Lily's eyes spread wider at the sight of Archie. 'Let's see if what Garoo thinks is true' thought Lily. The sun was about to set on the horizon, and soon it would be night.
"Archie, you said you saw the monster living in the ocean, right?" asked Liro, as he could not contain his excitement anymore.
Archie now didn't have anything in his hands, not his rod nor his stinky bucket. It was really rare to see him like that. Hearing the question, Archie looked a bit proud of himself; it was rare for him to receive this much attention from so many people.
"Hehe yeah, what do you want to know?" asked Archie, already knowing the answer.
"Like how big was it?" asked Liro as his face was right under Archie's face. There was a lot of height difference; Archie looked down just to see Liro, with excitement literally flowing out of his eyes.
"It was late in the night, I was barely able to see anything, but as much as I can remember, the whole ground started to shake. I was fishing like usual, I can remember it like it was yesterday…" With that, Archie started to tell everyone about what happened that day.
"I should change the bucket…" said Archie as he put another fish in it. The whole bucket was now full of fish.
Archie decided that it was time to head back. The sun was setting and it was already late; just a few people were still around the streets. Archie decided to head back home. With that, he decided to spend the night at home relaxing. He had spent a lot of hours fishing, and he literally collapsed on the bed the moment he got back.
It was around 7 p.m. when Archie woke up again. It was the middle of the night. As Archie woke up, he tried to sleep again, but the moment he turned over, he realized he had left the bucket with the fish near his bed. There was such a bad smell that it became impossible for him to sleep again.
"Arghhh, why didn't I remove the bucket?" he whispered angrily. The moment he got up from the bed, he immediately opened all the windows in his room and brought the bucket to his basement, where he kept all the fish he caught. Tomorrow he would sell them, so he just left them there.
As he returned to his room, the smell was still there. It wasn't going away. Archie looked next to his bed; near it there was his fishing rod. It was a beautiful green with some shades of purple. Archie, looking at it, couldn't resist. He immediately took it and went outside the house.
'I hope that when I'm back there won't be any more bad smell…' thought Archie as he went out into the street, slowly closing the door behind him.
The streets were silent, the city was asleep. Archie had never gone out at this time; it was really rare to see someone outside during this hour. It was mostly because there was almost no light and everything was empty.
Archie had been following the same route to his secret spot for almost a year now, so he didn't have any problem reaching it without trouble.
"Yawn." The moment Archie sat down on his usual rock, he started fishing into the sea. "Wait… the baits!" shouted Archie the moment he realized he forgot them at home. Archie panicked and looked into his pockets, only to find a small worm that could be used.
"Let's hope the fish will still like this…" murmured Archie. The worm was really old and its body was ruined. He didn't remember how long it had been in his pocket, but he decided to use it as bait anyway.
Archie waited for almost twenty minutes before a fish finally came near him. He was getting so bored that in a few minutes he would have fallen asleep. His eyes were already closed, but the moment he caught something, he flinched in fear.
"OHHH, I THINK I GRABBED SOMETHING!" said Archie as he woke up. He felt really excited. With all his strength, he managed to retrieve the fishing line. In front of him there was a really big fish. "Meh, I don't even have the bucket with me. You're free to go." Archie slowly took the fish into his hands before throwing it back into the ocean.
It was around 4:30 a.m., and Archie had started to feel more tired. He didn't have any more bait, and he couldn't even search for any because it was so late that he couldn't see any bugs near him.
"Let's call it a day… or maybe a night?" joked Archie to himself before walking away. The moment he stepped down from the rock, the whole ground around him started to shake. He immediately looked around, scared, only to see that the water next to his feet was shaking uncontrollably.
Archie slowly moved his eyes toward the sea, just to see something really weird. A strange creature was emerging from the water. Archie couldn't see it clearly; he only saw the multiple tentacles the creature had before it completely disappeared into the sea.
"And I remember that I was shaking uncontrollably after that, and that I barely slept," said Archie as he laughed softly, thinking about that moment.
Liro, Darian, and Vane were all extremely excited after hearing that story. Lily looked like she didn't believe it at all.
"Are you sure you weren't just dreaming, Archie?" Lily snorted.
"Hehe, who can tell? I usually have weird dreams, but that felt too real to be a dream," said Archie as he slowly walked away.
"Well, I'm pretty tired, guys. I think I'm heading back," said Archie, not even giving the others time to ask more questions about the monster.
