Here we are, resting after experiencing such a freezing adventure. Astral made us another cup of hot chocolate for us while Zen was mixing the cold medicine for the bird that she saved about an hour ago. I wonder how long will this go on. I sound like I’m a bit impatient from that tone. I don’t know, I’m probably tired after that short journey. I mean, I even end up having a weird hallucination where I believed that one of the trolls just smashed Zen into snowy pieces.

Looks like I’m having a hard time adjusting to the cold. Well, we did just came here without a single snow gear. We only came here with our school uniform, which is not helping a lot. There’s no way we can adapt to this kind of condition in just a few hours.

“Here you go, mister.” Astral puts down the hot chocolate on a table.

“Thanks a lot, Astral. Is your sister finish yet?” said Hosuke

“She’s almost done mixing.”

“I see. What about the bird?”

“The bird? It’s still laying down on the pillow over there.” Astral pointed at where the bird was placed.

If I’m not wrong, after the bird was saved by Zen, the blizzard was supposed to stop. I guess in this case, when the bird was finally given the medicine, the blizzard will stop. I guessed that, and that happened indeed. As soon as Zen applied Blizz to the bird, the bird started to cheerfully chirp. The bird was happily flapping its wings around the house. After that, the blizzard started to calm down.

It was almost hard to see the mountains when the blizzard was raging. We started seeing the skies getting clearer as the cloud begins to move away from the area. Some of the snow from the trees started falling down, showing us a small patch of greenery outside. Hosuke opened the door and walked outside.

“Wow. This is beautiful! Hey, White. Come and look outside.” Hosuke called me.

“Yeah. Yeah. I’m coming.” I slowly walked out of the house.

That’s when I finally saw how majestic the nature is after a raging blizzard just struck this land. I know that the blizzard just went away and it will be way more better when the snow started to melt a little. But it was just too good for me to get the opportunity to see all of these.

“It’s not always we get to see this view.” even Zen sounded happy. She didn’t smile though.

“Hey, Zen. Why do you talk like that?” I curiously asked her.

“I guess my parents made me who I am today. It’s better not to show my emotion at all than showing it to people.”

“What do you mean? Why your parents?”

“Those folks hated me when I was full of emotion. They said it was annoying. It was even to the point that they made me sleep outside of the house just because they don’t want to spend time with their daughters.”

Hearing her family problems somehow reminded me of myself. Way back when I was young, I was more cheerful and innocent. I probably started changing when my parents got another little brother after getting another one years ago. Now I have six siblings including me. I’m the fourth child and having two little brothers, one older brother and two older sisters was rather a lot for my family. But in some way, my parents manage to cover all of us. As of now, both of my elder sister was already married which means that now I have two more brother.

I guess I started to become a little distant when my parent started to care more about the youngest one. I don’t know when exactly it happened, but it happened when I was small. Which means it happen when I still couldn’t think which was good or which was bad. It was also when the time when I still haven’t had the patience to wait out until my parents were done caring for my youngest brother. Should have been a little mature, right? But then again, I’m still immature today.

In conclusion, I became who I am today because of my youngest brother. I also have to blame it on the old-young me. Even so, I’m glad it happened though. If it hadn’t happened like that, I wouldn’t have met my friends today. So that means I have to say thanks to my little brother. I guess I’ll tell him when all of this is over. Not that he would understand what I’m saying. He’s still in the early years of the 6th years of middle school.

“Parents coming. Better keep the bird away from them.” Zen saw her parents returning back to their house.

“What? Why?”

“My parents will most certainly hate birds. Those guys almost ate all of their farm back then. But since the snow kept on coming, the folks decided to take on a different job at the city.”

“I see.”

Zen went back inside her house to keep the bird. She kept the bird inside a small cage and hid it inside the closet of her room. We introduced our self to the parent and explained what happened because the parent was not at home when Zen brought us home. Wait a sec, did she carry us or something? Throughout our journey, we didn’t even realise how does the little girl did it. Maybe she really did carry us since it wasn’t that far when we collapsed. In any case, after talking with the parents for a while, they politely asked us to leave since we have nothing to do over here anymore. We bid our farewell and went away.

“Something is not right…” I wondered.

Hosuke then replied, “What do you mean?”

“I’m talking about the parents…” I placed my right hand under my chin and wondered more.

“What’s with the parents? They seemed polite to me.”

“No they aren’t. Even though they politely asked us to leave, they were actually faking it.”

“How can you tell?”

“They weren’t focusing at us. It seemed like something is going on in the house. We should check it out.”

“Isn’t that interfering with the story?”

“We won’t interfere them directly. I planted Seven inside the house just in case something like this happened.”

“When did you had the time to do that?” said Hosuke as he was confused.

I hid behind a bush and said, “Always suspect everything. You can never be too sure when something happens.”

