Harvest Moon: Doom the Homeland

Chapter Eight: Awakening

It felt so odd. He'd lived in the remote village for a month, yet he felt unwelcome. Not as if the people hated him, which he'd made peace with (by killing them), but like he was supposed to be elsewhere. As if the entire world had rejected him.

Maybe it was the sight of his fried body that sent this feeling into him, telling him he was dead, forced to move on to another realm. Maybe it was because he acted like an asshole and massacred the whole place.

Either way, Jack was dead, left to find a path to the afterlife. Normally in this type of situation, an angel would descend to him and guide him away, or a demon would snatch him and cram his body through a hole into the underworld.

But, as convenient as being killed can be, the Harvest Goddess was the one who smashed him to bits only seconds before, so all he had to do was turn his transparent head around to see her.

"Jack…" she said, her sad voice echoing through the spiritual plane. The goddess shook her head in a severe disappointment that cannot be properly put into words without being understated. "How could you have fallen so far? You were once the nice, somewhat insane young farmer that brought joy to… some people. Now look at you."

It was as if his awakening the moment after his death had restored his former perspective. But it was too late now. Everything was annihilated. His head dropped toward the ground in shame.

"…I…" He had planned nothing to say before muttering that, and just froze. "How can I…?"

His emotions were understood. The purple haired woman just nodded.

"As local goddess, I shall intervene with nature and restore the land to its previous state," she stated. "All will be well. I trust you shall learn from this."

"AWESOME!" the farmer shouted, completely destroying the somber tone. "I've got another chance at making them not hate me!"

Despite his disrespectful shouting, the Harvest goddess merely smiled and waved a hand. But before time could be reversed, a series of tiny, pointy rocks struck her.

Protestors.

Letting out a small cry, she lifted her bleeding head to see a group of people holding buckets full of more projectiles. They stood unreachable on the hills hidden in the forest's wildlife. She wouldn't tolerate that.

"What was that about!" she snapped.

"See, your false idol is so quick to anger!" their leader, an older woman, shouted.

"Because you're tossing your damn rocks at me!" the goddess countered. "And why are you interrupting me when I'm trying to resurrect people here?"

"We, the Church Group of New Flowerbud, are sickened by this fanfiction's portrayal of the Harvest Goddess! Quite frankly, you're breaking the unwritten law of the world: the Harvest Goddess wants to kill everyone and only the true God can save them. Therefore, our god must be mentioned in fanfiction in which he isn't even relevant. Because we say so."

"…What?" the dumbstruck goddess managed to say.

"You heard me, demon!" When she finished shrieking, she turned to Jack. "Lad, you've made a terrible mistake."

"I know!" Jack exclaimed, his voice deteriorating into a sob. "I'm a murderer! Murderer!"

"No! You worship the wrong god!"

"…oh."

"By not cramming our religion down the throats of your fanfic's audience, you've violated the laws of nature. But never fear; there is a way out!"

"…How?"

The group's leader jumped out of her safe location buried in the trees. After stumbling through everything, she emerged, bruised.

The woman flung a book at Jack, which he barely caught. She commanded him to read chapter thirteen, verse 8, word 3, and onward. It read:

…plane. One must cherish thy lord, the Divine Qxtsazk. To do this, one must partake in tasks in his honor, such as dressing up as him and using his magical garments to give you immense powers to spread the faith, or simply being kind to others.

"So that means I should be good to others to atone for my horrible actions?" Jack reasoned.

"Hell no! You have to go back in time and convert the village to prevent the goddess's rise to power!"

"I doubt a god would give us such specific rules to abide by."

"DO IT."

"Yes'm," Jack whimpered, shakily snatching a box from her arms.

Opening the box as fast as he could to get everything over with, he found a jet black robe with ridiculous, glowing orbs sticking out of it. Shuddering, he slipped it on over his overalls. He liked it better when he was killing all his friends.

He examined his sleeves to find a series of buttons.

"For time travel?" he asked.

"Yes."

"I really don't--"

"You'll go to Hell."

"I killed like a zillion people and I've been forgiven. I doubt something so trivial--"

A stone sharpened to the point of becoming a knife struck the tree beside him, instantly convincing him to do as they said. He vanished into a colorful flash as quickly as possible—anything to get away from these weirdoes.

But the second he landed into his destination, he was filled with mixed emotions. For one thing, a lightning strike at that moment had struck down a tree that nearly crushed his legs. And, as if this wasn't bad enough, science fiction had struck caution into his mind. What if he couldn't do a thing? What if the predestination paradox meant that he already felt the consequences of time travel, and that nothing he could do would help. But there was the possibility of divergent timelines, allowing him to change time and get those lousy bums off his back once and for all.

Frustrated by the situation, she slumped angrily against the fallen tree. They'd stranded him correct-God-knows-how-many decades into the past with a magical suit with no instructions. He'd probably end up killing a relative and himself in the process of just trying to get everyone to worship some crazy religion.

"Who the hell is Qxtsazk, anyway? And why did I remember his name exactly, despite it being the weirdest thing ever spoken?"

Eventually, he noticed that he was now dressed in a more futuristic looking, horrifically bright orange, robotic suit. It must have materialized when he said "Qxtshazam" or whatever it was. They would kill him for this.

Wait a minute! Oh, shit! He was a ghost! A spirit! That psychotic church group couldn't do a think to him! And they had to do all this the second the goddess was gonna set everything right again, too.

Now he was a ghost inside a robotic suit that seemed to blend with ectoplasm. This may make him look like at least some kind of deity, regardless of how badly he stuck out, even in a tale this odd.

He found his way through the forest and into his grandfather's farm, where he found the old man alive and well as a healthy, young man. When the elder took his eyes of the young corn plant before him, he stumbled backwards.

"Who are you?" he shouted. "Crazy summa bitch, dressin' up like yer outta one of them comic books!"

"I," he paused dramatically, "am Qxtsazk."

"Hah!" laughed his ancestor. "And I'm Mr. Goddamn Mxyzptlk!"

"I'm serious! I've traveled back in time--"

"—from the fifth dimension?"

"WILL YOU STOP THAT?" Jack snapped, before regaining his calm, superior attitude. Pretending to be a god was fun. "You must worship me as your ruler, and in turn, you will receive…" He stopped, unaware of what some crazy cult's version of a god would propose. "Free Kool-Aid!"

"An' what's that? Some aliens helpin' me wit' the farm?"

Darn! He'd forgotten that his grandfather lived his whole life secluded on an island somewhere in the God-knows-where Ocean. "An easily poisoned beverage!"

"Why'd we want that?"

Damn! Jack had to think of something else, and fast. "Look, I'll give you all cool jackets when you die. Just worship me and tell your friends, too. Okay?"

"Aw, why not," his grandfather gave in. "My overalls're gettin' old."

"Pleasure doin' business with you."

Jack walked off back toward where he came from. All according to plan. And by 'plan', he meant 'crazy task I was forced to do in fear of a cult that would never leave me the hell alone'. Once he was safely hidden away in the trees, he departed back to his new home—the new timeline.

As a lifetime of events passed by as if they were nothing at all, he thought of the absurdity of this task. Converting one obscure tiny village to some obscure religion wasn't going to have any effect. This was just one big waste of his time.

But in the new timeline, the group wouldn't have stopped the goddess from forgiving Jack and resetting everything, so he'd be back in human form when he got there. A fresh start. And everything would be back to normal, sans the killing spree.

When he was thrust out of the world between time and into a rotting, decaying, dark, crime-filled dystopia, he had to wonder what part of fixing everything failed to work out.