THE STORIES TOLD.

He walked slowly past the corpses that lay before him. His eyes, on the ground that was soaked with thick blood, and the bright red moonlight did not make matters any less disturbing.

Each stride he took made his face stiffen, his eyes widen, and his hands trembled.

"No, it can't be," he thought.

To him, everything around, the burning houses, the dead bodies scattered on the ground, and the smoke choking in the air, all of it was abyss. All he cared about was the young woman that now lay before him.

Her kimono was soaked with blood, and she struggled to say something as she watched him approach. He knelt and held her arms, placing her head gently on his arms. She placed her palms on his cheek and forced a flimsy smile. Her hand was cold like a block of ice.

"I, I - love you," she said, and her eyes lost the color of life.

For a moment he placed his ear against her chest. On the realization she was dead, his heart leaped. His body felt heavy like lead had been placed on his shoulders and he could not, no matter how hard he tried, he could not stop the stream of tears that cascaded down his cheeks.

He slowly turned to a man adjacent to him, he had stood there watching as the scene unfolded.

"Jericho!" He madly stood and faced the man, his eyes blind with rage, "You will pay for this!"

He charged at the man.

* * *

Kitsune, a girl in her teens, struggled through thickets blocking her path. She was about five feet five inches mostly contributed by her long well shaped and proportional legs. Her hair and eyes had an Asian black color and she packed fair-sized breasts that bounced around like balloons as she walked. At any rate, her looks and figure were well above average.

It was already noon. The sun's rays scorched her skin, but her spirit of adventure did not waver despite this. Her terrain was unfamiliar to her. She was lost.

She was led to this expedition thanks to rumors that had circulated across the Island, they were tales of spirits, ghosts, and devils that were believed to lurk in the forest. The tales were told with such frightful accuracy that it made them believable. Who wouldn't want to meet a ghost?

With that in mind at the crack of dawn she dawned her hiking boots and went up to the mountains. She reluctantly thought of how her teachers would be mad at her if she took too long, but what is a trip without adventure?

"Damn! I think I am completely lost," she cursed out loud. "No use turning back now."

After a while of hiking uphill, she came upon what was said to be the center of the supernatural. The main landmark was a waterfall.

In the silence of the forest, she could hear an echo as the water slapped the rocks. She also noticed some alters erected with some bone and animal skulls on top. There was a sign written in English, "Beware, traveler, here lurks the devil." This sight sent shivers down her spine.

"This is a warning," she thought.

She was eventually able to locate the cause of the echo. There was a cave behind the waterfall. She squeezed between the rocks and the water to get in getting slightly wet. Soon she was inside.

The silence was almost insane. It was dark and the only sound she heard was the water behind her. Soon her heart stopped throbbing and her eyesight adjusted to the darkness. In the dark, she could make out shapes.

Moving closer she was able to feel the texture of the shapes. Wooden. They were some crates of some kind. The tops were open. She was able to fish out a packet of a substance and held it in her palm.

"What are these?" she wondered.

The texture was soft like powder. It felt more synthetic like a powder of salt. She was about to sniff it but was cut off by the noises of incoming people. In the noise of the waterfall, she could hear men's voices meshed in.

". . . Dee come on, after all that work you still won't raise my cut?"

"If you keep this up, you won't get a cut."

Kitsune, with the celerity of an arrow, ducked behind some boxes. It was clear by the military gear these people wore they were up to no good.

They spoke Korean, which she understood, even though she was Japanese. She wondered what the foreigners were up to as they waved flashlights in the cave.

"Good, it's all here," said one of the men. "I was worried one of those brats from the school would have found this place already."

"That would have been bad, we would have been forced to kill them."

At these Kitsune's heart pounded. She prayed earnestly that they would leave without finding her.

"If that's everything, I think it's safe to go and wait for the shipment crew."

"Wait, hold on Dee,"

A flashlight was shown in Kitsune's direction. A heavy-set man glared down at her.

"Look what, we have here, Dee." He suddenly grabbed her to display her to his friend "We might have a little problem."

"Please, don't hurt me," Kitsune said her voice slightly shaky but trying to hide the fear.

The men were both quiet. She had not seen their faces but no doubt in her mind they would kill her. Her breathing was getting out of hand with each passing second.

"Well, this is a conundrum," said the thug holding her, "bring the rope."

As she heard this, like a reflex from doing karate as a hobby, she lunge a reverse punch straight on the man's nose. She wriggled out of his hand and broke into a sprint.

"My nose, that bitch broke my nose," said Bee, the thug whose nose had been broken.

"Don't worry, Bee," said his companion, "she won't get far."

By the time Kitsune realized she had gone the wrong way, she was at a dead end. She leaned against the wall as she panted. It was pitch black, but she could tell it was very thick.

"Why is this happening?" she said on the verge of tears.

Out of desperation, she started hitting the wall as she yelled out. No one was coming to save her, she knew that. She yelled and hit though.

It was not after the third hit that she heard rumbling on the ground below. The rumbling got louder and just then, the ground below her feet tore open and she fell. She fell into a stream of flowing water hitting her waist and head against some rocks. She was in tremendous pain but all she did was swallow the salty water in an attempt to scream.

She was mercilessly dumped on a shore of some sought. She held on to her waist as she felt the blood trickle down her forehead. For a moment, she lost consciousness because of the pain.

When she regained consciousness, her back rested on the ground, moist and sandy. The pain in her waist and head was yet to subside. Though she felt the throbbing, her blood had clotted sealing the wound.

To her surprise, the environment around her was pleasant. There was lighting. Some crystals reflected the sun's rays from a small opening above.

She looked ahead and saw a coffin made of thick, heavy-looking marble. Around the coffin, some pillars made the area look like an altar. In the center of the coffin, a spear had punctured through.