That One Alleyway

Chapter 4

Stress was walking around the city, looking at the large buildings.

It looked magnificent. No words could ever explain how amazing the city was in the morning. A multitude of different types of birds were sitting on the edge. The sunlight leaking over the roofs. All the leafy green plants reflected the sun's rays perfectly. It was just so....

Outstanding.

Stress loves Hermitcraft so, so much. She loved the community so darn much that any time spent with them would be written down in her journal. Those memories would be savored until the end of time.

She loved it. All the Hermits we're just... The symphony that could never be beaten. No orchestra, band, or any other musical organization could even come close to the Hermit's song, price, music.

Everything was perfect in Stress's eyes.

Until she saw all the people she was just thinking about gathered around her bakery.

"Fey just love my pastries so much," She whispered to herself, shaking her head.

Then she heard distressed mutters.

What was happening-

Oh.

The glass. It's broken...

So someone just stole a few little cakes and muffins, what's the big deal?

"What happened?" Stress asked Xisuma, who was standing at the front of the group.

"Someone broke into your bakery..." The founder trailed off.

"Did you check it out?" She asked.

Xisuma looked down, guilty, "No... We just kinda wanted to wait for you. It would be considered trespassing if we did..."

"It's alright." She said, patting his shoulder.

Stress walked up to the broken window.

There was a tiny bit of blood lining the edge of the shards.

Then she looked in and froze.

This...

Stress ran to the door and unlocked the door, shoving it open. She ran in and looked around the area.

So much destruction... She stared at the broken room.

The baked goods were ripped to pieces. All the tables were overturned, a few chairs broken. The curtains were shredded, as if an animal had clawed through them.

But what alarmed Stress the most was the spray paint.

Weird symbols were painted onto the wall. A rectangle with cut corners, replacing the vertices with circles.

Then, the most ominous text was written next to the symbols.

We are Watching

Now Stress was horrified.

"I recognize those symbols..." Xisuma trailed off, trying to remember where they were from.

He then looked over at the writing.

"Watchers." He spat out the name without hesitation. The way he said the single word made it sound horrid, like an awful existence.

"What are fose?" Stress asked, tilting her head.

Xisuma pulled up a non-broken chair and sat down.

He sighed.

"Watchers are disgusting, evil creature that manipulate and control innocent civilians," He began, "There was a story of a city called Evolution, where the townspeople would find a point in time and live like that until they moved on to a next generation. They took the founder and reached into his mind, creating voices that drew him closer and closer to madness with each day."

Xisuma looked up to Stress.

"Then, one day he blew it up. Destroyed all his hard work. They say he ran away and went to different cities, trying to find a place to say."

Ren took a step forward, "What does he look like?"

The founder paused.

"He has two large, colorful wings, two smaller wings on his head, a dark grey gas mask, and glowing orange eyes..." He trailed off and looked towards Mumbo.

The moustached man just simply nodded.

Stress froze at the gesture.

"We're doomed, aren't we."

Xisuma only nodded in response.

She sighed and looked around at the damage.

"Hey Scar, do you still have fose building supplies?" Stress asked, turning to the scarred Hermit.

"Why?" Scar responded.

"We can't just leave it like fis!" She exclaimed, making a wide gesture to the bakery.

Scar just smiled.

And so they got to work.

Time skip because the author is lazy and doesn't want to write about a group of Hermits going to Scar's house to gather materials.

Stress, Scar, Impulse, and Iskall carried all of the repairing supplies back to the bakery.

They moved all the furniture out and disposed of the ruined pastries.

All the tiles got removed and were replaced with nice wood planks. The painted walls were covered with a light pink and grey striped wallpaper.

They reused the surviving furniture after repainting it. Stress personally replaced the broken window. Cleo had also sewn new white curtains that complimented the color scheme perfectly.

And when it was done, it looked perfect.

"This is honestly better than before," Impulse noted.

Everyone agreed.

And it all went back to perfect.

Word Count • 782
Y'all needed some fluff. Also, of course I didn't want to write about four Hermits going to Scar's house just to get materials, only to write a montage of them revamping the bakery. Oh well.