Before I start, I pretty much have to say you guys are awesome. Thanks for all the nice reviews D I addressed this last chapter, but most of you won't see it so I'll say it again- in the game, you never see Jamie being mean to anyone other than your character. In this story, Jamie doesn't know that Alex and Annie are friends, and he hates Annie ((your character in the game)) because they're both trying to free the Goddess. Does that help? Alex, as of yet, doesn't even know about the Goddess and notes and stuff.
I woke up the next morning to the same, shrill alarm coming from the side of the bed. Groaning, I flipped onto my side and turned the alarm off before burrowing my head in the pillow again.
"I hope you're up, Alex!" Annie shouted from downstairs.
"How early do you wake up anyway?" I shouted back, lifting myself out of bed to get dressed.
"I woke up this morning at five," she yelled back. "I have your half of the pay from yesterday down here!"
I got dressed, did all of my primping, and ran downstairs to be assaulted with the smell of pancakes. Annie was in the kitchen, as usual, flipping pancakes and making orange juice simultaneously.
"You're going to hurt yourself without your crutches," I yawned, walking over to her.
"You have no trust in me. I'm wounded!" Annie exclaimed in a monotone, handing me an orange. "If you're just going to stand here, make juice. Oh, you haven't met my dog yet, have you?" Without waiting for a reply, Annie stuck two fingers in her mouth and whistled loudly; then laughed at my pained expression. A brown dog with floppy ears ran over to us from behind Annie's bed and sat down near my feet, staring at me.
"How come I haven't seen him before?" I asked, leaving the orange on the counter so I could bend down and pet the dog.
"He usually stays in the chicken coop. Don't ask why because I have absolutely no idea," Annie replied, flipping three pancakes onto a plate. "You don't have to worry about feeding him, cause he'll usually take something out of the refrigerator while I'm not watching. Hey, where's that orange juice?"
I was out of the house a half hour later with a full stomach. As I stepped outside, I was instantly drenched by torrents of rain. The visibility was so low I could barely see ten feet in front of my face. Quickly opening the door again, I ran back inside Annie's house and closed the door behind me, wiping rain out of my eyes.
"Whatcha doing back so soon?" Annie asked from the table, still finishing her pancakes. "Are you afraid you're going to melt?"
"I didn't know you meant 'horrible sheets of water' rain, I thought you meant calm little drizzles of rain!" I exclaimed as I tried to tuck my bangs behind my ears. "My eyeliner's probably running down my face!"
Annie studied me for a moment before nodding. "It is," she agreed, but stuck her hand out when I took a step forward. "You're not going past that doorway if you're that soaked. Just use your hands and wipe it off. Make sure your hands are dry when you go into the barn. Today's Thursday, and you get to make some yarn!" I wiped under my eyes obligingly and sighed heavily, mostly for show, before opening the door and walking outside again. The map dry and safe in my rucksack, I began to follow the path across the bridge and to the barn. I reached the barn eventually, after many stops to pull my hair out of my face.
"Stupid rain," I muttered as I entered the barn, instantly attacked by animal smells. True to Annie's prediction, the sheep was incredibly fluffy. I fed all the animals by hand, brushed them, milked the cow, and followed the instructions on the map to shear the sheep and make yarn. By the time I was finished, my clothes had dried slightly and I really didn't want to go out into the rain. I had to trek all the way back to Annie's house to dye the yarn, and then go up the mountain to find herbs and flowers.
Once I was back in the rain, I ran back to Annie's house, trying to reach it before the yarn got soaked and ruined. Annie had already left by the time I got into the house again, but she had left a note on the table for me.
Taking care of the chickens, and then there's something I need to take care of in the mountains. I'll probably be gone all day, so don't go looking for me. I'll be fine.
I groaned at the note and tried not to imagine Annie limping all the way up the mountain. She probably had forgotten that I was planning to go up the mountain as well today. After patting her excited puppy on the head a few times, I took the map out of my rucksack and put it on the table. It had already gotten damp, and I didn't want to ruin it. I then ran outside for the third time that morning.
I reached Jamie's ranch in record time, as I ran the entire way. He was near the edge of his fence, so I jogged over to him to say hi. He looked up to see me coming, and walked around the fence.
"Hi," I said, pushing my bangs out of my face again. The feeling of hair plastered to my skin was definitely not one of my favorite things to feel constantly.
