In Search of the Unknown Chaptered Version

Part 5

"Well, how do these deals work?"

"You ask for something, and I'll demand something of equal value, if I take a liking to you, you may earn it for free"

"I'm guessing you won't take cash"

The thing laughed and said yes.

Clara first demanded to be let go, and the thing let her free.

She turned around to see a man, his hair scraggly, and his hair twisting into many curls. He was cleaning shaven and seemed to keep clean. His clothes weren't fancy, a green coat, a red and yellow scarf, a blue sweater and some jeans. Clara couldn't look into its eyes without getting sick.

"You seem pretty human"

"Looks can be deceiving, I prefer to look a bit more palatable for deals, I don't want you to instantly go insane" The thing's voice still not sounding human.

Clara asked for its name, and it seemed confused. It began to think of some name to go by, it came with one name "Basil".

"Ok, here is my first demand," Clara said.

Basil smiled at the prospect.

"I want you to give me the story of someone who we may never hear from" Basil frowned at this.

It yearned for more.

"Fine, I'll ask something with equal value, a story can stay with someone until death" Basil paused "I want you to not tell your friends of me, you must take your knowledge of me to your grave".

Clara nodded in agreement and shook Basil's hand. Basil offered for them to sit and Clara agreed.

Basil's account on the experiences of Jun Liu

The reason why I tell you this story is that the women who saw this, no longer lives. She died around the 1980s.

Jun Liu was born in China; she was about 15 when this started. She grew up in famine, and the great leap forward was about to begin.

Life was harsh and difficult, their life's uplifted, and traditions destroyed for being deemed feudalism. Life was harsh for those who disobeyed, beatings with sticks were the most common use. The sky was the limit to how cruel a local cadre could bring.

Starvation barely helped the matter, many going hungry, including Jun Liu. Yet, they could never complain, never resist, or be deemed "subversive". Jun chaffed at such demands, and she was nearly caned a few times, and fear always put her in line. She was right to fear, a gust of wind brings down anyone in her village at that time. A bamboo cane would most likely kill her, and she saw one who did.

She preferred to stay secluded from the newly made communes and their waves of misery. When it was night when everyone was eating, she would sit alone near the Yangtze River, it was beautiful. The moonlight shimmered on the river, and the mountains left grand silhouettes, like holes in reality itself. It felt nice to cool down there and wipe the sweat off her brow and breath in the fresh air. She felt at peace there and when she told about it to her mother, her mother would be reminded of a Buddhist temple that she went to that was destroyed.

The event happened one night she was at the river; the moon was full, and its soft glow revealed the river's beauty. Yet something felt off to Jun Liu, there seemed to be a new silhouette. It was massive, taller than anything she saw before, she thought at first it was the distant mountains. No, it was close and, in the river. She heard of stories of creatures that lurked in rivers, but not of this size and were certainly not told as truth, only legend. It lurched through the water, its full size was unknown, but it looked like it could destroy any sail ship Jun saw move down the river. She never knew that it was only an infant and that the creature's full size even to me is unknown.