Chapter 10 (Chow's POV)

When I was a child, my mother left us. I was only 8, and my father had gone to work in the local mines. A cat wandered in there, and its owner, a 16-year-old boy, was in clear distress and was afraid that it’d be buried alive. My father, a fairly heroic, brave man, a man that once used himself to ward off a group of rowdy teenagers that wanted to hurt me despite how tall they were, a man that once told me stories of him fighting in a war from years ago back when he was younger, was nervous.

I almost couldn’t believe it. I was shocked, but I understood it all the same. To put yourself in danger over a small, generic, black, somewhat homely cat seemed ridiculous.

I told him that he didn’t have to save it, that he could just find another homely black cat and give it to the boy and call it a day. But the boy was persistent. His name was Jeb. Jebbidiah Bricks. He had no siblings, and both his parents died when a mine caved in during their hunt for gold. Being as poor as we village folk were, it wasn’t too uncommon for parents to risk their lives for the sake of their children. Whether it was young women using their bodies to earn money for their children so that they could buy the hottest new snack, or men who would do some of the worst, dangerous jobs you could think of, including hunting grizzly bears so that they could sell their expensive meat for money.

I was aching to just live a normal life with the little family I had left. I missed my mother, but, to be honest, she never did much. Father did most of the work. Cleaning, cooking, walking me to school, and tending to my wounds while my mother spent most of her time at the nearby ladies' book club and wine tasting. She’d spend hours outside without even informing us of her whereabouts. It hurt us both, but we knew better than to pry as that’d only make her want to leave us even more.

I once woke up in the middle of the night for a cup of water and saw her with a man, a fairly younger man, and they were walking together, holding hands. I think my mother noticed me, but she just gave me a wave and bent over to kiss him on the cheek, which only made the mysterious man blush. I’ve held it in ever since, but remembering that moment, her betrayal, would always give me some of the worst nightmares.

One day, when Jeb came back banging on our door, he alerted us that his cat, whom he had named Kurohime, was meowing quieter this time, much fainter than before. He told us that she might be dying, thirsty, hungry, and maybe even crushed by some rocks.

Again, at first, father wanted to turn the child away, but when he saw how filthy the boy's face was, he realized that Jeb must’ve tried himself to dig his cat out. His fingernails were missing and bloodied. His face was black and grey with dust. It was heartbreaking.

“Please, sir! Mr. Liu, save Kurohime! If you…I’ll help you earn more money for your daughter!” He cried.

I glanced up at him, panicking. I could see the look on my father's face instantly change from hesitant to desperate. He didn’t want to cause the boy to hurt himself by attempting to save his cat. My father was too kind for such a thing. He loved children and treated every child he saw with love and respect. No matter how young the child was, he never once talked to them like they were of lower intelligence; he just treated them like normal human beings.

Before I could get a word out, my father walked back into the house and grabbed his mining gear. His goggles, thick leather gloves, boots, and leather overalls, along with his pickaxe.

As the boy led my father to the cave, I decided to stay back. I couldn’t face watching my father do something so dangerous. Ash in his lungs? Rocks were piled onto his injured body? His being stuck inside with the cat with no means of escape? I didn’t want to watch something terrible happen to my father.

As the hours went by, though, it was getting close to nighttime. It had been almost 5 hours, and I had to look around for food. Except, there was nothing there. We were all out…

Unlike the others in our village, my father didn’t always have a way to earn us food and money. He and my mother had had me a bit later in life, so he was struggling more than others to get a paying job. It wasn’t just that, though; he didn’t know how to read and write. But despite that, he was able to send me to school by selling some of his grandmother's old jewelry and even his old dusty Bibles. But that was a while ago, and ever since then, we’ve struggled to get even a piece of bread. I didn’t want to leave the house, though. What was he alright, and he came back?

I didn’t want to miss his arrival, so I just sat and waited on my bed…except, a few more hours passed. And then some more. It was getting to be fairly painful. Unbearable. I was starving, and I wanted food.

I got up for a bit from my room and wandered outside. As I quietly began to close the door behind me, I heard a sudden boom. Like an explosion. Or, perhaps it was an explosion?

Feeling chills run down my spine, I raced over to where it had come from and could feel my feet hurt and burn as my soft heels ran over pebbles and small twigs on the ground, but I quickly brushed them off.

I could hear people shouting and some crying, some murmuring loudly, and others gasping. I was almost there.

As I got closer, I flung myself as close as possible to the site of the explosion out of fear and aching desperation. Panting, feet bleeding, toes pounding, I slowly brought my head up and could feel my heart and stomach drop.

The mine…the cave that my father had entered to save the pitiful cat, had collapsed.

I wasn’t sure what happened. How did it collapse? Who could’ve had the money or power to cause an entire cave to collapse? My brain hurt, and no sound came out of my mouth.

But without meaning to, I got up onto my feet and shoved roughly through the crowd. Some of the villagers glared at me, some gasped as my elbows hit them, and some cursed at me.

“Ungrateful child,” “disrespectful,” “did your mother teach you to push adults?”

I didn’t care. I wanted my father. Was he okay? What happened? Where was he?

Once I was close enough to touch the cave, I saw something run from the site, from the corner of my eye. It was a boy, an older boy. Gulping, I took off towards him and tried to keep pace. Did he cause this? How could a mere villager do such a thing?

As I tried to catch up to him, I could just barely see the back of his head. Though he must’ve noticed me or, more likely, expected me as he brought a small object up over his shoulders and fired some kind of object at me. I wasn’t sure what was going on or what the object was, but it was coming pretty quickly.

Startled, I froze where I was standing, and as it headed right for me, I felt my skin prickle, my ears hum some odd song, and an object of my own seemingly fell into my hands.

It was a golden, glistening pole. A wand, I guess, is more like it. I just touched it and it was warm. It was like my body was moving on its own.

I quickly brought the wand up to my chest and pulled off a strand of my hair, and pressed it to the center of the pole, vertically. And a golden string formed itself along with an arrow and a small, fiery bird.

“Kill the child. Kill him. Kill Jebbeidiah Bricks. King Akiyo doesn’t need the boy. He killed your father. Kill him. Let him burn to Hell,” A voice rang in my head. It wasn’t my voice, though. It must’ve been my heart or something someone said long ago. Except, who’s King Akiyo?

As I brought the bow and arrow up point blank, as the figure began to run faster and faster, and the object seemingly whizzed even closer to me, I let the small bird fly. I let out a sharp cry as it collided with the object, and the air around me began to shake, as did the ground. The two weapons meeting each other must’ve caused some kind of powerful reaction.

As I fell onto my bottom, a bit dazed and scared of whatever had just occurred, I remembered what the voice had told me.

Jebbidiah Bricks. King Akiyo.

Did that boy who was earlier, the one with the missing cat, do this? Did he kill my father? Was King Akiyo a relative of his? Maybe there hadn’t been an actual cat after all? It was most likely lies, spouted by a vile, disgusting man such as Jebbediah Bricks. The name burned in my heart and mind. It burned so deeply that I just knew I had to find this man and ask him about my father's death and King Akiyo.