Chapter 1: The Market Encounter

Peaceful, calm and silent. There's tranquility. That's how rural populace describe the forest people—some of them called it forest creatures—for a hundred of decades past. They never saw any of the forest people or even a glimpse of them. They believe that they are some sort of monstrous creature, so they hid themselves in a forest. Despite that, there were two women who didn't believe in them.

They want to know and see with their bare-naked eyes those creatures that live in the forest even though people in Canagan warned them.

"Hey! Dawn! I have good news for you!" The girl with long jet-black hair excitedly ran towards Dawn. Dawn has short brown hair with a pretty face. Both of them were pretty, actually.

The woman hugged her tight as soon as she reached Dawn, doing a house chore. Dawn can't help but grimace, she's dirty and yet this girl hugged her.

"What now, Xio?" she asked with her bored tone. She really doesn't like talking while working on something.

Excitement was evident on Xio's face. Her name is pronounced as Shy-yo. Short for Xiomerrah.

"We can go to the forest this weekend! We can see forest people! Exciting, right?" she giggled while clapping her hands and even jumping up and down just to express her excitement but it all faded when she saw the blank expression on Dawn's face.

"Aren't you excited? This is our dream, right? To see forest people," she said, her face becoming lonely, when Dawn saw it, she said; "Yes, I know that's our dream but you have work. We have work. You know a penny is important for us to live."

"You don't have to worry about it. I already talked to our boss. I made an excuse. You know, I told them that I'm going to have a fever. I'm not working on weekends and neither do you. Because you'll catch my fever if we go to work."

"Alright! Alright! That's enough, you talked too much. Too much, Xiomerrah." Dawn cut her off because she knows it will lead to a long story.

"So? We can go to the forest this coming weekend? I can conclude based on your words, you're saying yes already," Xio asked again with her puppy eyes.

"Yeah, whatever." Dawn's hand waved in the air while she answered her question and went back doing house stuff, while Xio entered her room and changed clothes. She just got home from work in one of the houses in their area.

Dawn and Xio were best friends and they lived in the same house since both of them were living by themselves. They live in the countryside called Canagan. Canagan has a prohibited forest that was believed to have monstrous creatures.

Xiomerrah is just a typical rural girl who always wants to try something risky, especially adventure. She loves adventures and she's so carefree for everything that's why Dawn loves her so much despite her loud mouth. While Dawn Pauline was the opposite of her best friend and she has a creepy secret that only she knows. The two of them were like sisters that supported each other no matter what.

Dinner came and the two of them ate. And as usual, even Dawn wants to have a peaceful dinner, but she can’t because Xio keeps telling random stories. Dawn ignored Xio’s stories not until her best friend said something that caught her interest and attention. She put down her utensils and stared at Xio.

"Can you repeat what you just said?" Dawn asked and Xio immediately stopped talking.

Xio raised a brow. "Which one?" she asked with a questioning look.

‘Oh, God! I forgot she talks a lot and that made her didn't notice each and every word she said,’ Dawn uttered mentally.

"The white man."