"Hey," he replied, looking just as uncomfortable as I was. "You going there?" He gestured toward the mountain path with his head.
"Yeah."
He nodded and paused. "Just," he paused again, scratching his head. "Be careful, okay?" Riiight, his sister.
"I will, don't worry. See you," I called as I jogged toward the path. The path up was difficult to follow, and I somehow found myself off it. I reached my hand into my rucksack to pull the map out before remembering that I had left it on the table.
"Crap," I muttered. I had already managed to get myself lost. I sighed and began to wander around, picking up herbs and honey as I went. After I had wandered and gathered for, I supposed two hours at least, I was getting sick of being lost. I had managed to get myself pretty high up the mountain, and I had no idea what to do or where to go. I started to wander back the opposite way. I eventually reached a bridge that I hadn't seen on the way up before and crossed it stupidly. There were more herbs and honey to collect so I picked them up as I walked forward, suddenly finding myself on a path again. As I walked, I saw a sign on the side of the road, hopefully meaning I wouldn't be lost anymore. As I jogged up to it, I heard voices sounding incredibly similar to Jamie's and Annie's from farther up the road. Curious, I passed the sign and kept walking until I could hear the voices more clearly. There was a bend in the road, and I figured that's where they were.
"I have forty-seven," I heard Annie's voice say. She sounded smug.
"I will save her, you know," Jamie's voice said with a slight snarl to it. "Why don't you just give up and limp your way home?" I blinked, surprised. That was the Jamie Annie had told me about.
"I don't see why we can't just work together. We'd be able to save her a lot faster," Annie said, her voice seeming a lot closer. I ran back up the road quietly and dodged behind a large rock as Jamie, followed by Annie on her crutches, emerged.
"Why the hell do you have to be so egotistical?" Annie was asking rhetorically, sounding incredibly annoyed. I tried to make myself smaller as they walked past my hiding place, oblivious to my presence.
"Why won't you just leave me alone already?" Jamie shot back, their voices becoming softer as they walked farther. Realizing that I'd get off the mountain if I followed them, I stood up, ignoring the wetness of my pants, and started to follow far behind the two. Apparently Jamie had pissed Annie off, because she had disappeared when I finally got Jamie back in my sight. I followed behind him quietly until I saw the end of the mountain path. After making sure he was far enough so that he wouldn't see me walk off the mountain, I walked onto the village path, deciding I would have been up there much longer if I hadn't found those two. Now I had a mission though, because I wanted to know what Annie had forty-seven of. There was something she wasn't telling me, and I sure didn't like being left in the dark.
I reached Annie's house hours later, a nasty cough starting to develop in my chest. When I went in the house, Annie was inspecting the dyed yarn, looking dry as ever.
"Hey," she said to me distractedly as she pulled something out of the yarn. "Nice job with this, although it could be better . . ." I took my shoes off by the door and shivered to myself while she continued to study the red fluff. Annie finally looked up at me, and her look turned to one of concern.
"Alex! Go take a hot shower before you get sick! Leave the rucksack down here, and I'll look through everything."
"B-but I thought you said I can't go upstairs-" I stuttered, wrapping my arms around my stomach as I shivered near the door.
"Go!" Annie insisted, rising from the chair. I gave her my rucksack, moving slower than normal, and went up the stairs to shower. When I came out and went downstairs, clad in a robe, my glasses, and wet hair, Annie was making something yet again in the kitchen.
"Sit down," she told me without looking up from her concoction. "I'm making you some tea."
"Is it the raspberry sort?" I rasped, my voice already sounding sick. Annie whirled around to stare at me.
"Alex, you're sick! Already!" She threw her hands up. "I'm going to have to get you to the doctor tomorrow." She sighed as she turned around again. "There's a festival in two days, the Harvest Festival, and tomorrow's going to be a super busy day. Try not to be sick now, please?" She pleaded with me, to no avail. I sat down at the table and covered my mouth as I coughed my lungs out, grimly wiping my eyes when I had finished. Annie hopped quickly over with the tea and placed it in front of me.
"Drink," she commanded, hands on hips. I picked the cup up and sipped the red liquid, watching Annie judge my movements.
"It is raspberry," I exclaimed joyfully, coming out as a whisper. I set the cup down and pouted as Annie sighed again and returned to the kitchen to get her crutches.
"Hey Annie," I tried to call, "I think I'm sick."