"By the way, Archie, this morning we went searching for you… you weren't at your usual spot. Did something happen?" asked Lily, hiding her real intention, remembering what Garoo had told her a few hours earlier.
'Keep an eye on Archie'… yes, yes, Garoo, don't worry, thought Lily as Garoo's words echoed in her mind.
"Oh, I just went for a walk. Today I didn't feel like fishing," said Archie as he looked toward the sea. The sun was barely visible.
"But isn't that your job? You said you do it for work, right?" asked Liro, remembering what Archie had told them before.
"Yeah, but you know… sometimes not everyone is in the mood to work every day," answered Archie.
Darian agreed with him. "I can totally agree with you. Sometimes I barely had the will to work while I was on XERBAB-7, so I simply went around for a walk."
"Well yeah, that's exactly my reason," said Archie as he turned back and started walking away. "Tomorrow I'll have to work at the festival. You'll come to buy some fish from me, right?" asked Archie.
Everyone nodded. "Yeah, we'll see you tomorrow at the festival, Archie!" said Lily, waving at him. Both sides went their separate ways.
"As long as there will actually be a festival tomorrow…" whispered Archie as he walked away with a small smirk on his face.
"Eheh, you also saw how much Garoo can change the mood in town?" said Naluri. The group had returned home; the woman was still awake and waiting for them. Once they reached the house, they told Naluri everything they had done.
"Yeah, I really enjoyed hearing that music," commented Darian as he remembered how beautiful the melody sounded.
"Tomorrow everything will be a hundred times more beautiful. You need to see his performance during the festival," said Naluri, laughing at the end of the sentence.
"Yeah, I'm really looking forward to this festival. Our expectations are really high!" said Vane, hoping he would be able to have a lot of fun.
"I'm sure your expectations are right. Just wait for tomorrow and see," said Lily.
With that, the group remained in the kitchen talking for many more hours. After that, everyone headed back to their rooms.
"Snowy, what do you think about this monster? Is it real?" asked Darian to his small companion lying next to him on the bed. As always, the creature didn't answer and just looked at Darian.
"Mhmm…" Darian immediately opened both his hands in front of Snowy. "The right one is if you think it exists, and the left one is if you think it doesn't," said Darian.
Snowy carefully observed both hands before licking the right one.
"Woah, so you think it exists?" Darian almost shouted before remembering that everyone in the house could easily hear him.
"To be honest, at first I didn't believe it, but seeing how much Earth has changed… everything can be considered possible at this point," said Darian.
As he lay back again, something crossed his mind—something that happened the first time he returned to Earth. He had seen that huge creature, as tall as the sky. Darian couldn't even see its face, but what stuck in his mind was one of its arms, full of tentacles.
"Nah, I don't think they are the same creature," whispered Darian before closing his eyes and falling asleep.
The following day, Darian woke up later than usual. As he went downstairs, everyone was already awake.
"Hey, you finally woke up, Darian," said Vane playfully.
"I guess I must have overslept," he said awkwardly.
"By the way, around town you might see many people busy preparing for the festival. I think going there might not be a bad idea," proposed Naluri as she slowly got up from her chair.
"Yeah, that doesn't sound like a bad idea. Even before the festival, the air feels really great. We should definitely go," added Lily. Everyone agreed.
"I'll reach you once the festival starts," said Naluri as she headed upstairs to her room.
"So, should we go?" proposed Lily. Everyone agreed, and they left the house.
Somewhere else, Garoo was playing his flute under a tree. The melody was strange, different from usual. It felt like Garoo was worried about something; he was missing many notes.
"Ah… will it really be alright?" whispered Garoo as he stopped playing and looked at his instrument. "Please, Lily… discover something more about him."
Garoo could only hope Lily had been doing what he asked.
"I can't keep an eye on him even during the festival… what if he does something bad at that time?" whispered Garoo before hearing footsteps behind him. He saw some children running toward him.
"Sir Garoo, we want to hear your music! Can you play something for us?" asked the children with big smiles.
Garoo, seeing the smiles of the children of his town, couldn't help but smile too.
"Please, take a seat and enjoy the show!" said Garoo playfully. The children laughed and sat down in front of him as he started to play.
'I just need to hope that everything will be alright… Archie, who really are you?' thought Garoo before losing himself in what he enjoyed the most: music.