Post by Emiko on Apr 17, 2018 1:02:04 GMT -6
There are many legends that exist in the jungle… Most legends are simply tales created to pass the time or give the children a playful scare. Other legends are rooted in grains of truth, but possess so many fabrications to them that they are simply enticing stories. And then, there are those legends of things that actually occurred, but were for one reason or another forgotten and lost to the sea of time… Such legends are often the scariest due to the great mysteries that surround them. Little did she realize, Emiko was about to not only about to discover one of these legends, but possibly become a part of it as well.
Growing up, Emiko had ALWAYS wanted to visit the land of India. As far back as she could remember, the Japanese girl was fascinated by everything the country had to offer. Everything from the nation’s rich culture to the land’s diverse history sparked her deep fascination. Though she was never able to visit the land she dreamed of as either a child or a teenager, it wasn’t enough to stop her from vowing to one day visit that country. Sure enough, she would indeed go onto fulfill her childhood wish. And that wish would end up being granted in the form of a three week tourist-vacation combo!
When the day came to start her vacation, Emiko took the first flight out towards India. She wasn’t initially thrilled that she had to travel by both plane and boat to get to her destination. When she arrived in the small town that was known as the most culturally rich place in all of India, it more than made up for it.
Over the next couple of days, Emiko spent most of her time enjoying everything this little town had to offer. She was indoctrinated into the various Hindi customs, enlightened to the rich history of the Indian Subcontinent, and even exposed to the way of life these villagers had lived for thousands of years. Scheduled later in the week was a trip Emiko was super excited about. A supervised group was going to take the tourists to the site of some ancient, mysterious ruins that were said to be the founding home of the village ancestors. It was a trip that Emiko could have safely gone on in a few days… Being impatient though was what led her to her current situation…
Desperate to see and experience more of this beautiful land, Emiko devised this crafty plan to go see the ruins all on her own. She had decided to sneak out of town under the cover of night and make her way up to the ancient ruins alone. After she got there, she’d spend a few hours exploring what wonders these ruins had to offer before high tailing it back to the village before dawn and getting back before she was even missed. Considering that the ruins were only a mile upriver from the town she was staying in, it seemed like a sound plan. All she had to do was literally head straight north following along the river, and she would easily get there in no time. However, there were some…critical flaws in her plans she hadn’t considered and would come to see as she went along…
Emiko’s problems seemed to start the moment she walked outside of the town’s gates. She managed to get out of the little town she was a guest in with little trouble at all. However, keeping to her plan of following along the river north proved to be tricky to say the least… With no sailing experience, there was no way to take a boat up north and the thick jungle foliage made walking alongside the riverbank impossible. The only way that Emiko could make it to the ancient ruins would be to travel on foot through the various jungle paths and use the sound of rushing water as her guide. It may have been a sound strategy, but it could do nothing for the naïve woman who had absolutely no sense of direction in the wilderness…
Within half an hour of traveling, the inexperienced tourist had somehow taken various trails that seemed to take her further and further away from the sound of rushing water. When the half hour gave way to forty-five minutes, the river was sadly just a faint sound eclipsed by the sound of insects chirping in the night. As the forty-five minutes of jungle travel turned into an full hour, the sound of the river seemed to be entirely gone… It was only a minute or two after this that Emiko realized the terrifying truth about her situation. She had somehow gotten off course and was now hopelessly lost…
You could bet that Emiko was having second thoughts about her decision to walk into the jungle now. She was paying for her decision to carelessly walk into the wilderness without any sort of guide or training. While her being lost was a significant problem, it wasn’t the ONLY decision she was paying for… If nothing else, her attire she had chosen for this little trip was the icing on her misery cake…
Figuring this was going to be an easy trip, Emiko was hardly dressed for jungle travel. Deciding to go casual, the naïve girl had dressed herself up in a pale blue short-sleeve dress with a knee-length skirt. The length combined with the bright colors failed to adequately cover, or conceal herself in the jungle. Worse still were the simple pair of black slip-on flats that Emiko wore on her bare feet which made walking the various terrains even harder than it had to be… If the pale colors of her dress weren’t bad enough, her equally pale complexion seemed illuminated by the moonlight making her standout to anyone, or thing that happened to be traveling by…
The only real saving grace that Emiko seemed to have was that her shoulder-length brown hair had been tied back in a ponytail preventing even the humid nights from overheating her. This combined with her matching brown eyes keeping intently to the path that was illuminated by her oil lantern she had taken along were the only proper things Emiko had going for her. It was hardly enough though to compensate for all of the other errors she had made…
Emiko trailed on for about another half hour before she came to realize that what she was doing was beyond stupid. It may have been a little late, but satisfying her curiosity wasn’t worth losing her life over. With that decision, she did decide to turn back and attempt to make her way back to the town she was staying in. However, even turning around, Emiko wasn’t sure if she was heading in the right direction. Still, she made the turn and walked on for a while until she stumbled into something very mysterious…
As Emiko cleared the jungle foliage and came into this open patch, she was stunned at the site before her… Shining her lantern forward, before her amazed eyes were the sight of some ancient ruins! It didn’t seem possible, but…Emiko somehow made it to a place she wanted to be. Despite being here, something about this place…didn’t seem right. These were indeed ruins, but she was told that the ruins of the town’s ancestors were along the river… These ruins were nowhere near the river making her wonder if perhaps she had been told wrong. Or…was it possible she had stumbled into a totally different site? Regardless of what the case was, Emiko couldn’t stop her curiosity from taking over. Without a second thought, she scampered into the fallen ruins and started exploring what this place had to offer.
