Finch's right arm was elbow deep onto Kaleb's stomach. His hand went through his bloody stomach to his back. Finch's hand was closed with only his index finger pointing out to Mira. They all stood there in shock not knowing what to do Royse fell over in disbelief believing he had just failed his best friend. Mira covered her mouth ready to let out a tear-jerking scream that could make anyone freeze and she did exactly that. Her screams made the birds on the trees fly and the crows hawk which was fruitless. They were located on the abandoned side of the village without anyone there to hear her heart-stopping screams. 

Kaleb stood there still processing what was going on. 

"Another reason why I didn't go after Betsy is because of this boy. Kaleb Quaker beat one of us, a mere human, a little kid, a dumb child who somehow beat Ada." Finch explains, ready to pull his arm off Kaleb's stomach by grabbing his shoulder with his left hand to push him. " The only way to overcome your fears is by killing it. You are all just children with delusions of beating us. You were all parading around the town protesting about us, di-"

Finch’s speech was interrupted by Betsy. After Milles defeated her, she was dragged onto the cold snow by the horns. After a while Milles of course began daydreaming not noticing Betsy was long gone the moment she smelt Kaleb's blood being spilt onto the snow. Betsy had cleanly cut Finch's right arm off before he could pull it out from Kaleb’s stomach. If Finch pulled out his hand, Kaleb would have bled out and died before receiving medical help. 

Before Finch could react he was punched in the face so he was sent flying into multiple abandoned houses. Betsy wasn't even in her Wendigo state when she cut Finch's arm off, but she quickly switched to escape holding onto Kaleb with her right arm and then holding Royse and Mira who were still in shock on the other arm. Kaleb had already fainted at this point from the pain. Betsy had turned into a Wendigo and tracked down the one person she talked to who might help. In a matter of seconds, she had reached her destination and turned back into a human just in case she scared the help. She accidentally drops Mira and Royse onto the wooden porch.

They both immediately recognized where they were. They were at the farmer's place, Ryan Hollow, the guy who blamed Betsy for releasing his animals in the marketplace. Betsy tackles the front door down with her shoulder and is still holding onto Kaleb in her arms. Just when the door goes down she sees gadgets she has never seen before, inventions that no one in the village invented. Pieces of metal like bolts, screws, and tools filled the floor like dirt, and piles of metal stacked upon each other in corners and along the walls. 

Betsy had never seen that kind of material because of how rare it was, but it didn't concern her at the moment. Before she could yell for the farmer's help he ran out of the room ready to shout from the top of his lungs to whomever the intruder was. Instead of raging in pure anger, fright covers him like a blanket turning him white as a sheet. Kaleb had a whole arm piercing his stomach which horrified him almost making him throw up. 

"W-what… the… that-" Ryan tries to speak but the words leave his head and so do his thoughts. He stood there in disbelief with his jaw agape not knowing what to do with himself.

"Is there any Repeating Forest Merchandise that can help him?" Betsy asked with a concerned look on her face, afraid of Kaleb dying in her hands and it would be all her fault.

"U-uh no no what? No" Ryan said without thinking, still fixated on the scene in front of him trying to think what was happening to Kaleb. "I mean yeah take em to my wife, she knows more about forest healing Merchandise." 

They both sprinted over the cluttered floor to avoid falling or getting hurt.

Mira and Royse were still sitting on the porch too afraid and distraught to see Kaleb's current condition. Mira and Royse sat far away from each other thinking about who was to blame for this catastrophic dilemma. They blamed it on their own decisions, thinking of what they could have done differently to save Kaleb from this life-threatening situation. They both ran different scenarios they could have done to avoid this outcome until Mira finally came to a conclusion and stood up. Her saddened eyes were now gone and turned to a look of frustration and anger boiling inside her. 

She clenched her fists into a tight ball that not even the cold air could seep through.

"Royse don't even worry about how this happened or whose fault this was. We already know the main culprit. It was Betsy Gasyer." Mira advised him not to worry about Kaleb's death, but to instead look at the bigger picture. Royse felt like Mira was reading his mind and gave him the answer to his question. "We need her to protect us since we're already too deep into this predicament. There's no way they'll let us go after all, we know too much so they're afraid of what we could do."

"What are you talking about? Are you going to keep going after they kill Kaleb?" Royse whined. His eyes were swimming with tears traumatized by what happened, hoping that he wasn’t going to be next. "If only you stayed put Kaleb would be dead. And you want to keep hunting down the Gasyer family after you saw what they did to Kaleb?"

"Kaleb isn't going to die, you idiot Mrs. Hollow is the best doctor out here. Don't you ever say that!" Mira said while doubting her own words. "Royse if what you said was true that some of them are scared of Betsy. Then they kil- I mean tried to kill Kaleb because he found a way to kill them and he could do it again if we have the right type of tools. 

“You’re going to get one of us killed again,” Royse intervened this time with angry words. “You’re trying to blame others when you’re at fault here.” Royse no longer trusted his sister which made the air tense around them. 

