The land of Sanitatum is said to be filled with magic, but it is also plagued by a contagious curse that threatens humanity's survival. It is the purpose of the heir to the throne, Simba Adofo, to inherit his father's crown and find a way to vanquis...
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The light flecked in through the open tower window in the form of illuminated pollen whispering in the breeze. Shadows of the trees' canopy sprawled across the floor, and honey light oozed through dark leaf outlines against the sky. Hari sighed as he stared up at the same ceiling he saw every mooring for the last decade.
It was time to live the same day again.
He dragged himself out of bed and pulled the wrinkles from his clothes. He remembered that his shirt was once a vibrant blue with a symbol stitched onto the chest. But the blue of his shirt was drained over the years, fading the once crisp symbol to a mere shadow. His fingers traipsed over the residual contours of a forgotten design. Hari could no longer recall what the symbol was or what it meant. The years had washed the design from his memories despite wearing it every day for the last ten years.
But that was to be expected of the symptoms. Nanna said that he would lose his mind completely soon. There was an insidious comfort in the mundane knowing that he will wake up one day and the world would be completely strange to him.
Descending the stairs in a spiral, he watched the ground slowly get closer through the small windows that lined the walls of his tower. The tower was located in a forgotten forest, in which he tended to himself. The chores were tedious and boring, but they needed to be done. It wasn't like he could leave anyway.
It was time for a bath.
At the nearby spring, he folded his clothes on a flat rock next to the waterfall to bathe - all but his gloves of course. Nanna had said to never take his gloves off.
The spring was a water outlet lined with private trees and was his only access to fresh water. It was clean, it was reliable, and it was warm from the sun. He let the water rush over his body, washing away the grime of the night.
The water flowed into the forest through the falls, and trickled out through a narrow creek. He found the unchanging flow of the water in and out of the forest soothing. Cocked comfortably on the rocks to dry himself, the sound of the waterfall made him forget about why he was trapped in the forest in first place- if only for a moment.
Darwin suddenly dropped from the sky onto a rock next to him. Singing a happy tune under the gentle roar of the falls, Hari was little bluebird's only adoring fan. Hari first met the little bird the day he arrived in the forest. He named the bird Darwin so he would have a friend, and it seemed that Darwin needed one too as he stayed to live in the forest with Hari for the last decade.
Flying over with a gentle chirp, Darwin landed on Hari's dirty clothes on the rocks, as if anticipating his next chore.
It was time to do laundry.
He gathered his second pair of identical clothes from a clothesline, clean from yesterday's routine, and pulled them over his body. He took the clothes he just shed at the spring to the creek at the foot of his tower, where he washed them before placing them on the line to dry.
