A month later.

One sunny afternoon. Ella and Kate were discussing their sister Ivy under the shade of a red cedar tree that was growing at the back of their house.

"If sister Ivy won\'t still visit us here next week then I will go to that castle in the hill to check on her," Kate said in a determined voice.

"Aunt Margie won\'t give you her permission," Ella said. "Let\'s just wait next month. She\'s probably busy with her job and her employer won\'t permit her to go out, so, let\'s wait for next month before we make any action," she added.

"I dunno, every day that Ivy is not here with us, I felt uneasy. She told us that she will visit us once a month, but there\'s no sign of her coming to visit us," Kate said.

"How about our neighbors, did their sons and daughters visit them already?" Ella asked.

Kate shook her head. "I asked a few of our closest neighbors, out of the 100 hired workers, no one has come back yet," she answered,

Ella breathed deeply. "That\'s strange...hmm...maybe they were not allowed to come back because they were already given six months advance salary."

"No, Ivy told me before they leave that they\'re allowed to go out once a month. So, how come she\'s not here yet? Knowing our sister, she would do everything to visit us," Kate expressed her worries, sighing.

Ella agreed with Kate\'s statement. And right now, she\'s beginning to feel worried about her sister as well.

"I\'ll wait for another month. If Ivy is still not coming to visit us then I will go to that castle in the hill and check on her condition. I just want to see with my own two eyes that our sister is safe. After confirming that she\'s safe then I\'ll return here immediately," Kate revealed her plan to her youngest sister.

Ella can only nod her head in agreement.

After one hour chilling under the shade of the red cedar tree, they went inside the house to prepare for dinner.

~~~0~~~

The next day.

The whole village was shocked to see a new lake being formed overnight. The lake was approximately fifty meters in width and length, and it has sparkling water compared to the murky water of the other lake nearby.

Desperate for clean drinking water, the village people tasted the water and they found out that the water tastes good, some claimed that it tasted like wine.

"The water in this lake tastes different, it has an after taste on it, but it\'s better compared to those murky water on the other lake. I would rather drink on this one than continue drinking those dirty looking water out there," the farmer said while motioning his head to the other contaminated lake nearby.

"I agree, the water in this lake here is clean looking and the smell of a fragrant flower. The smell is so niceee!" one of the ladies commented.

"I wonder where is the source of this water, where it comes from? Why is it clean and the other water in the lake is dirty looking? This bothered me a lot. This lake here suddenly appears out of nowhere and it happens while we\'re sleeping. The calamities that happened around us in the last few months, everything happened during night time as if somebody out there put us all to sleep and then made all these things possible before we woke up. It looks like some kind of magic," the guy sporting a white beard revealed what he observed.

The people looked at each other in confusion.

"Does God\'s in heaven make fun of us?" one of the ladies asked.

"They torture us by destroying all our crops using the insects and turning our only source of drinking water into a dirty lake. Then the drought makes our lives here more difficult. Are the gods in heaven punishing us? We are not bad people. I can\'t understand why would someone punish us?" said one of the teenagers.

One of the elders addressed the people who gathered around the lake. "Listen everyone, nature is acting strange around here. Some villages near us weren\'t experiencing these types of calamity. Therefore our village caught someone\'s eye and who knows what it is. There are many mysterious things in this world that we can\'t see with our own eyes. We\'re not the only creatures inhabiting this planet. Supernatural beings with limitless power existed in this world among us. We are just humans, weak and powerless and that is our dilemma."

Fear of the unknown instantly broke out from the people\'s faces after hearing the elder\'s wise words.

"C-could it be that some naughty God in heaven decided to play a prank on us and play with our lives?" a woman in her 30\'s asked.

"A-are they going to kill us?" asked the guy behind the woman.

The elder named Hugo known as the leader of the village finally spoke and addressed everyone.

"I\'m the oldest alive here in our village and things like this only happen every 100 years that is what my late mother told me. I want you guys to know that what we\'ve encountered in the past few months will soon pass. The beauty of our village will shine again. As for this sparkling water in this lake, we should not abuse it. No one should directly swim or bathe in this lake to avoid getting it contaminated," he paused for a moment, catching his breath.

Then he resumed his speech...

"Everyone should use a pail to get water from this lake to preserve its purity. We must be careful not to put dirty things on it because we are depending on it for our drinking water. As for supernatural beings, let\'s just hope and pray that they will leave our village alone so that we can continue living our lives in a normal way," he said with authority in his voice trying to convey a calm expression on his face.

The people nodded their heads and soon enough, everyone brought their water storage jar and filled them with the clean drinking water.

The lake becomes a busy place during the daytime when all the villagers will get water for their daily water consumption, for bathing, and washing clothes.

The lake brought solace to the already suffering villagers.

They began planting crops and vegetables in their backyard. In just two weeks, the plants and crops were growing steadily.

Everyone rejoiced and was thankful because the lake brought significant help to their lives.

The rain has not visited the Browncliffe village yet.

But what confuses most people was the knowledge that other villages were visited by the rain at least 2 to 3 days per week. While their place was not blessed with even a tiny amount of rain.

The elders of the village were planning to hold a rain ceremony for the sixth time on Friday, asking the Goddess of Rain~Lerees~ to shower their village with rainwater to end the drought once and for all.

They have done the ceremony five times already since the drought has started yet no avail.

But they can\'t lose hope yet, they will keep trying.

Those who have money to splurge, they bought live chickens to be used for the offering of Goddess Lerees during the ceremony.

Although the sparkling lake was still brimming with clean water they were afraid that it would soon dry up if the rain won\'t come up in a matter of weeks or months.

~~~0~~~

Three days later. At 8:00 in the evening, the entire family was preparing to sleep in their respective bedroom.

The night is stiffing...airless.

Lying in her bed, Ella was fanning herself with her fan that she made using dried palm leaves.

She can\'t sleep yet...the room feels so stuffy!

Three hours later.

She glanced at her sister on the other bed, Kate was already sleeping soundly.

Ella opened the window to allow fresh air to enter the room.

A cool gush of wind rushed inside the room, Ella smiled, no longer feeling muggy, she stopped fanning herself and shut her eyes preparing to sleep.

It was already midnight. The village people were in deep sleep in their homes only the flickering lamp illuminated their residences.

The insects outside stopped making any noises and the village stood still as if frozen in time.

The full moon above was radiating a strange orange glow covering the entire village.

Ella was already in a deep sleep.

So deep was her sleep that she was unaware of dark moving creatures about ten of them advancing slowly to her house, their eyes were bloody red, they were coming to the open window where Ella was sleeping soundly.

They were coming closer... closerrr....about ten meters from the open window.

Suddenly...five winged creatures appeared out of nowhere holding bright silver like swords on their left hands blocking the dark creatures from reaching the open window.

One of the winged creatures faced the open window and closed it softly with the light illuminating from his palm. Then he covered the entire house with a translucent orb.

The dark creatures advanced towards the winged creature and a fierce battle ensued. It only took a few minutes for the winged creature to wipe out the enemies with their silver swords.

After turning the dark creatures into dust with the blinding light originating from their hands, they slowly disappeared in the darkness of the night.

The translucent orbs that covered the house faded into nothingness.

Everything returned to normal as if nothing happened a while ago.

The sisters were still sleeping soundly unaware of what had occurred in their surroundings awhile ago.

The full moon was now hiding below the clouds, casting a dark shadow around the village.

The dark creatures were nowhere in sight...

However the winged creatures were lurking behind the darkness of the night.

Always waiting...

Always ready to fight the darkness at bay.