Ryan broke the tension in the conversation with a proposal. "How about I train ya? I could train yall past your limits to fight whateva happened to Kaleb."

"Why would we need a chicken trainer to teach us how to fight?" Royse asked, rejecting his offer mercilessly.

"How is Kaleb's current condition, is he going to be alright?" Mira asked before saying anything else. She held her breath until the farmer answered her question hoping it was good news. 

"We dunno yet. Thanks to the Forest's Merchandise he'll at least be havin a fightin chance. But his life may still be in danger" Ryan said, trying to fix their uneasiness. He nodded his head believing that Kaleb was going to make it through the terrifying ordeal. “So what exactly happened to ya kids or I’ll hafta ask ya parents about dis.”

Mira let out a sigh of frustration because they'd already passed their curfew again. Royse and Mira’s parents were pretty lenient on their behavior since they had to work all day to supply food on the table and a roof over their heads. Mira didn’t want her parents to get involved because of the stress it could cause them. That’s if her parents believe their story.

 Mira decided to tell Ryan half of the story, afraid he wouldn’t believe the whole thing. 

“Are ya pullin my leg lil girl, now why in the world would Milles do dat?” Ryan snapped at Mira’s accusation of Milles. He believed the first half of her story until she mentioned Milles’ name. “He been workin fo me all these years. Why would he eva do dat?

“Milles works for you?” Royse retaliated in confusion and anger. He stood up as if he was going to fight Ryan himself. For a second Royse assumed Ryan was working with the Gasyer family who was responsible for Kaleb’s severe injury. “Why does he need a dumb farmer like you?”

“Well, brat since ya wanna know so badly. He technically don’t need me at all wants is my chickens so he can tell em stories. I let em have his time wit my chickens in return, he gets me Merchandise from the Repeating Forest.” Ryan pauses for a minute trying to make sense of everything the kids just told him. He was rubbing his chin and looking up in the sky lost in thought. “I guess you brats might be tellin me the truth. No one has come in or left the village alive, well not that we know of except for Milles.”

“You said you can train us right?” Mira asked. Her eyes were squinting at the farmer, uncertain if she should trust him. “How and why exactly?”

“Well, y'all can start loading up my chickens to my sled over dere and get my dogs ready to go.” Ryan pointed at his sled and where it should be placed. The sled was wooden and appeared like it was as old as time. The old sled was able to hold at least five people at a time. It was covered with snow, forgotten to be covered up by its owner. “I’ll get the other kid and check up on Kaleb while I’m at it. You have one job to get my animals in that sled and that’s all”

“Okay?” Mira accepted Ryan’s order and turned to the old sled.  She found it weird that Ryan would request such an easy task for them to do when he is known to reject any help when it comes to his animals. 

“Fine,” Royse said with a stubborn look on his face, sulking while looking at the floor.

Royse, Mira, and Kaleb have been on the farmer’s property multiple times and have never been caught before. Kaleb would be the one stealing merchandise from the farmers while Royse argues with Mr. and Mrs. Hollow about abusing their animals, distracting them from the thief. This would all go down with Mira’s plan, but first, they had to go through the multitude of animals guarding their belongings. 

Mira made her way down the steps filled with rage. Her steps were loud and heavy compared to Royse's, his steps were light as if he was trying to hide his presence afraid of being caught by the Gasyer family again. Mira stops right in front of the farmer's barn.  The barn was red, filled with snow on top of the large roof. The barn could fit three to five houses.

“I’m guessing the farmer is taking us to a chicken arena,” Mira told Royse so he wouldn’t be surprised or on edge. She gazed at the barn with suspicion. She was squinting her eyes in confusion trying to find anything out of the ordinary. 

“How do you know,” Royse asked with a squeaky voice. Not only was he afraid of the farmers, but also for the animals, the Gasyer family, and Kaleb’s health.

“It’s just a guess, Royse,” Mira responded annoyed at his cowardly behavior. She gave a long sigh before demanding Royse. “We need to separate and accomplish the assignment as quickly as possible.” Mira tried to be strong for Royse, but her voice cracked midway through the sentence.

Royse nodded his head with a sullen look on his face, he stared at the white snow reimagining Kaleb's blood filling it as it did before. He blamed himself for Kaleb’s death, but deep in his heart he felt like Mira was to blame. Every time he looked at her he couldn’t help but feel resentment towards her. 

Mira was trying to slide the barn’s door open, but Royse was too distraught to even help her. 

Out of frustration Mira once again annoyed at Royse’s worrisome looks made her yell at him out of stress. “Royse, what are you doing? Get over here and help me open it!” Mira scolded Royse so he could snap out of it and help open both of the doors. Since it seemed both doors needed to be opened to enter.

Royse ran right over to the other side of the door and gave Mira a disgusted look. He pulled the door as hard as he could. When the door was wide open a surprise hit their eyes. Two large starving wolves were staring at them with their red blood-thirsty eyes. Loud growling escaped out of the wolves' mouths as they salivated all over the floor. Their faces contorted showing their ferocious yellow fangs as the two kids looked at them in fear.