I awoke to the rays of the morning sun shining in my face from the window right beside my bed. Groaning, I slowly sat up with my legs landing on the ground, before pushing myself off the bed to stand. Then, I let out a stretch and felt energy beginning to course through my body, filling me with more strength as I made my way to the door.

Leaving my room, I was greeted with the sight of Mom getting things ready, taking stuff from a chest. Dad was sitting in a chair sipping from a bucket of milk as he read through the news book.

"Morning, David." he welcomed.

"Hey Dad." I replied, still feeling a little bit tired. Mom looked back to me.

"David, come here." she directed, and I made my way to her. She pulled out a large pack chest from the chest and gave it to me. "You'll be wearing this." I took the chest and put my arms through its sleeves, draping it across my back. Having gathered everything we needed, she went to the door, looking back at Dad, who had a slight concerned look on his face.

"Be safe." he said. She nodded.

"There's no need to worry, dear. We'll be back before long." Mom promised him, then headed out the door.

"Bye Dad." I told him as I followed close behind her.

We moved through the village, taking in the morning scene with other people shuffling about. We approached and stopped right by one of the iron golems that patrolled our village, and I waved at it. I could tell it was Bob from the positioning of the vines growing across his metal body, and he noticed me with his dark red eye lights. He stretched his arm out towards me, and in his grip was a red poppy flower. Smiling deeply, I took the flower.

"Thanks, Bob." I told the iron golem, and he nodded as he continued his patrol. My mom gestured for us to go and we soon left the village, and began crossing the great grass fields, as Mom began humming to herself.

Moments later, the sun was directly overhead, and I could see a taiga forest biome in the distance. The distant trees were covered in thin layers of snow.

As we approached the biome, Mom stopped at turned to face me. She knelt down and pulled out a leather coat from her inventory.

"Alright David, it's gonna be chilly, so I want you to wear this just like we have before." she instructed, giving the coat to me while she pulled her own out. I took off my pack chest and got to work, putting my arms through the opening. The coat then vanished and reappeared, covering my chest. Then, I put the pack chest back where it belonged behind me. I could see Mom had hers on as well. Preparing myself for the coming cold, we continued forth.

Upon entry into the taiga biome, the air around us became a lot more chilly. The crisp warmth of the sun was still there, but not nearly as warm as before. I could see the vapor particles of my breath as we went along, searching for berry bushes.

"Remember to stay by me, David. That's the only way you'll be safe from anything that may be dangerous." she warned. I nodded.

"Yes, Mom."

"Let's aim for twenty berries before evening, okay sweetie?" she suggested.

"That sounds good." I replied.

Soon, we found a berry bush growing inside an empty block space between two spruce trees. Mom went ahead and harvested the berries from the bush, picking them up and storing them away into her inventory.

"That's three, now you go for that one while I look around." She pointed to another berry bush hiding behind another tree. I went over to it and carefully grabbed at the berry spots within the prickly bush. After a short moment, two berries came loose, and I picked them up and stored them away in my chest.

I began to look around for other berry bushes and found one a little further deeper into the forest. Calling out to Mom, I pointed it out to her and she nodded in understanding, permitting me to go deeper. Upon reaching the bush, I got to work, touching the berry spots on the plant. After all spots were tapped, three berries popped out from the plant, and I grabbed them and placed them in the chest.

Spotting another bush not too far away, I went towards it and repeated, collecting three more berries after a short moment of poking.

I could hear footsteps right behind me, and I turned to see a large white wolf glaring right at me with glowing red eyes. Stunned for a moment, I stumbled back with a grunt as I moved away from the creature. It continued to glare at me, and I could hear a snarling from it. Immediately, the snarling stopped, as the animal seemed to calm down, the red glow of its eyes changing to a normal white with black pupils.

"David?" I heard my mother call as she began to look for me. I watched the wolf. It seemed to not care much about me, and was patrolling the area as if looking for prey. I then heard a scream from her as she saw the wolf near me, which drew the wolf's attention to her.

Mom ran over to me and quickly drew an iron sword, raising her arm to shield me. The wolf growled at the sight of the weapon.

"Mom, no wait! It's okay!" I yelled at her, but she shook her head.