As she made her way in, Emiko thankfully didn’t have to rely on overusing the little fuel left in her lantern to light the area around her. The ruin's ceiling had long since crumbled and gave her pathway the illumination of the moonlight. Only a couple of large trees protruding from the stone floor provided any sort of ‘shade’ from the moon. Her path was otherwise clear and easy to travel making exploring relatively easy.
Despite how easy it was to get around these ruins, most of the structure that had once stood here was now withered away… Only occasional wall paintings and carvings remained that attempted to tell the story of some strange creature. Without the whole mural, there was no way for anyone to tell what the missing story was… Strangely though, the path Emiko was on lead her to a small flight of stairs that lead to a withered alter containing a large, clay…vase-container at the top? Emiko had no idea what she was seeing, but wasted no time climbing the stairs to the alter to find out!
As soon as she reached the decorative container, Emiko started looking over it carefully. On the container were words written in a language that she didn’t understand… And under those words were the markings and drawings that made a little more sense, but…Emiko still couldn’t fully understand. The artwork seemed to center around something that looked like a bubble or a blob…? Pictures under it seemed to indicate this bubble-thing could change its form. Various panels on the jar carved in what looked like something out of a comic book seemed to show the bubble-blob’s history. The first panel showcased the bubble-blob being worshiped by a group of kneeling people. On another panel, it seemed as if people were now going to war against it with drawn swords and spears… The last panel on the jar seemed to show someone sealing away the creature while everyone else in the picture was dancing joyfully…
“…What…does this even mean…” Emiko asked herself as she tried to make sense of what she was seeing… “…Just what exactly is on this jar, and what does it mean? Is this how the ancient people who lived her recorded their stories or something? I honestly don’t know what to think…”
Emiko would only have a moment to contemplate all of this before a loud sound from within the ruins startled her. Unsure of what it was, Emiko nervously jumped up and glared in the direction she had heard the sound… By getting up so quickly though, she accidentally ended up bumping the jar she had been examining… With the force of her bump sending the container off balance, it ended up falling and shattering on the ground behind her.
As the jar came to shatter, Emiko glanced back at it for a moment and covered her mouth in surprise… She couldn’t believe that she just accidentally broke what was most likely an ancient relic that had been there for thousands of years… Unable to deal with the thought of what she had just done and not wanting to get into trouble, Emiko quickly ran down the stairs of the alter and attempted to make her way out of the ruins as fast as she could… She would only get as far as one of the large trees within the ruins however before the remaining fuel in her lantern had run its course…
“Oh no...” Emiko softly whimpered as the flame finally went out. She attempted to give the lantern a shake or two to get the flame going again, but it was no use… Emiko had just lost her only source of light and was now stuck where she was…
Now feeling like this was the worst mistake of her life, Emiko discarded her lantern and made her way to the roots of the large tree. Taking a seat on one of the large roots, she gently pulled her knees to her chest and hugged them tightly while giving a sad sigh. Doing her best to not let tears of sadness and fear stream down her face, it was in that moment that everything REALLY hit her… Not only was she hopelessly lost in the jungle in the middle of the night, she was all alone and without any way to keep herself safe… And worst of all, she had to live with the guilt of destroying what was probably some sacred relic… Little did she realize, that relic was more than just a priceless artifact... In time she would come to understand just what was contained within that decorative jar...
