[Day 2 - 4 days before the Sweep]
Another day, a different sunrise. The sun vanished in the east, and smoke rose to the clouds of doubts. The librarian and her wooden home, with the trees and shroud, still unchanged. As her eyes had seen, it was not a dream for what happened yesterday. The red mark of Carven lies even in her forest home, and lights still shimmer brightly even at dawn.
"Ehm...eugh! Huh?" Eve awakens on her bed.
"Oh, what a weird dream." She stared into the window. A cloudy sky on a Tuesday.
"Or maybe not."
Eve prepares herself with breakfast. As usual, she keeps her routine in check before leaving the house.
As the librarian left her home, she joined the crowd through their doubts a dome. It is a dome so thick, made by the fear of darkness while relying on the faint lights of the street sparks. But the librarian beams with jolly. For the first time in her life, the view is extraordinary.
A child stands at the walkway of the East Wood, bringing the latest news.
"Hot news! Hot news on the Great Stone today!"
"A bold prince of outsider's land spotted in Great Stone? A messiah or a false prophet? Find out on the latest news at East Wood latest report!"
Eve takes one for a silver off her pocket.
"As I have thought."
["The Surprising Spark of New Age: Controversy rose among citizens in Gold Creek at the warning of a prince about an oncoming calamity."]
"Don't waste your time looking at those. Just head on my class for a session and every of my students are skipping class because they are mentally convinced of the prince." Cyrus appears out of nowhere beside Eve.
"There's no controversy because everyone starts talking about that guy."
"You look jealous. Sure you don't want to find out about him like others, too?"
"Over my dead body. A cold, dead body..."
The cleric stands unfazed, for his surroundings are a disgrace to be awed. His face had never been bright like before, and he walked upon the librarian with a grunt and bore. But he couldn't deny the call, for the prince's storm and his miracle were all in a squall. He stared in disappointment while the librarian glanced with jovial.
The clouds are filmy, but not as filmy as yesterday. The librarian still remembers—a rain will sweep all with swiftness. But the air is still dry, for there's nothing to come but a pale brown sky. She and the cleric stumble, a party set unfinished from the Great Stone's biggest plaza.
Eve and Cyrus witness the puppet-like machines carrying red carpets and preparing tables for a party.
"The prince is here! Look at all those machines." Eve approaches one of the ivory-skinned machines.
"This 'machines' isn't a friend of mine or anyone." Cyrus commented with disgust.
"But it's not enough! I need to see more! More!"
"I suppose we'd look after the ballroom?" Cyrus nodded his head to an open door beside them.
A ballroom lies far from their sight with its door wide open.
"You've read my mind, Cyrus."
*Creak*
The two entered the theatre by the main door, where a source of creaking sound came faintly from the door before them. They find an empty stage—much as expected.
"Uh oh...looks like we're on a perfect timing for a teaser." Eve whispers.
"I suppose we didn't have anything else to do but waiting?"
The librarian was lost in the darkness of a stage, only to find a light guiding her towards three men on the grass plain. Each of these men dresses, expresses and glances at her differently from left to right. But they were all the same—same in clothing and stance. The only thing that keeps them different is what lies on their head—either mind or hair.
Three wooden mechanicals stand in the theatre with a similar face to the one outside. But they have a different feature set on their bodies.
"Uhm, I think we need to go. They just caught up to us, Cyrus..." Eve stands awkwardly, ready to leave.
"A puppet." Cyrus peeked twice at them.
"Ooh..."
First, She taps the middle puppet with her finger, which releases a deep creaking made from an empty shell.
"This one is terribly fragile with all that space inside."
She taps the left puppet with her finger, which hurts her finger because of the thick skull.
"This one definitely needs to cool his head off."
She taps the right puppet with her finger, which makes the faintest, least noticeable sound to her ears.
"This one's no good for a show."
"I'm afraid these puppets might have needed more makeup than my mom would ever have."
"Unfortunately, they are not a puppet." Dion mumbled.
But then, in that very same stage she was in, she could feel a presence lurking behind the red curtains. The air felt more tense, as if an eye was watching her. Then, the one and only prince shows up on the stage, coming to her with a least surprised face. He knew she was coming, and yet he was waiting.
*Faint* "Then you would better know that these aren't decorations for your meaningless criticism, young lady."
Dion stood tall behind Eve, covering nearly her head with his. Surprisingly, he had seemed to find her first before Cyrus.
The prince sat on his chair while sipping a glass of wine, waiting for the librarian to join him on this feast, knowing what guided her into his domain. But he was surprised to see only she who came here alone, knowing nobody would notice his freshly picked attire but her.
"Let me guess, young lads. Came for the party we are all looking forward into?" Dion cleans the dust off of his body.
"No!" Cyrus yelled.
"Obviously! Why else would we buy that ticket for you? But, I hope I didn't get you in temper for tampering your little friend out here..."
"No need. You'll make a fine friend with them. You've already did, after all. Right, guys."
