kill me if I’m late, you know. She can be real scary.” He takes a step back away from the two of them, gaze travelling up the road to his next destination.
“Yeesh. And she always seemed so sweet…” Ren shakes his head and waves at Etho. “Bye! Good luck with your boss!”
False, for her part, just offers a nod and an amused, knowing look. “See you, Etho.”
The air drops in temperature considerably as he approaches Hypno’s home. The ground is covered in a thin layer of frost, the dewdrops on the greenery in the village here replaced by the spiky icicle form of Snow Wisps. Etho watches his breath mist in the air in front of him as he observes his target.
Target, because delivering Hypno’s mail is always something of a mission. The man likes his privacy—something that Etho can very much respect and relate to—but his home security system of a petition has always been a bit much for Etho’s tastes.
The house before him is all white stone and clean lines and a shining teal roof. The lawn is well-manicured, almost to an antisocial degree, but there are enough patches of wildflowers and freely-growing grasses amongst the short grass that Etho doesn’t feel unsettled or threatened by it. Or, at least, not by the gardening choices. Cherry blossom petals drift through the cold air.
He takes a deep breath and takes a step forward.
A wall of ice appears in his way, Snow Wisps solidifying and blocking his path to the house.
Etho sighs, slumps a little, and takes a step back beyond the property line. After a moment, the wall melts, leaving the deceptively welcoming front yard before him. His hands go to the strap of his bag as he considers his angles and formulates a plan of attack.
He steps forward. Nearly walks face-first into the ice wall that slams up in front of him. Stays there for a moment. Steps back with large, quickened strides. Takes a deep breath. Flexes his fingers.
Etho takes off running and leaps just as the ice wall begins to descend. He hits the top of it, hands stinging from the biting cold surface, and clings there as the Snow Wisps respond to his actions by shooting the wall up into the air. He rides its momentum, using the force to pull himself to the top of the wall and fling himself over, hurtling through the air. The world blurs around him, white and blue and pink and green, and he hits the ground in a roll. He’s closer to the house, now, well within the security system’s bounds but still too far to reach the door.
The Snow Wisps don’t like that.
Etho feels them gather at his feet and jumps just in time to avoid being frozen to the ground. The grass turns slick beneath him and he takes advantage of it to slide further into the property, only for another wall to begin to rise before him. He flails, just barely grasping the top of it with one hand, and yelps as the harsh upward movement yanks his shoulder painfully. His feet scrabble for purchase on the slippery surface as the ice takes him up and up, even higher than the roof on Hypno’s house, glittering teal tile below him.
Etho’s fingers feel numb from the cold. His chest is heaving from exhaustion. He glances down and immediately regrets it as he’s hit by a wave of vertigo.
And that’s when he sees it: the cherry blossom tree in full bloom standing tall beside the house.
He eyes it for a moment, judging the angle, and then moves. One swing, then two, building momentum as his fingers slowly lose their purchase, and on his third swing he purposefully lets go and launches his body to slide along the ice wall towards the tree. He collides with the branches in a way that’s painful and undignified, scratched by twigs and getting loose cherry blossoms caught in his hair. Growth Wisps and Wood Wisps alike chatter reproachfully at him, tugging at his hair and clothes. He spits a few stray pink petals from his mouth and begins to shuffle his way forward along the branch he’d landed on towards the trunk, wincing as the icicles turn themselves on him and drive their sharp ends into his skin.
Finally, he reaches the trunk, and reaches up with desperation to knock on it. A door appears and swings open and Etho allows himself to tumble into the bright light within, fumbling blindly for another handle. It takes a moment, but he finally forces open a tiny door, allowing a glimpse of the interior of Hypno’s home beyond. He pulls the penultimate letter from his bag and slips it through the narrow gap. It floats gently to the ground below the potted sapling and Etho pulls his hand back, allowing the door to close as he falls even deeper into the light.
Everything is gold and bright and overwhelming. Etho stretches out his arms, fingers outstretched, and after a small eternity feels his fingers catch on a latch. He grabs on hard, yanking himself to a halt, and pushes it open with his body weight, tumbling out of a tree and onto the bank of the river.
He lies on his back for a long moment, looking up at blue sky through the branches of the tree above. He tilts his head back and there, sure enough, are the white walls of Hypno’s house, a couple hundred metres away.
“I’m going to send him a strongly-worded letter,” he mutters as he forces himself into a sitting position, “about assaulting the mailman.”
And then he realises that in order to do so, he’d have to deliver the letter, and his motivation to do so abruptly dies.
The last delivery of the day should be a pleasant one: Beef’s farmhouse sits at the edge of town, surrounded by idyllic fields, the river that circles Spawn Valley wrapped around it like a blanket. Etho stands atop the hill and looks down on it, a knot of tension in his chest releasing. A smile on his face, he begins his descent towards his old friend’s home.
His first sign that something is wrong is a set of unfamiliar footprints in the dirt. He pauses, glancing down at them, and maybe he’s just being paranoid—maybe Beef just got new shoes!—but there’s something off about the prints. Maybe it’s the smell. Something cloys in the back of Etho’s throat as he glances around the path and sees more prints and scuffs in the dirt.
Heart pounding, he picks up pace, walking faster towards the farmhouse.
The second sign that something is wrong is the sound of Beef’s dogs barking. Lemon and Lime, he knows, are very well-behaved, and rarely bark—at least, not like this, loudly and incessantly. Caution abandoned, Etho breaks into a run, racing down the path, up the porch steps and coming to a sudden halt before the open door, hanging broken off its hinges.
“Beef?” he calls, voice hesitant, and gets no response.
The door is already open, and so he walks inside, jaw dropping as he sees furniture knocked astray, a mug of coffee spilled across the floor, cupboards and drawers flung open. Doors are pulled half off their hinges, there are scuffs in the walls, and one of the windows has been shattered. Lemon and Lime rush over to him, comforted by his familiarity, and push at him, as if demanding him to fix this.
And Beef is nowhere to be seen.
“Beef?” he calls again, louder now, something desperate cracking his voice. “Beef? Are you there? Beef!”
Silence. He offers the dogs a reassuring pat to their heads before racing further inside, checking every door, looking for even a hint of his friend’s presence.
There’s nothing.
Etho thinks, faintly, that he may be sick.
Finally, he returns downstairs, and that’s when he notices something he hadn’t seen the first time: a letter. It’s sitting innocuously on top of the table, smudged ink still drying atop the crumpled and blood-splattered envelope. Etho’s stomach drops. He picks it up with shaking hands.
The addressee’s name is written in Beef’s familiar handwriting, and the name itself is just as familiar.
Doc.
“Well, snappers.”