Harvest Moon: Doom the Homeland
Chapter Two: Lost in the Wilderness
With the gold coins he was paid and the milk that he probably should have given Bob but didn't in his hands, Jack was ready to go home. After all, the afternoon was starting to convert into night, and he would have to get home and get some rest before the sprites could do something weird to him.
But Jack was unfamiliar with this town. Heck, he didn't even know its name. Getting to his new home would be a difficult task.
At first, the fact that he was lost didn't occur in his mind. The young man just looked at the squirrels running around and picked up poisonous-looking berries to sell and flowers that he could use as gifts.
Then an hour passed. Jack decided to make a simple dinner for himself- a cluster of purple berries and the stolen milk. Apparently, the combination triggered an allergic reaction, causing him to vomit every minute for the next hour and a half.
By eight o'clock, Jack was almost too weak to move. He struggled to pull his tired body across through the wilderness. It was almost pitch black, causing him to squint every time he tried to find any humans.
"Please, Harvest Goddess…" Jack muttered in prayer, holding his hands together. "If you help me find civilization, I'll try to be a better person… Ah, screw it. You're probably sleeping right now."
Jack was right. The Harvest Goddess was sound asleep underwater, clutching her childhood teddy bear. And her childhood was about three hundred years ago, so the bear was beginning to decompose.
Back in the woods, Jack was sitting on a stump. Since all the berries made him sick, he would have to forage for something else.
By rubbing two sticks together, he eventually started a fire. Now he could finally see what was in front of him- a confusing mass of trees and bushes. Everything was covered in fungus, so that meant nothing was edible.
He groaned, rubbing his empty stomach. All the plants were covered in that weird, purple fuzz. But, suddenly, a squirrel dashed past him. And as if a gift from the Harvest Goddess Herself, a dart dropped into Jack's palm.
The farmer closed his hand and grinned. He closed his eyes to detect the squirrel's movements with The Force (IE: he just guessed) and tossed the dart through the air.
The squirrel was hit, but not fazed by it at all. The enraged mammal zoomed through the forest, aiming to hit its attacker.
"Gyaugh!" exclaimed the young man, desperately trying to hit the squirrel away. It took about seven minutes for him to do that.
Jack ran far away from the squirrel. However, what he didn't know was that beneath all the leaves and bushes, his small fire was still lit…
An older teenage girl with a solemn expression and short black hair stood inside a mansion. As an orange glow from outside blurred her vision, she moaned.
"GINA!"
"What is it?" a quiet, female voice asked from another room.
"There's some kind of fire outside. I can't stand around looking like a stereotypical, rich, angst-filled teenager with fire messing up my vision. Put it out."
"Yes ma'am!" the other young woman answered dutifully and enthusiastically.
The young farmer was lying on the forest floor, breathing heavily. Several miscellaneous mammals dashed past at supersonic speeds. He'd never be able to match their speed, let alone hunt one. He grabbed a rock that was securely fastened to the ground and pulled himself across the ground once more. His brown eyes were almost closed, and he was about to faint any minute.
Suddenly, his extraordinarily weak legs felt his pants ablaze. The fire that he had no idea where it came from (in other words, the one he started and left to consume the forest in an inferno) was still raging!
"Oh, damn it all." He sighed and paused for a moment, considering the effects that his actions would cause to the environment. Then he realized that his friggin pants were on fire. "SCREW IT!"
Surely Lyla and Gwen would hate that he could have possibly wiped out every form of life that inhabited the woodland, but his futile attempts to extinguish the hellish blaze that spread across his trousers. He tried to stop, drop, and roll, but the ground was on fire. If he perished, this stupidity would surely earn him a Darwin Award.
"Hmm?"
Jack heard a gentle, female voice from behind a plant. He walked over to see that there was a cerulean-haired girl sitting behind it. Her brown eyes, which were behind large glasses, were focused on him. Apparently, she was spying on him.
"H-h-hello, sir."
This girl was probably the only sane human who would call an idiotic rancher who set an entire forest on fire "sir". Jack tilted his head, causing his burning ponytail to set the bush the girl was sitting behind on fire.
