Hello! This is my second fanfiction (following the great disaster that was the Pokemon fanfic *shivers*) I would like to give special thanks to my good friend xMiyumiChanx for helping me edit this beast of a word document (helping is an understatement actually :)P) and I hope you all enjoy!
!Disclaimer I do not own Harvest Moon or any of it's characters!
Prologue
The fog slowly rolled into the cold sea surrounding Waffle Island, as the doctor Jin walked around his home to go to work at the clinic. He noted the unusual coldness and hidden surroundings, and the lack of the sound of animals and activity around the Maple Lake. Leisurely fixing his bifocals he continued down the path and noted even the absence of the usual town's folk, including Gill, who was always on a tight schedule.
Jin gradually opened the door to his clinic and let in the crisp smell of medicine and sanitizer overcame his senses. Looking around for Irene to help him with shorting medicine he found her reading in the corner.
"Terrible day isn't it Jin?" she commented looking up at the young doctor.
"Something is off, I can't nail it though, something's coming the so many strange things are happening today", he stated to her, hoping to hear her theory.
"They probably are just staying in their burrows during this cold morning, as are most of the villagers", Irene gently reassured him.
Jin nodded uncertainly as he walked over to the counter and started taking inventory of the medicines he had stashed up, the only noise being that of a distant dog barking.
Suddenly his eye caught something as he looked over the cough medicine. The thick liquid inside of it was steadily washing back and forth, the waves getting bigger and quicker as he watched.
Bit by bit as the floor began to shake as well; realization dawned on Jin as to what was happing.
"Irene, get out it's an earthquake!" he yelled as the real power of the earthquake began to show; shaking the building unmercifully, the dog's barks increasing.
Irene stood up in panic and started to go for the door but fell down from the trembling and lack of footing. Vials were bursting and hazardous liquids fell on the ground.
Jin, grabbing his bearings, ran to Irene and helped her out of the clinic and into the town square.
Outside people were running around franticly as they tripped and stood up just to fall down again from the shaking earth.
The young doctor and many others could only watch in horror as the town hall crashed to the floor crumbling.
Chaos was everywhere, the gas lines were starting to break and a fire had started in the Sundae Inn and was quickly spreading to the rest of the town, but a water pipe burst and dowsed most of the fire, but a b it too late to save the inn.
The earthquake seemed as if it would never let up, but as quick as it came, it disappeared, with only the damage of the town to show it was ever there.
"Oh my Goddess", Luna gently muttered as she stared at the demolished Town Hall before rapidly running towards it.
"Gill! Gill!" she desperately called out for her fiancée as she reached the fallen rubble, only to find him buried in the debris, unconscious.
"Jin! Help!" Luna yelled with tears forming in her eyes. Jin swiftly ran to the spot to see the crushed man, but as he reached him he breathed out a sigh of relief.
"The wood hasn't broken anything and he seems to just have fainted from shock. Don't worry he should make a full recovery," Jin soothingly told her.
"Thank The Harvest Goddess!" she cried as she sat down next to Gill, waiting for him to wake up.
Jin looked around without hurry only to step back in disgust as he saw Hamilton, broken and crushed beyond repair in the hidden rubble of the town hall.
Jin averted his eyes from the sight and walked away to check on the rest of the survivors and the casualties.
As he scanned the scene he saw Chase and Yolanda mourning over Maya's motionless body, all covered in soot and small burns from the brief fire, and it wasn't long before Chase broke down and started crying over her rigid body.
It seemed as if half the villagers hadn't made it out alive, and Jin was still on edge, fearing aftershocks, or worse a tsunami that would wipe out the entire island.
Calvin and Owen were nowhere to be found and if Jin's instincts were correct they were in the mines, which would most likely mean that the two of them had been crushed in a mine in during the quake. He then gasped happily after seeing that Phoebe had not suffered that fate.
Still, it seemed from Anissas's cries that both her parents hadn't been as lucky and were now gone from the island forever.
Pascal, Toby, Ozzie, and Paolo all alive, due to being at sea fishing during the earthquake and were now docking there boat to see the damage done to Waffle Island.
Luke and Dale were standing far away from everyone else, grieving over Bo, who had apparently been crushed by a falling tree while they were evaluating.
No one had seen or heard from the residents of Brownie Ranch, and knowing how big the ranch was and how vulnerable everyone was to earthquakes Jin could only assume the worse.
Gill was now wide awake and was limping over to Candace and Shelly, got out just in time.
Jin walked over to Irene and turned to get away from the chaos when the rapid clang of horse shoes on the cobblestone got his attention. Jin turned in high hopes to maybe see Renee or that Akari had made it but instead saw Julius's black horse, with him riding on top breathing heavily and his eyes filled with panic.
Jin looked up at Julius and didn't know how to react until Julius exclaimed, "Someone help! Akari and Victoria are trapped under the houses rubble; I'm not strong enough to help them! Anyone please help me!" he begged desperately as the ground gently shook with one of the first after shocks.
At first it seemed like no one was willing to get up and help until Jin walked over to Julius and told him to get back to the house and wait for him there.
Julius noted hastily and turned his horse, Ebony, around and galloped back to the Caramel River District.
Jin gathered Luke, Dale, and Toby to help with getting the young rancher and her daughter out from under the destroyed home.
When the five men arrived at the once lush and beautiful ranch land, Jin was taken back in horror. The trees were cracked and bent over, the crops uprooted, and the vegetables smashed and there juicy insides were disturbingly similar to spilled human guts.
Julius was over by the house rubble pulling in vain to pull one of the wooden beams off of the huge pile of fallen material.
Instantly Jin knew what was hiding under the cover of debris, but he didn't want to believe it and ran with the others to pull off the beams. One after another they removed stones and wooden beams to find remains of furniture and cooking equipment.
Finally, the six men uncovered Akari from the crushing beams, clutching her daughter in her arms.
Julius turned to Jin, his eyes ablaze with fear and panic as he hastily spoke, "Jin, you can help her, right?"
Jin remained silent, Toby and Luke both looked away, knowing the truth and not wanting to be the ones to have to tell the young fashion designer.
"You can, right?" Julius asked hopefully, his voice cracking.
"I'm sorry", Jin silently told him, not looking in Julius's eyes.
"No…" Julius breathed terrified, "It can't be true".
"Akari? Wake up, your awake right, you too Vicky?" Julius breathed desperately, doing his best to ignore the truth, "Right?"
The two girls remained unmoving and it slowly it dawned on Julius that he would never hear either of the two girls' voices again. He rapidly broke down and started lamenting over the two dead bodies.
"No! You can't be gone! You just can't! What will I do Akari? How can I live without you?" he wailed.
Jin painfully looked away from the depressing scene and looked up the mountain to see that the Goddess Tree had fallen in the earthquake.
"I'm so sorry", Jin said to Julius as he walked over to the demolished barn to grab some fodder for Ebony, the only surviving animal, who was staring sadly at the whole scene.
Well, I hope you enjoyed it so far, I am going to try and update every Friday so look forward to next weeks chapter and until then hope you have a great week. Rate and Review please I love criticism (well, the good kind at least)