Synopsis:

This is a new story I've been working on, recently. Inspired by my favorite video game series, Harvest Moon. Obviously, Emily Browning is not Japanese, but this is how I envisioned my cast. **A Fanfiction** This is purely written for fun. :) Enjoy.

The only reason this is rated M for Mature, is because of sexual innuendo's. There are no sex scenes in here but there are sexual insinuations where the characters MAY or MAY NOT have sex, and MILD cursing.

Jenna Lebron thought after turning twenty one, her life would finally start. She could finally do all the things she wanted to do. Go to the college of her choice, drink, and everything else a young adult is able to do.

However, her exciting life is put on hold when her fathers rural farm hometown becomes in desperate need of help to rebuild itself again. Since her father is medically unfit to do such a task, she is forced to uproot herself from her quaint little town she's grown up in, and leave her father, as she moves across the entire state of Nebraska to the rural development of a town called "Echo Village,"

The Farm

I had always liked driving. At times when I needed it, it always seemed to relax me. But now, after driving for nine-and-a-half hours straight from my home town, I started to despise it.

It was to an old, rural farm town that my car was carrying me to. It was also the settlement my father actually came from and then left shortly after I was born due to my Mothers passing and his own health and medical inability to continue the farm himself.

Back in its glory days, the farm was beautiful, well kept, green, and full of livestock and people and even quite a few businesses. However, about a month ago, my father spoke to his friend Dunhill over the phone who pleaded for his help, and informed him of just how bad of shape the town had took over the past twenty-one years.

My father's farm was still there, but when it was left by him twenty one years ago, the economy of the town collapsed without his help. Motels, Restaurants, Barber shops, and various other businesses that had been there for years and thrived back in their day, couldn't make it on just their incomes alone because tourism seized and the employment rate plummeted. They were forced to shut their doors or move to more popular towns. The only place that was left open for business was an old General store and an animal dealer.

At first, I wasn't going to offer any help to my Father because I knew I had none to give that could be as sufficient enough to help anyone, I was twenty one years old! I had no idea how to rebuild a town from the ground up! I was barely getting out of College and was preparing to return. But my priorities took over when my father got off the phone, and I could see tears welding in his eyes. My father loved his farm and the town he grew up on. As he always told me, the farm had been in the family for hundreds of years. The town was never a huge tourist attraction, but his crops, dairy, and livestock produce were known for their quality. And now, as it appeared, it was under the threat of being plowed over to nothing unless someone stepped into do it.

When I gave into myself and I offered my help, I could tell my father was a little skeptical. But then the second I saw the wheels turning in his head, I knew I was in a situation I couldn't dream of wishing to get out of.

This is where a sibling would come in handy. I came from a small city, I wasn't an outdoors girl by any means. I still remember one day when I came into my house in tears because my new white shoes got dirt all over them. How was I supposed to be a farmer? Was I going to clam up the second I got a booboo and go running? No, I couldn't. I didn't have the luxury of that choice. I didn't even have the luxury of bringing along a companion to stay with me in the old creaky farm house my father had on his farm.

I breathed in a sigh of relief as I drove through the directions I wrote down when Dunhill and I spoke on the phone a couple days ago.

So far, each element he described appeared around me as I followed them. Mile markers, signs, dirt road turns, and specific hills.

The scenery of everything was nothing but flat greenery for miles and it didn't seem that, that was going to be changing any time soon. There were plenty of mountains around the area, but the tallest one Dunhill told me about in his instructions, was in my clear viewing and according to him, the town was just beyond the enormous mountain.

The next direction I took was a small road cut into the green with horse trailers and truck tires. As little as it was, it felt like it was attempting to break my car in half. My poor vehicle rocked and rattled down the entire clumsily carved out road. The dirt road I had drove on before this was so smooth! My gosh! I yelled into the echo of my thoughts. Can no one at least blade this road! I pushed my car through the atrocious road, until I was finally cornering the mountain, and turned onto another road that I could see the town from. This road wasn't so rough, but as I drove, I could already see that Dunhill was not exaggerating just how rural and down the town had become. As I approached closer, I felt a ping of panic. I couldn't have the right town, could I? This had to be a mistake.

