Little Arico was always looking up to The Great City in bewilderment. Many of the villagers frowned upon this, but some simply smiled at the young boy and his curiosity. One day, as he looked, he saw something he didn't expect. From the sky, a single machine flying through the sky suddenly let go a large explosion from it's engine, and began to spiral towards a building all the villagers had come to call, The Spire, a single, infathomably tall tower in the middle of The Great City. Little Arico's eyes grew wide and he quickly turned from his silent gaze to call some elders to see it with him before it was too late. Finding some talking nearby, he called out in his tiny voice,

"Village Mother! Look!" And he pointed towards the disaster taking place. This caught the older woman's attention, and she looked with curiosity, only to be taken aback at the sight, covering her mouth in shock at the imagined loss of life. She regrouped, then focused back on him, not wanting him to worry.

"Little Arico," She approached him with a motherly tone, "You're always looking to The Great City, and you ask why we don't live there. What you see there is why." He looked up to her, confused, and she smiled and knelt beside him, other elders gathering around them now to watch the spectacle in the sky.

"What do you mean?" His voice was clear and innocent. He was clearly yet to be tainted by the darkness of the world.

"You see, when there is so much going on, so many things in the hands of strangers that affect so many lives, bad things happen. True, great things can happen in such a magnificent city, but the small joys are lost. It might be nobody's fault for what has happened up there, Little Arico, it is just a machine. It was built, and as machines do, it finally fell apart. This is why we of The Village do not dabble with machines, or aspire to build great buildings to simply live in. We live a different life here by choice, child, but those raised there are raised to accept it as the only way, not given the choice to live this way."

"Have you ever been inside The Great City, Village Mother?" Little Arico was always one question after another. She could only smile, pausing a moment as if remembering, a twinge in her expression revealing that perhaps wishing she didn't remember.

"Yes, Little Arico, I have." What she didn't say was that she was from there, originally, born and raised. Memories of her escape flashed through her mind. They still hadn't found her. Maybe they had given up, or assumed her dead.

"What was it like?" More children gathered round to hear the story now, and even some more elders, who had once visited the city.

"It is a strange place, where strange things happen to strange people for stranger reasons, children. If you ever dare attempt to visit, keep a cautious air about you, and know that you can't touch anyone else, or even greet them, not even with a smile."

"Why not?" A little girl, Aria, piped up.

"Because they are all afraid up there, little one."

"Of what?" Another little boy asked, and this time Arrow - the Captain of the hunting parties and best in the village with a Bow - answered with a tone of bitter anger.

"Everything! They are ruled by fear, that's what they love! They hate germs, so nobody can even touch each other unless they've recently been cleaned. They are afraid that everyone is an enemy, and are so paranoid that they can't afford to tell anyone passing by them on the streets so much as a, 'Hey!' or a, 'Hello!'. They work unfulfilling jobs so that the people that live in The Spire can live lavish, equally unfulfilling lives." A pause as he spit to the ground with an expression of disgust, "I say it serves them right. That machine crashing in to The Spire is exactly what they deserve!"

"That is quite enough, Arrow!" Barked the Village Mother with a stern look. The grown man suddenly looked contempt, but he knew he had said something wrong even as he said it. "You know it is a terrible thing to wish such disasters on others! What if that happened to us? Would they say the same? They may be living their lives wrong in our eyes but if we judge them than it is all for nothing, everything we do here."

"They probably would..." He trailed off in response, knowing he had lost.

"A probably is not enough, Arrow, and you know that. Teach the children something better than hatred, and let go of the past! You don't live there anymore." She looked to The Great City, to The Spire, which stood burning with a massive gash taken out of it's side, "None of us do."

"Dinner!" A loud echo from across the Village, loud enough for everyone to hear. Everyone dispersed and went to eat, leaving Sarah, who had come to be The Village Mother, looking to The Great City, hoping for a moment that her family-her original family, not her new family-might be spared from the disaster taking place so far away. She knew her parents, at least, still lived in The Spire, and possibly her siblings whom she had left behind.

"You know," It was Arrow, now looking with her, "You're right. I forgot...please, accept my apology."

"It is okay, Arrow. I am equally sorry for raising my voice. Just remember, everything happens to everyone for a reason."

"Like leaving the city behind? Coming to live and raise a family in a small, self-reliant village?" He was smirking now.

"Yea." She paused, looking dreamily upwards, remembering the not-so-distant past, "Your father was the one who welcomed me here, do you remember?"

"I do. The rest of the village was sure you were a bad sign, but he saw something else in you. I think it was because he came from there, too. Still, look at you now, Village Mother." That made her smile again.

"Yes, I just hope a lost soul can find themselves here like I did soon, so I can welcome them in. Anyway, go and eat, I will be there in a moment." He did, and she looked up to the sky, and back to the ground. Holding both hands close to her heart, she quietly wept for the lives surely lost in The Great City today. Nobody in the Village shared her sympathy for those in the city, but she wished they would. Even if those in The Great City called them savages, unclean fools, she still smiled and wished better for them.

Sarah had lived there once. After living here, being surrounded by people she could trust and love, she was certain she knew what happiness was now. If only the city-dwellers could understand how they were the blind fools, and not the other way around.