"Yes." The three robots mumbled.
Dion offered the two a chair on his feast table. The two sat alongside in compliance.
"Please. Have a seat. Don't make me drink with my guests standing. It's rude..."
The librarian took a few treats for herself, from bread to drink—watching the storm building upon her head. But she was almost a fool who gazed into the treat until the determination was loose in her head like a snake whispering to the apple. But she resisted. And so she tried with the prince whose face was low.
"Sorry that I have to intervene. But it appears that you two were coming way too early to be my audience here..."
"I suppose you've come for another reason. Otherwise, you wouldn't pass my fortification so easily. Not that I place a secure one today."
"Oh, don't mind us. We're just that tough for a party we didn't know." Eve sips on his wine. But Cyrus chooses not to.
"You didn't? Poor you...I've been inviting everyone here since two days ago before I arrived on this town. I was hoping you were one of the nobles around here..."
The wooden mechanical wanders with an uneven rhythm, doing nothing but seeking their environment with their lens.
"What are those things?" Eve took one curiosity out.
"That 'thing' is not just a thing, my friend. They're called sentient machines, just like your everyday tools. But I don't blame you, given the lack of your—ingenuity with machines." Dion stands up.
"A sentient machine? Ha! That thing is literally a myth, Carven." Cyrus yelled.
"He's right. Making a conscious machine is a biggest myth for anyone."
"Molded in my homeland in Wingham, we called them Metallionettes. A reconstruction of several pieces of woods to gave life for what we called a myth."
"If it isn't a myth, then why it is true in here?" Dion smirks.
"Who are you? And why are you here?" Cyrus muttered.
Dion stops his drink and leans to the right to see Cyrus clearly.
The prince freezes, looking at the ceiling as he watches the clouds grow numb from the sun. Wines after wines, it took him a few minutes to sober from the effect. He was as afraid as the librarian, trying to quench it with a wine. But after hearing the librarian's plea, he became aware of her quest.
"Oh, you really didn't know me? At all?" Dion stares confused and vexed.
"Not even a second. Now spill it out." Cyrus slams the table.
"Why is your face looking that frowned? Are you not happy to see your saviour here?"
"Our savior?" The two pauses.
Dion opens a long scroll on the table, which has 'Carven' in the first sentence of the paragraph.
"You never heard of me before? Carven is a big name around Europe. And I am rightfully here to turn the world into a better place starting from this one."
"Why?"
"Well, what else? Dominion and rights."
"Mine blood lies here for long and I came to retrieve it with my technologies to change your poor and terrible town." Dion introduces himself calmly.
"It is my right to shape this land the way I wanted to. And I promise to your people that I'll gave them paradise. And so I did..."
"All alone." Dion stares tauntingly at the two.
But what he gave the librarian was not a solution or explanation but a mad thought. Each word he spouted is more questionable than before, making the librarian more doubtful to listen. To him, calamity is just a key to his masterpiece for the people. But for the librarian and the cleric, he was simply nuts.
Cyrus laughs at Dion with a taunting face, turning his smile into a slight rage.
"You mean you're planning to turn this whole place into your domain? You alone? That's a lot of self-pampering or what we called now as polishing turd."
"Yeah, I think I've heard enough. Maybe I should have returned to my library anyone done my jobs as a librarian and not listening to a madman's plan." Eve commented with a smirk.
"Oh, but you should have been, my friend. My genius on this sentience-manufacture and a ringmaster for this show is a talent rarely made by fate twice."
"In fact, I planned to assert my development by taking out this city's important assets—the library."
Eve sat with a shock on her face.
The librarian grew weary, and fury was her only expression. Seeing the prince smiling at his pride, she storms out without a word as she searches for a solution to the storm herself. Yet what she had planned was not for the people, either.
"What??" Eve yelled angrily. Cyrus was terrified, and Dion was confused.
"Well, don't get me wrong, my friend. The library is a good place to go, but you see..."
"Histories and literatures inside of it are—venerable. Someone had to take care of that place and cleans up whatever left there."
"Besides, why would one of you need to read a useless piece of literature from journals and stories that never be valued anymore?"
"It's not like anyone in this town ever wrote something outstanding and worth-reading since fourteen years? It needs more creative one like mine." Dion shows his pieces of magazines.
"It's based on a real adventure of mine in Wingham. An adventure like this deserves to be put into the library."
Dion stares at Eve with a smile as the two compete between four eyes, leaving Cyrus in silence.
A man barges in with a baton and a bruised face.
"Mr. Carven! The people are waiting on the theatre! We need to be hurry!"
"Oh, they did? My, my...and here I thought there would be more people like you on the table—listening on my story instead of lavishing around like a pig."
"Uhm, aren't you just eat a ham and a wine on a table with only you?" Cyrus snaps him with some reality check. It is ineffective.
"Nope. And what about you, girl? How do you feel about that idea right now?"
