When One Story Ends, Another One Begins

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Aftermath of the Witherstorm - Requested by @X_EmLee_X

"I promise, you're going to love it." Olivia insisted, wrapping her one arm around Jesse's shoulder as they lead her through the mass of trees.

Jesse smiled slightly at Olivia, but the smile faded as quickly as it came. She knew her friends were trying to cheer her up, make her smile again. She appreciated their efforts, she did. But honestly, she wasn't sure if she'd ever feel true happiness again. Too much has been taken away from her.

"Close your eyes!" Petra insisted excitedly. Jesse just silently obeyed, closing her eyes and letting darkness fall while Olivia continued leading her.

They nearly tripped a few times with Jesse not being able to see where she was going. Jesse was just about to suggest they let her keep her eyes open, when Olivia pulled on her arm, signalling for her to stop.

"We're here!" Axel said excitedly.

Jesse opened her eyes. She quickly had to blink away tears. In a large tree sat a tree house. It was very finely built, with an enormous front porch and an elaborate staircase leading to the bottom.

"What do you think Jesse?" Olivia asked excitedly. "The townspeople wanted to build us some sort of mansion at first, but Axel and I insisted they built us another tree house!"

"It's beautiful." Jesse said softly, smiling over at Axel and Olivia. But her heart wasn't in it.

"It's so much bigger than the old one!" Axel said excitedly. "It's got five enormous bedrooms!"

Jesse nodded, looking back up at the house again. She knew it was fitting for it to be larger, considering Petra was moving in with them, and probably Lukas as well. He left to go see if he could make things right with the other ocelots, but agreed to return to them if things went south.

But it wasn't the same.

"You have to see the inside of this place." Petra added excitedly, gesturing towards the house excitedly before breaking off to run up the staircase. She didn't really look like a person who had just recovered from the deadly wither sickness.

Axel was quick to follow Petra. Olivia took Jesse's hand, leading her after them excitedly. She kept at a walk however, knowing Jesse wasn't in the perfect condition to run. Jesse kept quiet the whole way. She was too afraid if she spoke, she would say something that hurt her friends' feelings. After all, they were just trying to help.

However, even Jesse had to admit the inside of the tree-house was beautiful. It didn't have the lived in, cozy feeling that the cramped living room of their previous tree house had, but it was still nice. She liked that it had a lot of space.

He probably would've liked it too.

Jesse stopped, looking out of the window. The woods were beautiful in the late afternoon sun, the golden rays dancing on the canopy of leaves. Jesse walked over, leaning her elbows on the windowsill, her gaze steadily moving over the sea of jungle trees. She recognised the area a little bit. They were close to the location of the previous tree-house, yet not there.

Jesse closed her eyes, breathing in slowly and deeply. She's been doing this for the past week, every time she felt herself close to tears again. Where had the life she loved so much gone?

"You OK, Jesse?" Olivia asked softly.

Jesse opened her eyes and nodding, forcing herself to put on a  small smile. "Yea, just... tired." She lied softly.

"We could all used some rest." Axel agreed, stretching out his arms. "This has been one hell of a journey for all of us. Not even talking about all the town rebuilding that's gonna go down in the next few weeks."

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