"Darn it," she muttered, brushing the fire off her dress. "Are you oka…?"
The farmer was being incinerated alive.
Jack's eyes opened slowly. He found himself lying on the floor in a large mansion with large staircases and well-decorated rooms surrounding him.
"Wow, it's just like Dad's house… until the police repossessed the stolen items." He blinked and walked into the kitchen.
An elderly woman was busy cutting carrots. Her blue hair was fading and her face was covered in wrinkles. Jack immediately ran over.
"Martha?" he asked. The old woman turned to him. "It's me, Jack! You used to work for my family, remember?"
"Who?" she asked, her memory vanishing every moment.
"My dad was the scary looking mafia guy. He kept on hiding former business associates drenched in blood and bullet holes in the forest."
"Oh, you people!" She smiled. "I thought that you were still serving a life sentence for that… you know… 'incident'."
"No…" he said, uncomfortable with her accusing him of homicide. "You must be confusing me with my father…"
"I never do that," Martha insisted, then ignored the young man to finish her chores.
Suddenly, Jack's eyes opened wide when he felt someone's hand touch is shoulder. He turned around to see the same blue haired girl that he encountered back in the forest. Instantly, his memories of his old life were brought back.
"Wait a minute… Gina?"
"You know me, sir?" she asked politely, yet slightly confused.
"We used to play together when we were kids," he recalled. "I was the boy who had to leave because his father was banned from the state, remember?"
"JACK!" she exclaimed, forgetting her introverted nature for a brief moment. "It's good to see you again, sir."
"Gina, what are you doing?" a female's voice interrupted her, causing Gina to flinch and turn around.
"H-hello, Dia," she responded, her voice full of respect and terror.
"Oh, damn, you're unharmed." The teenage girl with short black hair stepped out of the shadows. "I thought it would be funny to send you into that hellish place and struggle to saturate the flames." She glanced outside, only to see the fire spreading at a deadly rate. "I see that you couldn't comprehend that, you imbecile."
"I-I was trying to rescue Jack," Gina insisted. "I forgot that our village was in danger for a second."
"Oh, that's okay," Dia said. "I'll just order you to run off a mountain and then this problem will be complete. Got it?"
"Yes, ma'am," she said. "I will at once."
The farmer had a perplexed expression on his face. "Um, you do realize that this chick is trying to kill you, right?" he commented.
"It's all in the contract my idiot father signed, sir," she muttered, before returning to her respectful tone. "I'll go now, ma'am."
"You wouldn't--!" he shouted at the other girl.
"Spare me," she said calmly, before revealing a piece of paper. "Section two states that I can tell her to do whatever the hell I want. That was pretty much the whole contract."
"But that's not human!" he insisted.
Dia's eyes flashed bright red for a second, but the farmer missed that. Since he wasn't paying attention to that, Jack was caught completely off guard when a black beam sent him hurtling out through the wall.
Soon, another beam exploded next to his head before he could even say a word. Jack jumped to his feet, then ran far away to his home.
After scampering as hastily through the burning forest as humanly possible, the farmer was faced with a decision. He could either return to his new home, go to sleep, and hope that he would return to his real home. Or, instead, he could go to the bar, waste the little money he got from the job at the other farm, and get so drunk that he would start to go even more insane.
Yeah, I think you guessed what he did next.
Next time on Harvest Moon: Doom the Homeland
Chapter Three: Fish of Hell
Next time, Jack makes some friends, goes fishing, and has a wonderful time.
…
Bwahahahaha!
Alas, the section where I thank all the people who reviewed this fic and kept it alive.
Kairi 7-- ...Okay then... XD But seriously, killing hares is a serious tragedy that deserves to be prevented. Call the following number for more information.
RandomlyInsaneWhitePony-- So do I, but that's what SoH is for. Thanks for reviewing!
kelley28-- I interrupted a person at work? My goal is slowly becoming reality... Mwahahaha.
not telling you-- Yes, fanfic writers love hearing their reviewers talk about boogies. It's fascinating.
Fushica-- Yeah, there are more AWL and FoMT fics here at the moment. And I'm always writing about the other ones. XD Thanks for reviewing!