(Reserved for Slevin. Sorry it took so long and...is so long... x.x)
Growing up, Emiko had ALWAYS wanted to visit the land of India. As far back as she could remember, the Japanese girl was fascinated by everything the country had to offer. Everything from the nation’s rich culture to the land’s diverse history sparked her deep fascination. Though she was never able to visit the land she dreamed of as either a child or a teenager, it wasn’t enough to stop her from vowing to one day visit that country. Sure enough, she would indeed go onto fulfill her childhood wish. And that wish would end up being granted in the form of a three week tourist-vacation combo!
When the day came to start her vacation, Emiko took the first flight out towards India. She wasn’t initially thrilled that she had to travel by both plane and boat to get to her destination. When she arrived in the small town that was known as the most culturally rich place in all of India, it more than made up for it.
Over the next couple of days, Emiko spent most of her time enjoying everything this little town had to offer. She was indoctrinated into the various Hindi customs, enlightened to the rich history of the Indian Subcontinent, and even exposed to the way of life these villagers had lived for thousands of years. Scheduled later in the week was a trip Emiko was super excited about. A supervised group was going to take the tourists to the site of some ancient, mysterious ruins that were said to be the founding home of the village ancestors. It was a trip that Emiko could have safely gone on in a few days… Being impatient though was what led her to her current situation…
Desperate to see and experience more of this beautiful land, Emiko devised this crafty plan to go see the ruins all on her own. She had decided to sneak out of town under the cover of night and make her way up to the ancient ruins alone. After she got there, she’d spend a few hours exploring what wonders these ruins had to offer before high tailing it back to the village before dawn and getting back before she was even missed. Considering that the ruins were only a mile upriver from the town she was staying in, it seemed like a sound plan. All she had to do was literally head straight north following along the river, and she would easily get there in no time. However, there were some…critical flaws in her plans she hadn’t considered and would come to see as she went along…
Emiko’s problems seemed to start the moment she walked outside of the town’s gates. She managed to get out of the little town she was a guest in with little trouble at all. However, keeping to her plan of following along the river north proved to be tricky to say the least… With no sailing experience, there was no way to take a boat up north and the thick jungle foliage made walking alongside the riverbank impossible. The only way that Emiko could make it to the ancient ruins would be to travel on foot through the various jungle paths and use the sound of rushing water as her guide. It may have been a sound strategy, but it could do nothing for the naïve woman who had absolutely no sense of direction in the wilderness…
Within half an hour of traveling, the inexperienced tourist had somehow taken various trails that seemed to take her further and further away from the sound of rushing water. When the half hour gave way to forty-five minutes, the river was sadly just a faint sound eclipsed by the sound of insects chirping in the night. As the forty-five minutes of jungle travel turned into an full hour, the sound of the river seemed to be entirely gone… It was only a minute or two after this that Emiko realized the terrifying truth about her situation. She had somehow gotten off course and was now hopelessly lost…
You could bet that Emiko was having second thoughts about her decision to walk into the jungle now. She was paying for her decision to carelessly walk into the wilderness without any sort of guide or training. While her being lost was a significant problem, it wasn’t the ONLY decision she was paying for… If nothing else, her attire she had chosen for this little trip was the icing on her misery cake…
Figuring this was going to be an easy trip, Emiko was hardly dressed for jungle travel. Deciding to go casual, the naïve girl had dressed herself up in a pale blue short-sleeve dress with a knee-length skirt. The length combined with the bright colors failed to adequately cover, or conceal herself in the jungle. Worse still were the simple pair of black slip-on flats that Emiko wore on her bare feet which made walking the various terrains even harder than it had to be… If the pale colors of her dress weren’t bad enough, her equally pale complexion seemed illuminated by the moonlight making her standout to anyone, or thing that happened to be traveling by…
The only real saving grace that Emiko seemed to have was that her shoulder-length brown hair had been tied back in a ponytail preventing even the humid nights from overheating her. This combined with her matching brown eyes keeping intently to the path that was illuminated by her oil lantern she had taken along were the only proper things Emiko had going for her. It was hardly enough though to compensate for all of the other errors she had made…
Emiko trailed on for about another half hour before she came to realize that what she was doing was beyond stupid. It may have been a little late, but satisfying her curiosity wasn’t worth losing her life over. With that decision, she did decide to turn back and attempt to make her way back to the town she was staying in. However, even turning around, Emiko wasn’t sure if she was heading in the right direction. Still, she made the turn and walked on for a while until she stumbled into something very mysterious…
As Emiko cleared the jungle foliage and came into this open patch, she was stunned at the site before her… Shining her lantern forward, before her amazed eyes were the sight of some ancient ruins! It didn’t seem possible, but…Emiko somehow made it to a place she wanted to be. Despite being here, something about this place…didn’t seem right. These were indeed ruins, but she was told that the ruins of the town’s ancestors were along the river… These ruins were nowhere near the river making her wonder if perhaps she had been told wrong. Or…was it possible she had stumbled into a totally different site? Regardless of what the case was, Emiko couldn’t stop her curiosity from taking over. Without a second thought, she scampered into the fallen ruins and started exploring what this place had to offer.
