"The damage is infectious, and all that can be done is purge it all and start from scratch."
If life is a series of choices, then perhaps that just means that life is a game? To Akazawa Saki, that's all life really is. She refutes the existence of G...
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Amid the havoc that was Saki's week, what arrived in the form of a common courier was none other than the icing on the metaphorical cake come the strike of dawn the very next morning.
A letter addressed to her was delivered without fee, and before Saki could so much as identify the crest that adorned the man's chest, he had disappeared through the trees as if his very life depended on haste. As she had expected in the throws of cynicism, Minene's ears were as sharp as a barber's razor, and Saki's contract of employment as a general cleaning maid had been dashed for just three reasons;
She failed to dress exactly as the Head of Housekeeping instructed, and showed little pride in her place as a Maid to the Royal family.
She was found guilty of "verbally assaulting" the Second Prince and failed to follow requests as expected of a humble maid.
And finally, she failed to complete her work to the Head of Housekeeping's standards, which in of itself was the largest load of rot Saki had ever heard.
Saki didn't doubt for an instance that all of this was Minene's own doing, and she certainly didn't believe that this was instigated by the Second Prince of Clarines, since she had heard him state for certain that he wanted Shirayuki to talk her into that job after all. But she had that job she needed to do for Garak first, and she wasn't in any mood to go wandering back to the castle to find out what was going on, so she packed her gear and proceeded to head to the east in order to commence the job she had been given before all this confusion with the Second Prince and his cursed decisions came to her awareness.
The journey itself was rather peaceful, and Saki was at the edge of the infected area by midday of her second day travel. However, arriving at her said destination was not as enjoyable as the trip. She arrived at the intersection of two villages, which used to be just under a mile from the infected forest, only to find that the surrounding life was engulfed with the strange residue.
And what was worse was the fact that there was not a soul within sight in the outskirts, or even within the boundaries of either village at all.
The once-been verdant forest canopy was a sickly grey against a clouding sky, foliage hanging listless as its grasses beneath withered away to wisps of decaying remnants. The air was silent, stale and sickly, tainted with the same unpleasant edge of what felt like death. No life seemed to remain within the area, even as Saki carefully traversed the outskirts of the southern most village. What was a modest farming village was now reduced to a shell of an existence, with all its farmlands contaminated, if not dead, and its livestock entirely missing.
Saki grit her teeth as she walked further in, knocking door to door in hopes to find some residents still around.
Needless to say, it was a fruitless effort. Not a soul remained in the village, even as Saki carefully let herself inside each house to check. All consumables were absent, along with personal affects. It was as if the whole village had packed their belongings and left as soon as the contamination had begun to appear.