It reminded me of the little communities back in the eighteen and nineteen hundreds and on Western movies. As I drove straight through the town, I looked around at my surroundings to take it in. The mountain I'd seen from behind was glamorous. But it may have been the town's only glamorous spot to see. The main street I was on, was only gravel that cut a light brown trail through the rich grassy terrain of the town. I didn't know much about farming, but the lush green that blanketed the entire settlement proved that the town obviously had rich soil.

As I entered the town a little further, I had to imagine a string wrapped around my head to hold my chin in place to keep from rudely dropping my jaw open in shock, as I pulled my car past the town's entry.

Down the main street of the city, was a short line of store fronts that all appeared to be out of business. The only building that appeared alive was an old, small, wooden building that had a faded red lettered sign on the front of it that read "General store". On the other side of the street were three or four residential homes.

Behind all the store fronts were two large hills that looked over the entire town. One held a flat court-yard establishment. The much shorter hill to the right of the other, held a couple of more houses. From the looks of it, they were empty. Including a house with a brick fence that was probably the fanciest of them here.

I ignored the looks from the town's residents as I drove through the town. They knew who I was already, which brought a strike of fear through me. These people were depending on someone to come help them turn their sad little community into something better. They were overestimating me, and it was going to take my sure failure to prove it to them. I couldn't do this. I was going to make things worse. I failed raising my gold fish, how was I supposed to do this!

Before I could talk myself into driving all the way home or a panic attack, I drove just a little faster through the instructed destination.

Drive three houses further into town, and then turn onto the road between to small mountains.

Following the directions, I could already tell the farm from many of the other little houses I'd seen in the town.

I had to be honest in admitting that I expected a worn-down, unlivable wooden affair, but the house looked surprisingly sturdy. It was a man-built house, with aged wood that would need some weather proofing, a bay window stuck to the side of the house, and a peaked roof. I had never had my own place before, but even as nervous and certain I was that I was doomed to fail, it would be nice to have a house like this to call my own for at least a while.

I exited my car for the first time in nine hours, and felt like my legs were noodles beneath me. I almost toppled forward until I clung to my door for support. I held on for a few minutes to sturdy myself before I started to walk.

I made my way over to the front porch I now noticed, and looked around. The lot was so big, I couldn't tell where it ended, and where it started. There were another set of hills on either side of the lot, but I was sure they were probably the property line.

I fetched the keys out of my pocket my father gave me for the house and moved my achy legs up the steps of the porch to the front door. When I found the correct keys to use, a voice startled me from behind, causing me to jump and drop my keys against the wooden platform, and whip around to the speaker.

"May I be of some help to you?"

His voice was a lot different in person than it was over the phone. It was much darker and older, but his tone told me he knew exactly who I was.

I waved slightly and smiled as pleasantly as I could. "Hi, Dunhill,"

"Jenna," he said, softly as he made his way up the steps. "I'm so glad you're here, especially me."

The hopeful expression on his face, mixed with relief, told me he wasn't being dramatic. But I was dreading telling him I had no idea how I was supposed to be of any help. By the looks of my long sleeved buttoned plaid shirt, jeans and tennis, couldn't he take the load off my shoulders and admit to himself that I wasn't fit?

"Come on, I'll help you pack some of your stuff in." He offered, as I flipped through my keys again, I unlocked the front door. When I nudged it open, a storm of dust rained down from the door jam, causing me to choke.

"You okay?" Dunhill called as he stood by my car observed the boxes in my car.

"Dust…lots of dust," I said, wrinkling my nose in disapproval and covering my mouth with my sleeve, and covered my tone with a chuckle.

He chortled back and smirked, "Leave a house for twenty one years, its bound to get a few dust-bunnies along the way,"

"That wasn't a dust bunny that was a dust scientifically-enhanced-mutation," I jokingly said and headed to my car and opened the door and the trunk.