I gingerly cupped the bulb of the beautiful new plant. With my eye still on the plant, I called over my shoulder to Benneth.

"Benny! Come here! Have you ever seen this plant before?" He took his eyes off his journal to look and raised his eyebrows curiously

"Come here!" I called again, refocusing on the plant. The sound of shoes on grass heading toward my ears informed me of his decision.

It really was a beautiful plant. Its bulb had flaky, red-brown skin, which complimented the yellow stalk growing out the bottom. It looked a bit like a small person who got really mad, with the yellowish leaves acting as arms coming out of the body-like stalk. Then and there I knew that I would name this plant after our neighbor, Mr. Frutle–his face always seems to be red.

Benneth crouched beside me, the plant coming up to his perching knees.

"It looks like Korbute!" 

"Your right, It does. At least, a little bit," Benny started drawing a crude sketch in his thread-bound book (not his journal) with a pencoal. He got that book as his 8th birthday gift (I got a whittling kit for my 8th birthday, but that’s not important) and continued to accumulate supplies to log information with it. We call it "The Living Book," because someday we want to put everything that's living into it! 

"Hmmm... What should we name it?" Benneth wondered. "Korbulb!” came my immediate answer “–after our affectionate Korbute Frutle,"

"But... The bulb looks like a fruit of some sort. What about Bute Fruit? Or maybe... no, that sounds dumb. Hrm, I guess we should go with Korbulb." And so it was. He scribbled in the finishing touches and wrote the decided name above it. I stood up and trudged back through the leaves, vines, stalks, and spruits with Benneth close behind me, heading homeward due to Ba setting in the distance. Suddenly, something grabbed my attention.

For just a moment, I thought I saw a shine, reflected from the dusk light of Ba’ar, like polished metal, or bubbles -- just out of the periphery of my eye.

"Keep going, I'll be right there. I thought I saw something," I called out to Benneth as I walked back to where I thought I saw something... Nothing, BUT that is exactly what made me curious! See, there had obviously been something there, but now all that proved its existence were the plants it had pushed to the side. It seemed like this wasn't its first time, or that it had been there for a while, because several plants seemed dead, trampled over, and brown from the lack of sunlight.

Looking back toward town, I could almost see all of it from this vantage point! I could see Benneth walking head-raised, shoulders-set toward our house. Our house was on the outskirts of our town, nicknamed Fields of Plenty by the townsfolk because the real name is boring and doesn't attract much attention (I heartily agree). I saw the path we took to the main square, swerving this way and that. I saw our town center, a beautiful, green community garden thriving on passerby's water, and occasional new seed. The garden was surrounded by various shops, houses, and stores.

Knowing that I needed to return (both to see what had been there, and to enjoy the view), I found a long, purple stalk, and stabbed it into the ground–making sure it wouldn't fall by packing more dirt around the base–and walked away. That should mark this spot well enough. I think Benneth will like this mystery!

}--{To Benneth}--{

Moikra had been bugging me about a spot of trampled plants. I have no such interest in exploring absolutely nothing, so I tried many times to explain to her that there are myriads of uninteresting animals that could have made this opening. It could be a Jerapnyd (though they rarely come this close to the town), or a Greyne, it could even be a temporary home for a Sneret! But no, despite all this evidence to the contrary, she insisted that it was worth investigating because she thought there was something shiny there.

I am positive it was a sleeping Greyne(They have gorgeous, shiny white feathers), but here I am, looking at exactly what I expected. Surrounded by grasses of green and maroon, a yellowed spot opened up.

"So... help me figure out what I saw!" she said, turning to look at me. "Please?” 

"Alright, alright," I said, getting on my knees. Poking the ground and lifting leaves, I inspected the area as they do in mystery stories, hoping to find something like a feather, to prove that it was a Greyne.

Smelling the grass proved interesting: “It smells weird here. Like... metal or... blood”

Shifting the grass around, my eyes confirmed what my brain was already thinking. Dark brown-red blood was left on the edges and underside of the grasses.

I shivered as the realization set in. This was meant to be a deathbed for some creature. She might have seen some predator dragging it away! But, following that logic, there should be a trail of blood where the corpse was dragged.

"So," went Moikra, "If the creature was bleeding, and thus dying... where did it go?"

"My thoughts exactly. Maybe it wasn't even dying! maybe something killed it! Or... I suppose it could have even just stank like death..." I started looking through the yellowed plants. I concluded my research with a "No that can't be it."

"Well, what are we gonna do?" Moikra posed the question I had been wondering since we got here.

"I don't know, but whatever it was is dead now, right?"

"I would guess so."

Her face lit up with a wild-creature-idea, which I had seen before, and the ideas actually came true sometimes! This one though... probably not."What if! WHAT IF this creature is supposed to be bleeding? Like sweat!" 

"That is!... Well, I suppose that is possible..., but we have never seen or heard of anything like that."

"I know, but look–LOOK!" She whips her head around mid-sentence, and my confused eyes follow instinctively. A blur of movement meets them and disappears! Thoughts dashed through my head "What was it? Is it the same animal that made the spot? If so, why isn't it dead? Is it the predator of the animal? Why did it run away? No other creature has run away that fast before..."

Before I could ask Moikra any of these(not that she would know the answers either) she was running after the blur of motion in a vain effort to catch it.

"Wait!" I sputtered and stood up, stumbling to keep up with the chase. They had already made it into the tree line once I regained my head and footing. Into the woods, we ran! Moikra's ink-black hair danced beside her. I couldn't see what she was chasing but knew I had to stay with her, if not the creature. She rounded a tree, and I followed fast. A little too fast.

Suddenly, my legs went out from under me, the ground was rushing up toward my head, and my vision went black.

}--{To Moikra}--{