The Lost Acara: Part Three by smileyface12_5690 |  |
"Wonderful," said the dark Uni, cackling a little. "How
much will you be putting on the line?"
Sicho gulped, and handed her the entire bag
of Neopoints. "8,800 Neopoints." She took it in her scathing hooves and smirked
menacingly. She handed him the coin again. He grabbed it, and, with sweaty fingers,
flipped it. All four eyes watching went wide as it dropped on the ground, heads
side up. The Uni was in complete shock.
"I-I-I gave you the double-sided one! How did
you do that?" she was very angry indeed. Sicho picked up the coin and examined
both sides.
"Well, it IS double sided... just that both
sides are heads," he laughed and gave it back. "I would like my money, thank
you..."
"NO!" said the greedy Uni in disgust, keeping
Sicho's bag far away from him. "You give back... BACK! MY MONEY!"
Sicho dived at her. "It's my money... FAIR AND
SQUARE!" After some confused fighting, the Shoyru managed to get his money back.
He dashed right for the pharmacy, nearly slamming into the front door as he
walked inside. He was huffing and puffing. He went up to the counter, shoved
the bag of Neopoints at the pharmacist, and asked, in a hoarse breath, for honey
blossom extract.
"Last bottle," she smiled, handing it to him.
"Good thing, too. Fuzzy fungus is not fun." He smiled and started heading home,
happy that he had gotten his money back from the Uni. As he thought back over
the incident, he couldn't help but wonder how stupid he was. He didn't even
know the Uni, and yet he had put Kacha's life on the line before her. He would
never do a thing like that again.
It was about midday when he returned home. On
the small table in the kitchen there were four ummagines, waiting to be eaten
by the poor mouths of those who lived there. Sicho walked past, went down the
hall, and opened Phara's bedroom door.
But the little sick Acara wasn't there. Phara
was still sitting on the chair next to it, fast asleep. Sicho carefully set
the medicine down on the bedside table, and softly tapped the brown Gelert on
the shoulder in an attempt to wake her. Her eyes opened blankly, staring at
the empty bed.
"WHERE IS SHE?" she stood up, throwing the covers
every which way. "WHERE DID SHE GO?" Sicho grabbed the honey blossom extract
so that it wouldn't break as Phara mangled the bed covers into one big knot
in hopes of finding Kacha.
"I don't know; I just got home with the medicine.
Is she gone?" he was starting to worry.
"I don't know; she fell asleep, so I did too.
Was she kidnapped? Did she run away? Oh..." Phara was in a state of utter dismay.
"Sicho, what do we do? KACHA! KACHA!" she called, screaming from the top of
her lungs. "KACHA, WHERE ARE YOU? SICHO IS BACK WITH THE MEDICINE! KACHA! KAAAAAAAAACHAAAAAAAAA..."
but Kacha never came. Tyla, who was sleeping in her room, was a awoken by the
noise. She looked all around the house, in every possible crevice, but never
found her. Sicho started looking outside, calling her name, and searching all
of the bushes and trees. He even knocked on some neighboring houses doors, asking
if they had seen a little blue Acara, or perhaps a purple fungus ball. They
all were very kind and sympathetic, but no one had seen Kacha. Sicho was really
worried now. Where could she be?
"This is awful, simply awful..."said Tyla, a
few tears running down her cloudy cheeks.
"What if we never find her?" Sicho gulped. He
didn't want to think about it.
"I've thought of something..." said Phara. The
other two listened intently, since she might have thought of a new place to
look. "She was looking rather guilty when you," she looked at the Sicho here,
"left to go buy that Honey Blossom Extract. She might have slipped away because
she thought that we didn't have the means to take care of her. Also, she didn't
want to see you look disappointed anymore. I dare say, if I were in such a position
I would feel exactly the same way. I might even run away, if he hurt me really
badly." The two Shoyrus looked at each other, both completely downtrodden.
"Unfortunately, Phara, you are probably right,"
said Tyla, crying a little more.
"She looked absolutely dreadful earlier today;
I figured it was just the illness. And even though that may have been partly
the case, well, I think she would definitely feel bad about the price of the
extract. She hates to see us sad like that," Sicho choked, trying to keep back
tears.
"Yet now we are sadder than we would have been
if she stayed," Phara said, shaking her wise brown head. "It would have made
me happy to see her cured."
The three stood there in the front room in silence,
staring down at the floor. After a minute or two, Phara looked at her chair
again, and the sketchbook leaning on it. She began to cry. Tyla picked it up,
her eyes going wide. "Look at this! She left a note!" They three huddled together,
Phara being extra careful not to let her tears run down the page. Tyla read
aloud:
Dear Sicho, Phara, and Tyla,
I'm SO sorry, but I have to go now. I don't
deserve such a wonderful family. Trust me, you are much, much, much better off
with me gone. I just don't belong... I hope you understand.
I want to thank Tyla for being so sweet and
nice and caring, always wearing a big smile to brighten my day. I'll miss that.
Thank you Phara, for giving me a meal and teaching me how to read and write.
I'm sorry to say that you didn't have to bother-I won't need those skills anymore.
And thank you Sicho, for... everything. Even though I love you in my heart,
I dearly wish that you had never found me. It would be better for all of us.
I miss and love you all, but I am afraid
I will never get to see you again. I figured it would be harder to say goodbye
in person, so I wrote a note instead. Sicho, you can keep your money. If you
have already bought the medicine, sell it back. I don't need it. Maybe I'll
be better off living as a fungus ball, you never know.
Love,
No-Name
Tyla gulped as she finished reading the letter,
tears spilling out of her eyes. She chucked the book across the room, stomped
her feet, and ran back to her room. Her loud, mutilating cries could be heard
through the thin walls. Sicho had sat down in a chair in the kitchen, staring
blankly at the ummagines before him. He had never cried, and this was no exception,
but there was no denying that he was sad, disheartened, and utterly depressed.
Phara had pulled her stone chair up to the window, looking out through her many
tears. She sighed every now and then, and sometimes even buried her head into
her deep brown paws. Everyone felt miserable.
It wasn't until the last dwindling hours of
twilight that Tyla finally emerged from her room. Her face, which was usually
bright with smiles, was now red in dismay. She had never looked quite as sad,
even when they were first hacked years before. A few stray tears still ran down
her cloudy cheeks at times. Phara had fallen asleep with a sad expression on
her face. Sicho sighed, picked up an ummagine, raised it to his mouth as if
about to eat it, then dropped it.
"I can't eat," he said sadly. Tyla stared at
the ground.
"What are we going to do?" she asked. "We can't
just leave her out there."
"I know, but there isn't much we can do," he
sighed.
"We should go look for her again," she said,
a false-hopeful tone in her voice. "Look around some of the other streets and
stuff. Put up signs..." she would continue, but Sicho shook his head.
"She wanted to go. I don't think she'll want
to come back. She thinks that the whole money thing hurt us a lot," he got up
and went into his room to go to sleep. He couldn't do anything else, anyway,
with that huge sadness hanging over him like a heavy rain cloud. And, to no
one's surprise, he couldn't fall asleep either.
Tyla stared out the window into the blackness
of the night. Suddenly, she saw something move outside. She walked closer to
it, puzzled, when she saw a young face come into view. She blinked, and it was
gone. For a fleeing moment, she thought it was Kacha. But why would she come
back? Tyla thought some more and figured it was a lost petpet. She knew how
much it hurt to lose something you love, and she didn't want anyone else to
go through that pain. Quietly, as to not disturb the sleeping Phara, she slipped
outside to take a look.
To be continued...
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