Hosuke shakes his head and joined me. I opened up my watch to see what was Seven seeing from its lens. From what I can tell, it look like both Zen and Astral were being scolded by their parents. Did they found out about the bird? That’s not possible is it? Why does Haz didn’t implement a sound recording module on Seven? It should have been implemented. But from the looks of things, both of the girls were being scolded and-

“White! What are they doing?” Hosuke pointed at my watch.

I looked at the watch properly and saw that both of the girls were being punished by their father. Their mother didn’t do anything and it doesn’t look like the mother was stopping the father at all. Astral was crying and it looked like Zen was holding in her tears. We couldn’t believe what we just saw. It got worse when suddenly the family heard something inside their house. I don’t like where this was about to go…

As we all expected, the mother brought out the bird-cage and showed it to their father. The two children were severely punished by their parents. We couldn’t watch it any longer. Even Hosuke said that we need to stop this but then I refused as it may be part of the story and we shouldn’t bother it. We tried our best to watch the disturbing recording until suddenly the father dragged Zen. He dragged her to the door and throw her out along with the bird cage. The door was slammed and Zen was lying on the snowy ground together with the bird cage next to her.

“We should check her out.” said Hosuke.

“No, I think we should tail her first.”

We tailed her from behind. Zen stood up and carried the bird-cage and walked away from her home. As we tailed Zen, we wondered where was this girl heading. After minutes have passed, Zen finally stopped. She kneeled down and talked with the bird. We couldn’t hear what she was saying but maybe she was talking about their parents.

“Hey, White…”

“What is it, Hosuke?”

“Why did she stop at the edge of the cliff?”

“That’s a cliff?! What are you waiting for? Come on!”

We both ran toward Zen to save her but then somehow we ended up falling to our heads thanks to a hidden branch that was buried deep inside the snow. Zen noticed it and looked at us.

“What are you two doing?”

“Stop!” shouted Hosuke. “Don’t commit suicide!”

“I’m not going to kill myself. I’m just going to release this bird.”

This kind of moment really deserves a palm to the face. We should have known this would happen since it directly follows the story. We stood up and clean ourselves up from the snow that covered us after that sudden fall. Zen quietly watched us and finally she decided to say something.

“Can I release the bird now?”

“Sure. Go on, Zen.” said Hosuke.

“Goodbye, little bird. Go. Out of the bird-cage and fly your way to your freedom.”

The bird flew away and I caught a glimpse of Zen’s tear falling down to her cheek. She tried to hide it but it seems she finally break after enduring all of that.

“Are you okay, Zen?” I asked her.

“I’m fine.” Zen kneeled down.

“It’s alright, Zen. You did the right thing.”

“Of course I did the right thing. You guys even tried to do the same as well. I saw the little bot in our house back then. You guys don’t need to explain.”

“Well then…what now?”

“I don’t know. I guess I’ll just walk away and go to the city or something. I’m not really sure.”

“No.” Hosuke snapped. “Let us talk about this with your parents.”

“Wait. No…”

“Sitting here will do nothing! We have to do something, White! It’s child abuse!”

“Hosuke…” I tried to calm him down.

“Come on, you two!”

Hosuke dragged both of us back to Zen’s house to discuss with her parents. But as soon as we about to reach the house, we saw a group of men were at the door of the house. Then, both the father and mother were handcuffed by the people. We were very confused about what had transpired. After the group of men left together with Zen’s parent, we ran to the house and saw Astral was still in the house.

“Astral, what happened?” Zen asked her sister.

Astral were still crying from before. She tried to calm herself down and talk to us, “Mother and Father are going to the city. Their going to hang them in a few days…”

We knew it would happen but we didn’t knew it would be this horrible to experience it for real.

“Must be because of Mother and Father couldn’t afford to pay the tax. I think that's why they 'threw' me out. Just to get that tax discount or something. Looks like that didn't work.”

“Then we better save them!” said Hosuke.

“Why should I? Those people hurt both me and my sister. They deserved to be hanged.”

Hosuke suddenly raised his voice, “Their are your parents! You should be grateful to know that your parents is alive and well. They took care of you in any way they could. You don’t know what it feels like not knowing who your real parents is!”

“Hosuke…” I tried to calm him down by holding him back.

I see why Hosuke would raise his voice. I don’t need to explain it much further. I should just let him be for now. As the situation continues to reach to the climax of the story, Hosuke expressed his feelings about his problem to all of us. Zen didn’t say a word after hearing what Hosuke just said. Meanwhile, I tried my best to comfort little Astral who was very confused. As much as I want this to finish fast, I really don’t know what should we suppose to do. We didn’t see anything that feels weird at all. It’s more like we were the one who made the parents gone mad. It was all our fault…

Even in this situation, Zen suddenly comes to a resolution, “Let’s go…to the city…and save my parents…”

TO BE CONTINUED