"David, that's a wild animal! Wolves can kill you." she warned, then yelled at the creature. "Get out of here, beast!" The wolf continued to snarl, its eyes beginning to glow red again, but another shout from Mom spooked it and had it running off deeper into the woods. After a moment, Mom lowered her sword and held my fist.

"David, you need to be more careful. If I wasn't around, that wolf could have gotten you." she sighed.

"But it wasn't doing anything. It was even ignoring me." I explained, but she shook her head.

"You don't know what was going through its head. It could've been waiting for you to look away, and then attacked." she countered. "Wild animals aren't like tamed ones. They are much more dangerous." I sighed.

"Okay, Mom..." She looked up at the sun, which was slowly making its way towards evening.

"We'll keep going for another moment, and then we'll head back. Stay right next to me." she ordered. I nodded, and we kept searching for more berry bushes together.

I found one and carefully tapped at the berry spots, and two berries popped out from the bush. Storing them away in the chest, I moved onto another bush and poked at it as well, until the corner of my fist scrapped against the sharp edge of one of the texture pixels, cutting into my skin. I cried out in pain as my body flashed red. Mom quickly came by and knelt down to me.

"Are you okay? Let me see the wound." she requested, and I brought my fist to her. She held it in her fists. "No mark, so it wasn't that bad. Just a prick." She patted me on the head. A smile was visible on her face. "You did well, let's call it here."

"Okay." I responded. She collected the berries from the bush and stored them in her inventory.

The two of us made our way back towards the village, the setting sun visible on the horizon. Along the way, we counted the berries we had collected.

"So, it seems like we managed to get twenty-five berries in total... That's pretty good!" she exclaimed. "We'll be having some for dinner then. Tomorrow, we'll bring some over to Emily, does that sound good?" she asked. I nodded.

It was almost nighttime by the time we were back in the village, and Mom had us rush until we made it inside our house. Inside was Dad, who was making dinner for us for a change. He looked back at us from the kitchen upon hearing the door open.

"Hey you two. Anything exciting happen?" he asked. As we took off our leather coats and my pack chest, Mom spoke.

"Well, David had a close call with a feral wolf out in the woods. Aside from that, not much else happened." she explained.

"A feral wolf, sounds messy." Dad chuckled as he pulled a cooked chicken from the furnace. She rolled her eyes.

"Don't patronize me, Joseph. You know wolves can be dangerous." she replied.

"Yeah, I know." Mom guided me to the table, where Dad was placing three cooked chicken and three bread. Mom went through her inventory and pulled out three berries, placing them with our meals. She looked at Dad.

"We had extras." she said, a grin lining her face.

"That's pretty good." he nodded. We each took a seat at the table and began eating. During bites, Dad spoke about his day, and I listened intently while biting into the meaty chicken.

"So, I was training with the boys like I usually do, and one of the soldiers had ended up getting hit pretty rough in the knee. He took the day off." He paused to chew and swallow his food, then continued. I moved onto the bread, munching down on the fluffy food. "So, one of the soldiers' wives came by the place. Turned out that he had spoken to the wrong woman the other day. Apparently, they had a thing in the past, and his wife had been jealous. She wanted to make a big scene about it and expected us to side with her. Thankfully, none of the soldiers did that." A moment passed before Mom spoke up. 

"What if there was more behind the scenes? Maybe they still had a thing?" she pointed out. As she did, I moved onto my berry and savored its sweet juiciness.

"Well, yeah, maybe there was, maybe there wasn't." He continued. "I don't know the full story, so I didn't want to make a judgement. If there was, then he's a dirt block, but the way I see it, they could've had that discussion behind closed doors. She seemed like she really wanted to publicly shame him, and my men weren't having it. So, she left, fuming. The soldier went after her." I finished off my meal and looked at Mom.

"I'm done." I told her. She nodded.

"Have a good night, dear." she replied as she continued to listen to Dad.

"Good night, bud." Dad said to me. I looked back at him and nodded before going into my room.

Hopping into my green bed, I lay my head against the soft pillow. I was excited for tomorrow, but in order to get tomorrow to come faster, I had to fall asleep. I felt tiredness beginning to take over and positioned myself to feel comfortable, and then felt myself doze off.