The Monster's Pearl

There once was a castle. It was enormous and dark, no soul ever dared to set foot near it. They called it “The Gates to the Underworld”, because a lonely man lived there. There were rumors of him being a demon, who had crawled out from the depths of hell. These were all just speculations, since his face was never seen before, and this has spawned many whispers.

This man had a lot of land, but had no one that worked it. That’s why he started looking for people who would work for him and offered them half of the profit from the harvest. No one took the offer, until one day a newlywed couple moved into town.

“We don’t fear you, therefore we will work for you”, is what they said. Delighted, the man had a house built for them and as promised, for every harvest they got half of it as their own. Many peaceful years went by, until the man noticed that the usual quota he got from the wedded couple kept diminishing. He questioned them, but they simply claimed that the harvest wasn’t going so well. But since the man was naturally skeptical, he sent someone to investigate. He found out that the couple, instead of sending half of the harvest to the man, like agreed, they instead went to other towns and sold it there. The man was infuriated.

“You abused my trust, and stole from me” Yet he did not send them away, and didn’t demand the money they earned from illegally selling the harvest. Instead he demanded something much more precious “You will be allowed to keep living on my land, but will not work the land, and the moment your firstborn child reaches eighteen years of age, they will be required to work for me to cover your debt. As soon as the child is with me, you can once again work for me” the couple accepted and nine months later, a healthy baby boy was born.

He had black hair, it was so black that even the night feared losing itself in him. His eyes were so bright that even the sun had to look away in hopes of not being blinded. His voice silenced the birds, as they listened to him. The couple taught him how to cook, clean and manual labor. The young boy did not know why, but nonetheless he did what his parents wanted. He lived happily, not knowing he was part of the deal. His parents raised him so he would be of use to the man, yet he was never allowed to play with the other kids or leave the house, this led to him never learning much about the world. As his eighteenth birthday came to pass, he did not receive any gifts, rather two suitcases and a carriage. The boy was confused, did his parents want to go traveling with him? But they didn’t have any suitcases. What they had was a letter. A letter that he could only open once he was in the carriage. They bid farewell to their son and waved happily as he set foot into the carriage, as they had completed their part of the deal. I will tell you how it continued, as this is my story.