Fan Fiction ❯ Sleep well, Xianghua ❯ The fragments revealed ( Chapter 2 )

Hylam had taken me to his mansion and right away, put me to work. I had never felt worse. I would run away but I had nowhere to run to. The only family I had left wouldn't accept me back. I was an orphan, a slaving orphan.

Hylam, who was late thirties, earned his wealth by cheating. He was a casino master and very good at tricking the naked eye. He cleaned out all the casinos from here to England, stealing every penny. People just thought he was lucky. Those who did know of the truth never spoke it, for they would be told down and probably executed.

The rich were the powerful beings and everyone else was dirt. I didn't know where I stood anymore. My father was wealthy, but since I didn't belong to him anymore, I didn't know my class.

Every day while I had a five-minute break at lunch, I sat in the large window in the library and looked up at the sky to talk to my mother. I told her how I was doing and that I wished I could get out of here and start a new life back in China. I told her of the adventures of the sword and how it possessed the evil, but no one would believe me. I told her my reasons for destroying the sword. She didn't answer back, but I know she was on my side and left to go back to my cleaning with a smile in my heart.

Evenings were the best for me. Hylam gave me my own room but with no furniture, just a few blankets to keep warm and a pillow. He had told me that after a few days if he was satisfied with my work, he'd get a bed for me to sleep on.

I undressed into a ratted nightgown that he had given me that was dirty and holey.

As beautiful and clean this mansion was, I felt twice as dirty. He allowed me to bathe once every week and shampoo my hair. I had told my mother this. The only way she answered me was in my dreams. Every time she spoke to me, she would tell me that things were going to get better if I toughened through. I believed her and always awoke with a grin, ready to start my day.

That afternoon, months later after I had gotten there, I was allowed a ten-minute break instead of a five. I sat down at the window and told my mother that and saying that he might give me more privileges. I put my hands in a praying position and closed my eyes, resting my chin on my fingertips. When I had done this, I always heard her voice in my thoughts. She always comforted me.

"Xianghua, what are you doing in front of that window?!" roared a voice.

I gasped and turned my head towards the voice. It was Hylam, red in the face with anger.

"I-I'm sorry, I was taking my break."

"I thought I told you to take break down in the dining room from now on?! Didn't I?!"
I rose quickly. "Yes sir, you did."

"That doesn't mean you defy me!"

He took me by my hair and gripped tightly, dragging me across the room. I winced painfully and walked along with him. When we were in the hallway, he released his grip and pushed me in the opposite direction.

"If I don't see you in the dining room next time, you will get no meals for a week, now get back to work!"

"Yes master," I said and returned to my duties.

I was greatly wrong about him. In the next week, everything started going wrong. Hylam was more abusive towards me and stricter with what he made me do for him. He limited my break time back to five minutes and sometimes not even at all.

I knew I needed to get out of here. I knew there were far better things out there for me than growing up under this man and slaving all over for him.

It was then that I was cleaning the music room windows when he commanded me to move to his bathroom and clean that and draw his bathwater for him. Of course, I had to agree. I took my bucket of cleaning solutions and traveled upstairs to his bathroom. It was much larger than a normal sized bathroom. I had never been in here before, for he always had another servant clean his room and quarters. I knew of her and liked her well. He didn't like us interacting but I did just the same. I haven't found out much about her, all that her name was Alexia and was living there for a few years under Hylam's commands. She was twenty-two and her parents had been killed in an epidemic in India when she was born. Hylam "adopted" her four years ago from an orphanage, only to make her a slave.

The best advice she had ever given me was to get out while I still had the chance. I was thinking of her words as I just got finished making his bathtub spotless and shiny, then turned the faucets on to draw the bathwater. He liked his bathwater to be a certain temperature, otherwise he'd make the drawer come back in and do it a second time.

Just then, I winced at my sudden muscle tighten in my back. I turned around and bent backwards slightly to release some of the pain. That's when I noticed myself in the mirror. I stopped to take a second look. I was getting older before my time. I put my hands onto my thin hips and turned sideways. Luckily I hadn't been gaining any weight.

I was interrupted by a knock. I could tell it was Alexia just by the way she knocked.

I opened the door. Alexia had come right in and closed the door behind her. I could tell by her eyes that she had just seen a ghost.

"Xianghua…I had just heard…the most dreadful news," she said, trying to catch her breath. "I rushed down here to tell you as soon as I heard it."

I put my hands to her shoulders to calm her down. "What is it?"

"The Soul Edge…it's back!"

My eyes widened. "What?!"

"It is! Your father attacked a castle that supposedly housed a member of the search party who had found the Hero's Sword, which is just another name for the Soul Edge, but refused to hand it over, so the village soldiers attacked the castle and destroyed it! There's nothing left, not even the Soul Edge! They looked around but nothing was there!"

"But…I destroyed the Soul Edge!"

"They think it was just some of the fragments. Xianghua, if you don't find the scattered fragments and destroy them into nothingness, we're all doomed! You're the only one that can do this before the Emperor finds them and creates the Soul Edge [Author ID1: at Sun Sep 7 15:42:00 2003 ]all over again! You must do this to protect the world!"

Her hands grabbed mine and were shaking dreadfully.

"I don't have a weapon," I said sadly, heart sinking when I remembered about what happened to my precious No Name.

"Take it to a weapons master, he'll prepare it well again for you. Please Xianghua, I know I don't have much of a life, but I don't want the Emperor making it worse!"

I thought for a moment. I didn't have much in this world but anything was better than working for Hylam the rest of my life.

I agreed.