"No shit, Sherlock," she replied, cleaning up. "You should probably go to sleep early tonight. Like, in two hours or something."
"Yes, thanks mom," I said sarcastically, cradling the tea.
"Well who else is going to take care of all my work for me tomorrow if you're sick?" Annie said, approaching me with a thermometer. I took it and begrudgingly stuck the metal instrument under my tongue as Annie tsk-ed at me.
"Your immune system must suck," she commented as we watched my temperature spike into the lower one hundreds. I shot her a glare and tapped my fingers on the table impatiently. It beeped finally, and Annie took it out of my mouth to examine it like my mother.
"You," she said, hopping to the sink to wash it off, "have a fever!"
"It's just a cold," I replied stubbornly before bursting into another coughing attack.
"If you wash your hands really well, I'll teach you how to make juice," Annie suggested. "You know, to get your mind off being sick. Or something. Maybe I'm just bored." She paused and placed the thermometer on the counter. "Amuse me, slave!"
"Of course. But only if you amuse me as well, whore. And hey, where did you say my money from yesterday is?" I walked over to the sink and washed my hands, sniffing approvingly at the strawberry soap.
"I put it on your bed. I figured you'd want to stash it somewhere. Did you call me a whore?" Annie slid a pot across the counter closer to us and brought fruits out of the refrigerator.
"Can I make some strawberry jam?" I asked randomly, sniffing the soap again. Annie eyed me carefully and shrugged, taking her time in getting out the needed ingredients for my jam.
When we had finished cooking, we had three jars of strawberry jam and at least ten glasses full of Very Berry soda. The rain had also stopped. The two of us sat at the kitchen table, one jar of jam open and half a loaf of bread spread sloppily over the tabletop. We each held a glass of soda; my second and Annie's third.
"I want to take a walk," I said suddenly, feasting on a piece of toast coated in jam. We sipped our sodas simultaneously, and Annie made a snort- giggle noise. "I'm afraid I'm going to have to cut you off," I announced as she demonstrated her horrible lack of soda-drinking ability.
"You gotta admit, we added way too much sugar to this stuff," she started before launching into a giggle fit. I watched her amusedly for a few seconds before joining in and then stopping suddenly as my laughs turned to coughs.
"That walk," I reminded myself, standing.
"Take some jam," Annie suggested in between her laughs. She grabbed her forth soda. "I don't eat it so much anyway. One of the extras."
"What am I supposed to do with it?" I asked as I climbed the stairs to change.
"Make a friend?"
I changed quickly and dug out my flip flops, as my shoes were still soaked.
"I have plenty of friends, thanks," I ground out as I ran back down the stairs, picking up the jam. Annie gasped dramatically when she saw me.
"ALEX! You're wearing your glasses! Your hair is down and you have no makeup on! And, what's this, you're wearing sweatpants!"
"Shut it," I demanded as I walked out. I heard Annie giggle behind me as I closed the door and sneezed into my forearm. I began walking south, deciding to explore the beach until I couldn't see anymore. When I finally reached the sand, I kicked off my shoes and let the sand slide between my toes.
"Alex?"
I turned around quickly, startled, to see Jamie standing not ten feet away.
"Oh," I rubbed the back of my head sheepishly, "I didn't see you there."
"I come here every night."
"Okay. . ."
We were silent as I picked my shoes up again and looked uncomfortably into the sky.
"Do you like jam?" I asked suddenly.
"It's one of my favorites," he replied slowly, looking at me suspiciously.
"Well I have extra, so here," I thrust the jar into his hands and stepped back as he smiled at it.
"Hey, thanks."
"Yeah, uh, no problem. I had extra. So, um, I gotta get going," I told him, deciding I shouldn't have given him the jam. Annie would probably ask who I gave it to, and that lying thing. . .
"Bye," he said, still holding the jam. I turned around and made my way out of the sand and past the barn. When I got back to Annie's place, she was still sitting at the table, staring warily at the leftover soda.
"Alex," she croaked when I entered, "get it away from me! It's. . ." she paused dramatically, "evil."
"I'm too sick," I said before coughing convincingly, making my way up the stairs. "See you tomorrow," I sang as she groaned from the table.
"But Aleeexxx!"
"Night Annie!"
Okay, no more fast updates. Don't expect another one until midweek at the earliest. But please review and I will reward you with pink-frosted cookies and chocolate milk.