The ground cracked beneath Charlisa's sandals as she walked to the well. Thin fissures etched the earth like wrinkles on an aging face. The well, once brimming and echoing with cool splashes, now exhaled a hollow groan as the water bucket dragged up murky, reduced offerings.
Each family had begun rationing. The buckets were half-filled. Children were taught to carry with both hands—no spills. Even bathing was reduced to cloth-sponge wipes, and cooking was minimal, relying on steamed grains and dried root stews.
But the worst was not the thirst.
It was the sound that came just before dawn.
The howling.
Kael stood at the edge of the village's eastern barricade, his spear in hand. Behind him, others gathered with torches and shields woven from thick bark and resin. Eyes sharp. Nostrils flared.
The beasts had come.
Not to attack—but to beg.
At first, it was just the wild dog packs—gaunt and limping, sniffing around the outer clay pots and drying baskets. Then came the horned dusk-hoppers, herbivorous but massive, crashing into fences to get to the last green sprouts.
And then, a sandcat—sleek and golden, desperate and bold, entered the village one night and nearly pounced on a child trying to feed the hens.
The villagers had learned not to kill unless there was no other choice.
But now... the line blurred.
Charlisa watched as the matriarchs convened a circle of drought response, calling in both hunters and healers. She attended quietly, a woven flask at her side, listening to voices grow sharper.
"What if they breach the food stores?"
"They'll die anyway, let them take what's outside."
"And when one comes sick with rotgut fever, and spreads it?"
Charlisa stepped forward slowly.
"We can't invite sickness. But perhaps we can distract it."
Eyes turned to her.
She spoke of her grandmother Vina's methods—planting repellent herbs around homesteads, creating false water pits filled with sharp-scented leaves that deterred predators.
"Draw the smell outward, where they'll follow," she said. "Give them something far from us."
Kael nodded in support, and soon he led a small group—including Charlisa—into the edge of the forest, laying salt-soaked scraps, herbs like strongroot and bitter seed, and a decoy trough filled with spiked tamar leaves that smelled like water—but tasted foul.
They returned sweaty, scratched, and breathless.
But the next night, the village was untouched.
Charlisa watched the torches burn low as people slept lighter, still tense, but quiet. She curled beside Kael, his arms hot around her, his back tense as a drawn bowstring.
"When will the rains come?" she whispered.
"After the winds finish testing us."
Charlisa stared up at the roof, feeling the thin brush of the wind through the woven thatch—dry, ancient, relentless.
And she knew.
Survival here wasn't about strength alone. It was about cleverness, community, and the patience to outlast even the thirst of the wild.