Myth of the Phantoms Page 1

     (It rains here. It always rains here. I'm sick of the rain. I'm sick of the mud. The mud is everywhere. The mud is on my boots, my clothes, the carriage. Even where there is grass further out in the hills there is mud under it. Is the weather supposed to be this way? Always Raining? Always wet?)
     "Get back to work, Slave!" Growled the carriage master, "No day dreamin' while yer werkin' fer me!"
     His words were slurred and so too was his attitude towards the workers which he dubbed as the "slaves". That's exactly what they were, though, because while they loaded crates from one carriage to the other, he just sat on his butt ordering them to work.
     Yukama, a twelve year old orphan girl from china, looked at him in reply and scowled. He scowled back with more ferocity and brandished his most prized possession in her face.
     "Ya want another 5 lashes with my whip slave? If not then ya better not give me any more o' yer attitude!" he yelled awkwardly, and just to show her he meant it, he snapped the ground near her feet.
     She did not fear his threats for she had grown almost unaffected by the pain after being subjected to the cruel punishment for so long, but she obliged.
     She walked away slowly as the carriage master directed his attention to others who were not working to his misguided standards. When she got to the rickety carriage she started mindlessly loading boxes on to it, as if it were as normal as blinking or breathing. After about ten or so minutes of this she picked up a black box with a strange crest on it. One of the symbols on the crest she recognized as being Chinese for cat.
     She was about to put it with the other boxes but half way to the carriage something spoke to her. No one else could here it, and it was like a thousand voices whispering from the box, telling her to open it.
     (What was that? Did this box just speak? I must be getting ill from the rain. If I open this box, the carriage master will not be happy. He would surely...)