Crack.
"Huh?" 5-year-old Jannes Devern was distracted by the cracking sound. The semi-blond and light-blue-eyed boy was initially busy feeding the chicks on the farm behind his house. It was his daily responsibility in the household.
The little kid turned around. He knew the sound came from behind. His eyes wandered around for a while as the chicks were eating the grain he gave them. Jannes ran over to one particular point on the farm not long after.
The fact was, it was no special point after all. It was just a tiny portion of the farm; an empty small ground area, to be exact. It also happened to be situated not far from where the coop was.
There, Jannes found nothing strange, except a crack about one metre long on the ground. The sight, of course, prompted the boy to think that the cracking sound he heard earlier was due to this.
"Jannes! What are you doing?!" shouted Floris, his elder brother. Jannes turned his head to the back door immediately.
"Go eat your breakfast!" continued Floris. For his neatness, he stayed at the back door. The brunette boy wore a white shirt and white shorts–a school uniform–with knee-high black socks and black shoes.
"In a minute!" Jannes shouted back at Floris. Shortly after, he returned to the coop to lock it.
After locking the coop, Jannes took a brief look at the cracked ground. However, he frowned because he couldn't spot it. It vanished mysteriously.
"Jannes!" Floris shouted one more time as his little brother was yet to get back and instead, took a moment to just stand still.
"Y-yes! I'm coming!" Jannes responded to the shout with eyes still trying to find the crack. He was very confused but had to leave it all here now.
The boy then ran over to the back door.
"What took you so long? Do you even realize you're wasting so much of my time? I'm going to be late for school and that's because of you!" Floris scolded his little brother.
"That's not true," replied Jannes as both he and Floris got into their house towards the dining room. Floris walked behind him.
"You wicked child," said Floris.
"Hey!" Jannes was shocked to hear that.
"I'll tell Mom about what you said," he added, running.
Floris rolled his eyes at that. The teenage boy himself didn't seem to be in a good mood this morning.
"Mom!" Jannes was all whiny as he was approaching the dining room.
"Youngest child. Always a scum," murmured Floris.
In the dining room, the Deverns were having their breakfast with laughter and joy. They welcomed their second son's homecoming yesterday, and every conversation was still about the second son, Lars.
"What's the matter, dear?" Wilma, the mother, asked Jannes. The boy stood next to her chair already, so she was turning her head to the left as she questioned him.
"Floris said I was a wicked child," answered the boy.
Wilma gasped dramatically while her eyes widened, "Floris, that's a very bad thing to say!"
Floris, who had just entered the room, ignored his mother. He chose to just sit on his chair, which was next to his sister's, Anastasia.
"Floris, are you listening to me?!" Wilma raised her voice. She was irritated by her son's behaviour.
Floris, on the other hand, showed rebellion with his silence. He ignored her once again and started to eat his breakfast.
"Fl-"
"Have you prayed?" The father, Espen, interrupted Wilma as soon as he saw his son eating. He asked in a lower voice than Wilma but with more emphasis.
In response, Floris turned his eyes to his father. It was a cynical look. There was so much anger inside the boy's eyes.
"I have," he stated, continuing to eat.
No one was either talking or making any noise after that. Everyone was quiet. Nevertheless, Floris kept on eating.
"You do realize that lying is also sinful, don't you?" Espen broke the momentary silence.
"I do," Floris responded to him nonchalantly.
Espen and Wilma, sitting across from their son, looked at each other afterwards. Wilma seemed to be worried, while Espen showed more of a 'let him be' facial expression.
"Sit," Wilma later told Jannes to sit on the chair next to hers. The boy wasted no time to do so.
The atmosphere had changed in an instant. They were no longer having their breakfast with laughter and joy.
"I don't think I have talked much with you, Floris. Let's talk about you first. What is up with you? How's your school?" Lars attempted to bring the atmosphere back.
"Good," said Floris. He didn't bother to take a look at Lars, who sat on the other side of Anastasia.
In some way, Anastasia was uncomfortable being in the middle of Floris and Lars, so she tried to find an excuse to take herself out of the situation for a while, "I'll refill my glass for a moment."
Lars watched as his younger sister left. Now there was only an empty seat between him and Floris.
"You know? I had a blast learning law for four years in college. I think you'd love college life. You should start planning on going to college," Lars still tried to get his little brother to chat with him.
But Floris didn't even say anything this time.
"Of course, it doesn't have to be law. I personally think that social sciences will be suitable for you, especially with so many social issues going on lately," continued Lars.
"Have you heard the news about the cult that's banished from Kapura? They tried to create a new religion and spread it all across Kapura. I mean, these people are in serious need of help. They're out of their minds. We have never been more in need of social experts to resolve this kind of problem," stated Lars. This time he also spoke to his parents as he turned to them in the middle of his words.
