My Oak Tribe

The Next Morning

Oako woke to the sound of a horn being blown. As he rubbed his eyes, he tried to figure out what was going on. He looked around his hut, and saw that his mother's bed was empty, as per usual. He heard hushed voices outside and quickly put on all of his clothes (which normally takes ten minutes to get in to)  and slipped outside.

What was left of the camp huddled around the gate. It appeared that everyone was confused, and most people had thrown on their clothes to see what all of the fuss was about.
Ferne ran up to him, quicker than yesterday because there had been no snowfall last night and the warm morning sun was melting the old snow and creating little pools of water.

"Oako!" she called.
"What's going on?" he continued to walk towards the gate. Ferne redirected and walked briskly to keep up with him.
"Someone arrived at the gate earlier this morning." she seemed reluctant to tell him more.
"What do they want?" Flashes of what had happened when people from other tribes had arrived three weeks prior haunted his mind. Ferne looked down. "Ferne! What do they want?!"

They were now at the gate and the tribe parted and allowed Oako to pass through, Ferne trotting guiltily behind him.
Oako's mother stood at the gate, and her advisors were trying to shoo away the gathering of people.
"Mam! What's going on?" he cried.
"Oako, this is not a good time." his mother responded coldly.

Oako felt hurt. This was the first time in weeks they had spoken, and her first reaction was to send him away. The advisors were still trying in vain to shoo away the people. When they saw Oako, they pleaded him to help them. Oako's mother had now exited through the gates and closed them behind her. There was a cry from the crowd and they began to demand answers. The advisors promised answers as soon as they had them, although Oako knew this was a trick to hush them.

Oako had been trying to convince the advisors to let him through the gate, but they stood firm with his mother's orders. He became impatient and grew increasingly upset.

Ferne knew him better than anyone else in this camp, and had a deeper sympathy for people, as both of her parents had passed away. Her father when she was young, and her mother to the sickness three weeks ago. She had become refrained for days, and then appeared again and acted as though nothing had changed. Oako was afraid to ask about it, so he kept quiet. But now he saw tears welling in her eyes. She reached for his hand and squeezed it tight. He squeezed back, weakly, but he wanted to show his support for her too.

He stood feebly at the gate, not knowing wether to wait anxiously, or to push through the line of advisors and slam open the gate to see what was going on. The decision was a difficult one, because waiting could mean going without answers for an unknown amount of time, but barging through those gates would anger his mother, and she already wasn't on speaking terms with him.

Instead of choosing, he stood where he was and chewed a loose nail. He could feel Ferne fiddling with the poncho made by her mother when the first snowfall came.
He remembered how jealous he had been. How he wished that his parents would make clothes for him, but they were far too busy. But now Ferne didn't have any parents.

Ferne and Oako stood hand in hand at the gate. They heard impatient cries for answers behind them, but Oako barely heard them. The last time this happened three weeks ago, half of the tribe had died from sickness. It was a dark time for everyone. He knew that everyone had lost a family member.

He didn't know how much time had passed, but Ferne suddenly stiffened. Oako was pulled back into reality. Everyone went silent. Oako's mother stepped back through the gate. Oako dropped his hand back down to his side.
Behind his mother, someone stood. Who was it? What did they want? Why didn't his mother send them away? If they carried the illness, the tribe could get sick again...

His mother continued to walk through, the person behind her confident. They walked through the parting tribe. Oako's mother didn't so much as look in Oako's direction as they passed him. They headed straight to their hut.

Was their mother bringing the end to their tribe and not even resisting?