The Creature of Fire

Rewind the time way back, before the supremacy of basilisks, the overspread of the elf species, and way before the existence of mermaids, there lived a boy, by the name, Chi.

Chi lived with his mother in a tiny wooden house at the edge of their village. Vast meadows were all around the hills. Each dawn, Chi would hurry to the fields to cut the grass before gathering them in his rattan basket. He’d then take them to the farmer who needed fresh grass for his cattle. And in return, he got a jar of rice.

One year, the rain stopped coming altogether, and the fields turned brown. Not a patch of green could be seen around the hills. Chi was wandering around the back of the hills, keeping an eye out for even the tiniest plot of green, when a glint caught his attention.

There in the furthest corner was a patch of the greenest grass he’d ever seen. Chi was overjoyed, and while he was about to cut the grass, his eyes fell onto the tiny round object lying among the grass. A golden bead.

He then brought it home and kept it inside his rice jar. That very moment, the rice jar, which had been nearly empty, filled up itself. Chi gawked at the filled jar, completely in awe. It was a magical bead.

And being the most generous boy in that village, Chi proceeded to share his rice with all the villagers. The whole village was suddenly all happy and carefree without the need to worry over their livings, but not the farmer, who was madly infuriated. His cattle were starving and no one was coming to him for rice anymore.

He wanted that bead for himself. He tried offering Chi money and his property, yet Chi was adamant not to give him the bead.

One night, the farmer felt compelled to steal the bead himself, and so he crept into Chi’s house in the middle of the night but when he finally spotted the jar, Chi woke up. The farmer was panic-stricken. Dashing to the jar, he quickly took out the bead and swallowed it down whole.
It wasn’t the wisest decision.

Widening his eyes, the farmer felt a prickly heat started to spread along his limbs, and paralysed to the spot, he was unable to control his own body. The fire inside his body was heightening consistently, and the farmer’s face began to show bubbling swellings. Breathing hard, the farmer keeled over onto the floor, his limbs on fire.

The farmer made a futile attempt to yell out his pain, but fire was all he managed to spit out from his mouth. He felt his head sizzle, and his thirst for water uncontrollable.

He leaped up from the ground, scrambling around the house wildly for water. Long flames of fire shot out of his mouth, setting the wooden house on fire. The farmer couldn’t cool down. He’d turned into a creature that breathed fire.

Knowing he couldn’t possibly stay in that village anymore, he fled into the hills and never came out again from his hideout.