"Mhm," Espen was baited to say something while he was swallowing his food, "I wouldn't oppose that, but I think what's more important and what they need the most is God. These people are not exactly out of their minds; they're just imbalanced. They need revelation."
"Well, father, much like you, I wouldn't oppose-"
"Those people need neither social experts nor revelation. They're fine. Open your minds. What they need is for us to leave their homeland and stop colonizing them. That's it," Floris objected to both his father and brother. He looked at them one after another as he had just finished his breakfast.
"Floris, that is not how you talk to your father! Fix your manners!" rebuked Wilma. Despite not having her voice as high as earlier, it was clear that Wilma got even more irritated by her son now.
"I will, once all of you fix your minds," Floris stated boldly, adding to the heat of the dining room.
"Enough!" Espen slammed the table and stood, prompting everyone to turn to him.
"You get out of my sight!" He pointed at Floris in such anger. He lost his patience.
Everybody was stunned, including Floris himself. Espen had never been this angry, but now, they could see his face becoming red, eyes getting intimidating, and veins appearing around his neck. It was also clear that all of his strength became centralized at the index finger he used to point at Floris.
"Now!" His voice filled the quiet room.
After that one final yell, Floris got up. However, his eyes were yet to move from his father's, so the 16-year-old boy stood in silence for a moment.
Before leaving the dining room, Floris took a brief look at his brothers and mother alternately, who also turned to him when he looked at them.
Espen closed his eyes and took a deep breath after Floris was out of his sight. He sat back in his chair and then covered the area of his eyes, nose, and mouth with both of his palms, while exhaling.
"I'm so sorry," he said.
"I think I have failed both as a parent and a Servant," the man continued as he opened his eyes. His voice had become much lower.
Espen was a 53-year-old man, brown of skin and grey of hair. He originally came from the Kingdom of Montaland, a relatively small country in the continent of Soravia. He was a Holy Servant from Aether, a major monotheistic religion in the world. He came to the Talaudan archipelago to spread the teachings of Mother Matri in the region, as well as to run a farm that was granted to him by the colonial government of Montaland in the Talaudan archipelago.
"Honey, don't be too hard on yourself," Wilma tried to comfort his husband. She stroked his shoulders.
"No, Wilma. I don't know where it went wrong, but it has gone too far now, and it's all my fault," Espen put his hands back to the table, revealing his stressed face. The thought of himself being a failure hit him hard.
"I'm not sure if it's the right time to ask this, but clearly I have missed something here. What happened?" Lars asked both his parents quite in a doubt. He looked at them alternately.
Wilma sighed, "Your little brother committed a crime."
"We caught him sneaking out of the house past midnight. Your father had been suspicious for a while. But three days ago, we decided to find out what he actually did past midnight all this time. It turned out he was educating the villagers, teaching them numbers and the alphabets. He also read them lots of books, especially the kids," the 48-year-old woman revealed in such a heavy heart. Her green eyes couldn't even make a constant eye contact with Lars' and would often turn to the dining table as she was embarrassed to tell him this story.
"What?" Lars gasped.
"It got even worse after we found out that he's also been stealing books from his school to teach them," Wilma added, then paused to look at her husband, whose shoulders still she held, "Your father insisted him to confess his sinful actions to his school. As a result, he was suspended from the school for two days, and this is his first day of school again."
Lars was silent for a while after that, looking at the table, "It makes sense now why he's been locking himself in his bedroom," said the 22-year-old man. He turned to his right later as Anastasia was coming back.
Anastasia took a seat indifferently, pretending not knowing anything and continuing eating.
"So what happened to the villagers? I just realized I haven't seen any of them. They also didn't come to the farm. Aren't they supposed to plant the seeds now that the harvest season is over?" Lars questioned his parents another time.
The Devern family lived in village of Sawahana, not far from downtown Pagar Waja. As a renowned Holy Servant and a Montavian, Espen was a prominent figure in the village, despite there wasn't any official administration existed or assigned there. For the figure of Espen, the Devern family was able to employ all the men in the village in their farm, while the women would usually trade in the city and the children were prohibited from receiving education by the law of the colonial government of Montaland in the Talaudan archipelago.
"I was planning on imprison them all," Espen broke his silence, prompting Anastasia to stop chewing and turn to her father.
"But I figured it would shock the entire city and would have several negative impacts on us. I have a daughter who will be married to a prince of Montaland soon and a highly-educated son who's just coming back home after four years. I cannot risk you two becoming the target of whatever the negative impacts that would come to us if it became such huge news that my renowned infidel son broke the law," the Holy Servant continued.
"So for a while, I forbid the villagers to leave their residence, and I forbid Floris to go visit them. I'll wait until Prince Maarten's arrival tomorrow for further actions. Perhaps I'll just banish and exile the villagers somewhere after the Prince takes Anastasia to the kingdom. I believe some of them deserve mercy, therefore exiling them might be the best solution after all," he concluded.