Dion stared at her with a malicious smile, but she was still looking down at her unfinished bread with disgust.
"I don't know. I think I'm about to puke..."
From the other side of this room, the people had arrived at the theatre earlier than Dion had expected. They were chanting his name and waiting for him to open the door, but a few of Dion's men held them back.
"My, my, my..." Dion mumbled.
"It appears everyone had come to the party. Say, why don't you hide there and pretend this never happened? So that people didn't suspect anything about you two?"
"*Sigh* I knew this would have happened. Come on, Eve!"
Eve was silenced. She still ponders with those words from Dion.
The librarian grew weary, and fury was her only expression. Seeing the prince smiling at his pride, she storms out without a word as she searches for a solution to the storm herself. Yet what she had planned was not for the people as well. She left with a long face, leaving the stage and the people at their mumbling before they could corrupt her too.
"Oh...I see..." Eve muttered. Her tone is unheard, even the cleric.
"Good for them, I guess..."
"Good. Good...good..."
"I really had to be haste by now. Really, really be haste..."
"I wouldn't have anything in this town to continue anymore. Nothing..."
In her dying hope for an answer, she raises her arms and questions the stars for their cruel judgement. But all they gave to her was silence and falling tins from the sky, mocking her presence for being too low. They laughed at her and then left her without a word.
Eve caught a smoke from a distance by the west. There were no houses there, yet it was faintly evident.
"What the...? A smoke?"
But the librarian was resilient. From the tins scattered through the ground, she found an inspiration growing from a simple trash. Questioning the prince's doubt, the librarian planned to escape the town before the storm came by building herself a boat. But how can she do such a thing by herself and a spare trash?
That's when tins began to fall in a place where she couldn't put her head in. A trail made for her to seek something from the edge of the town where she had never been so curious. A trail heading to the west.
"I knew we shouldn't trust this guy. Glad we're getting that out of our head. Right, Eve?" Cyrus smiles for her.
"Eve? Eve?"
Eve left Cyrus in the theatre, following the trail of tins on the ground.
"Sorry, Cyrus. This had to be done."
Eve followed the trail by the tins heading from the backstage to the alleys she had never seen before.
"I've never been here before. I didn't even know there's an arch here..." Eve looked forward upon her leave from the town.
"Maybe I should've learn to start traveling more."
"But what is this place? Why is it all—stony?"
She hears a whisper coming from the distance where the cans are hiding. Throughout the houses of the people, it was a barren land with nothing but minerals, then it became a dark cave with a scent of rust and salt. But from that darkness, there was a sound of water.
"A coast? Around this town?" She asks herself.
"Why would there be a beach here and not on the north?"
She let the ocean whisper to her ears as her trail, from which they were echoes her name like a phone call. The cave was an enormous structure for her, which was hard to navigate without a light. But she can feel the stalactite sharpening on the ground like a pillar, and each drawing her away from the light. Luckily, she could recall the shapes and heights with only a touch.
"Woah, I think I shouldn't be here."
"But that's the excitement I wanted to hear! Now, what couldn't I do here myself?"
"I hope I don't get a cave fever..."
Eve uses the stalactite to guide herself through the darkness.
*Sniffing* "What is that smell? Salt?"
"Wait, am I heading to a coast right now?"
"The smoke trail was heading there, too. Maybe there's a party around here..."
"Better than anything inside. I guess..."
On the other side lies a warm and sandy coast with a view that hadn't yet been struck by the calamity. An ocean so free and lively that it feels like coming from another world. And on that same coast lies an abandoned house made of metals and tin cans she had been trailed.
There was a beach at the end of the cave, with boulders piling on the coast and a rusty hut-like house standing at the front of her eyes.
She reached into the abandoned-looking house, unaware of what awaited on the other side of the door. The house looks old, rusty, and perfect for someone like her to live happily, if it wasn't for the calamity to strike. But when the librarian had the knob in her grip, she hears machines pumping and loading with steam, which could only mean one thing.
"Oh, I can feel it. I feel something malicious waiting...I just knew it..." Eve whispers to herself.
"You want to scare me, beast? Go ahead and tray out."
Despite her hands shaking, her curiosity challenges her to push in. The librarian, with all her strength, knocks on the door while hoping she is not going to see another madman by the other side of the door.
Eve hits her head on the wall while contemplating Dion's scheme. But after a minute, someone opens the door for her after a few minutes.
"Finally! I've been waiting for someone to answer the damn door." Eve stops hitting her head.
"Look, I know this is urgent. But I need your help! I saw your smoke from the other side, and I was hoping I could ask you to—"
"—Help me?" She pauses.
But what came out on the other side was not something close to her expectations. When the knob swings and the door pulls back, a man made of metal appears instead, answering the door for her with a blank face. The librarian was confused and speechless. A man made out of tin. A Tin Man.
"Oh, wait. Why did I answer a knock? I shouldn't answer a knock!"
"Oh...oh..."
"Can we pretend none of this happened?"