As she made her way in, Emiko thankfully didn’t have to rely on overusing the little fuel left in her lantern to light the area around her. The ruin's ceiling had long since crumbled and gave her pathway the illumination of the moonlight. Only a couple of large trees protruding from the stone floor provided any sort of ‘shade’ from the moon. Her path was otherwise clear and easy to travel making exploring relatively easy.
Despite how easy it was to get around these ruins, most of the structure that had once stood here was now withered away… Only occasional wall paintings and carvings remained that attempted to tell the story of some strange creature. Without the whole mural, there was no way for anyone to tell what the missing story was… Strangely though, the path Emiko was on lead her to a small flight of stairs that lead to a withered alter containing a large, clay…vase-container at the top? Emiko had no idea what she was seeing, but wasted no time climbing the stairs to the alter to find out!
As soon as she reached the decorative container, Emiko started looking over it carefully. On the container were words written in a language that she didn’t understand… And under those words were the markings and drawings that made a little more sense, but…Emiko still couldn’t fully understand. The artwork seemed to center around something that looked like a bubble or a blob…? Pictures under it seemed to indicate this bubble-thing could change its form. Various panels on the jar carved in what looked like something out of a comic book seemed to show the bubble-blob’s history. The first panel showcased the bubble-blob being worshiped by a group of kneeling people. On another panel, it seemed as if people were now going to war against it with drawn swords and spears… The last panel on the jar seemed to show someone sealing away the creature while everyone else in the picture was dancing joyfully…
“…What…does this even mean…” Emiko asked herself as she tried to make sense of what she was seeing… “…Just what exactly is on this jar, and what does it mean? Is this how the ancient people who lived her recorded their stories or something? I honestly don’t know what to think…”
Emiko would only have a moment to contemplate all of this before a loud sound from within the ruins startled her. Unsure of what it was, Emiko nervously jumped up and glared in the direction she had heard the sound… By getting up so quickly though, she accidentally ended up bumping the jar she had been examining… With the force of her bump sending the container off balance, it ended up falling and shattering on the ground behind her.
As the jar came to shatter, Emiko glanced back at it for a moment and covered her mouth in surprise… She couldn’t believe that she just accidentally broke what was most likely an ancient relic that had been there for thousands of years… Unable to deal with the thought of what she had just done and not wanting to get into trouble, Emiko quickly ran down the stairs of the alter and attempted to make her way out of the ruins as fast as she could… She would only get as far as one of the large trees within the ruins however before the remaining fuel in her lantern had run its course…
“Oh no...” Emiko softly whimpered as the flame finally went out. She attempted to give the lantern a shake or two to get the flame going again, but it was no use… Emiko had just lost her only source of light and was now stuck where she was…
Now feeling like this was the worst mistake of her life, Emiko discarded her lantern and made her way to the roots of the large tree. Taking a seat on one of the large roots, she gently pulled her knees to her chest and hugged them tightly while giving a sad sigh. Doing her best to not let tears of sadness and fear stream down her face, it was in that moment that everything REALLY hit her… Not only was she hopelessly lost in the jungle in the middle of the night, she was all alone and without any way to keep herself safe… And worst of all, she had to live with the guilt of destroying what was probably some sacred relic… Little did she realize, that relic was more than just a priceless artifact... In time she would come to understand just what was contained within that decorative jar...
(Reserved for Slevin. Sorry it took so long and...is so long... x.x)
