"Curiosity killed the cat." What a disgusting saying! It was created by those who were and are afraid of what they did not know. One who was curious might ask: "Why are we here?" or "How did we come to be?" The ignorant person would have an excuse to say that they did not know. "Curiosity killed the cat." These people were and are an insult to the human race. The only one who knows, is the one who knows he does not know. This sentence is true in many aspects. Curiosity is the driving force behind the human race just as greed and corruption are the driving forces behind capitalism. Curiosity forces the human race to better itself. At the same time, curiosity is forcing us to kill what we love most, ourselves.

When the earth was still as young as a newborn fawn and days were as black as night, life thrived, but not as we know now. Before the gods, the dominant race was the Katrathians. These were creatures unlike any seen by the like of modern man. The Katrathians lived like an infestation. They would inhabit, even control the bodies of their hosts while still children. When old enough to survive on their own they would kill their host and either move on to another host, or live truthfully in their hellish bodies. Their bodies were thin and slender, however they were short, about the size of a fawn. They had super human strength and could jump higher than the tallest redwood. Their bodies were as black as the abyss of hell. No one, not even the elders, could remember a time when the Katrathians were not here. These beasts were even mentioned in the Holy Scriptures.

At this time, humans had to live underground. We did not know whom to trust. Most of us were just afraid of being killed. However, a precious few of us had protection. I was one of those people. One of those demons broke into my home looking to lay its eggs in one of us. The thing had its eyes on my wife. I walked in just after it had injected its eggs into my wife's stomach. She lay there, naked on the floor. Her face was colorless and her eyes had already glazed over. The demon turned toward me, but just an instant to late. I had already released my crystal dagger from its sheath and sliced off its head. To my amazement, the demon grew another head and came back with a counter attack. It tried to pass through me and inseminate me as well, but a miracle happened. As it touched me, it flew back through the wall to my bedroom and lay there lifeless, dead on my bead. I was the first person to have killed an "immortal."

I knelt down next to my wife and she slowly opened her eyes. She told me, "Ren, you have a gift that no other has. You can kill them with your touch. I have only a short time left until it takes control of me. You can't reverse the process." She closed her eyes and touched my hand, then she whispered, "You must kill me so that I do not become evil. I'm sorry... Slice off my head, and then touch my stomach. That is the only way." I took out my crystal dagger as I did before, and slowly, with tears burning in my eyes, I pushed my dagger through her beautiful neck. The color started to slip out of her face and I saw her mouth the words, "I love you..." I burst into tears and collapsed upon her stomach. Her body spasmed and then lay there lifeless just as the being in my bedroom had done. I lay there holding her, sobbing for hours on end, and then I resolved to kill all of them. I went into my bedroom, my cheeks still stained with tears, and skinned the demon as I would a cow. I took the skin to the nearest blacksmith and told him I had killed "one of them." I told him to make a suit of armor out of it. I came back an hour later and tried it on. It bound with my skin and I felt a feeling of extreme wonder and curiosity as well as of greed at the same time. I tried to suppress the greed, but I found that the more I did, the stronger it became. Therefore, I accepted it, and it disappeared. Thus, curiosity was created.
Ten years later, I founded an underground movement. I found one other that had a power similar to mine. He had found the power as I had, fighting the Katrathians. He was with his mother when his truest and most loyal friend betrayed him. I shall repeat his words exactly for they shall be forever carved into my mind.

"Layus came into the room where my mother and I were discussing the ways in which Katrathians could penetrate lives from the inside. He told me that a demon had possessed and almost killed him, but somehow, he had escaped its grasp. Eager to find out more about this event, I followed him out of my house and into the alleyway behind it. Without warning, he turned on me clasping his hands together on my back so that I could feel his cold sweaty palms. His voice turned pitch black, as cold as stone. He slowly bent over toward my right ear and with a surprising amount ease, a mischievous smile appeared on his face, one I had never seen Layus express. In a slimy voice he whispered, 'Kayo, finally you shall see my true colors...' His skin turned a deep green and then a solid black. It started to peel off and rot away as if he were a snake, which he was. Underneath his thin veil of quickly disappearing skin, I saw the true him, the black I had heard about so many times before. It was transfixing. He bent over again, as he had before, and I felt something slightly wet drop onto my shoulder. The last thing I heard was, 'I'm sorry...' I felt a quick surge of pain all throughout my body and then it ended, blackness, darkness everywhere.
"Eventually, I opened my eyes. At first, I was glad to have been alive, but that all changed much to quickly. My mother was lying next to me. Her throat was slashed and her eyes were starting to glaze over. There was still color in her face, but it was slowly slipping away. I went into a rage. I stormed into my house to find my former friend, Layus, crouched in the corner staring at the wall. I, in my rage, somehow managed to pick up my bed and hurl it at him. He caught it single-handedly and put it down next to him. He tore off his head and another grew in its place. Then he squeezed the blood from his head and drank what did not fall upon the floor. His body slowly slumped down toward the floor and then he collapsed. His body spasmed and then I knew he was dead. Enraged at the fact that I couldn't kill the demon that had murdered my mother, I stormed through the village slaughtering everything that moved. My strength seemed unmatched by anyone, villager or demon alike. My only consolation is that for every innocent villager I killed, 5 Katrathians died."

Kayo later took the body of his friend, Layus, and hid it away from the world. A year after joining the underground movement, he went once again to see the body of his dead friend. He recalled what had been done 3 years ago and, in his emotional rage, he grasped the body to his chest. It bound with his soul. When using the demon armor, he could not accept the overwhelming power of greed and corruption, for it was a comfort to his soul. Therefore, he accepted curiosity and wonder. It is a sad fact that these feelings have disappeared within his soul.
Others like him were found. Myo, Lotus, and Jin were some of the strongest. All accept one and not the other. Where one was accepted the other prevailed. Thus, they became opposites. A ten-year-old named Kirite could not handle the demon armor or the powerful emotions it brought with it. He had no choice but to accept both curiosity and greed. Thus, he became the embodiment of ignorance. No one that I have met has been able to reject all of these feelings, and so now, one can not feel appreciation, wonder, and curiosity at the same time as greed and corruption.

Top of This Page
Back
Home