How Phantoms Came To Be
By 4101leapprardsp1oqtwa
A long time ago, there was a volcano. It was far away from where any Jamaa citizens lived, so no one really knew about it. It was in a large, untamed forest with a river running through it. The land would later be known as the Lost Temple of Zios. One day, a Jammer, was walking along back to his cottage in a meadow. He heard a rumbling in the distance.
Curious, the Jammer-wolf took off. Running towards the unknown sound, he vaguely remembered his great, great, grandmother telling him about a far-off land with a mountain that spewed fire. Hmm, he wondered. Could the sound be coming from there? As he ran on, he finally came to a dense forest with leaves and plants scattered and growing every which way. What is this place? he wondered.
Soon, he was joined by another noise. It came from around the bend behind a large boulder. "Whaaa...yiii...phoooshhh...," the wolf heard. He clambered up onto the rock with some effort, and peeking over the side. He gasped. Phantoms! His mother had warned him about these dark creatures, only known to myth. But they were real.
They were pitch-black and had six short arms/tentacles each. The flopped around uselessly. A large white eye with a black pupil was smack in the middle of each of their faces. They floated around a fire, chanting a strange hymn. Please don't notice me! the young wolf begged inwardly.
Suddenly the chanting came to a halt, and the volcano rumbled louder. In fact, the wolf had just noticed that the volcano was only about a mile away. It thundered and growled and with a mighty roar that sounded like it might tear the earth apart, 1,000 phantoms spewed out of the volcano. They were on fire, and shot towards the chanting circle of phantoms so fast it made the wolf's head spin.
The phantoms from the volcano landed in the fire. They stayed in there for a few minutes, then slowly drifted out and began the chanting again. After that, everything went quiet. The volcano didn't make a peep. The phantoms chanted for a bit, then stopped. The birds didn't chirp. The wolf left the spot of the phantoms and hurried back home, terror ringing his senses. When he got home, he told his friends and family what he had seen.
His story was inscribed into a thick piece of brown slate, and put away in the Chamber of Knowledge. The slate was lost many years ago, but the story still lives on in the hearts of the Jamaaisans that really knew what was out there.
