A significant number of individuals believe in some form of "fate," such as a red string that connects one person to their other half, or a force that puts two predestined individuals together. Our heroine never believed in that so-called "fate." There was no reason for her to. She believed everybody had control of whom they were meant to be with personally. That was what she wanted to think. However, our heroine's beliefs changed when she met him, a creature that everyone had heard of when they were young children. It was a story that their parents told them to get them to go to sleep and behave, a Gumiho.
There was once this myth, a very old tale. It all began with a fox, which had lived for thousands of years and only had one desire and that was to be a human. For living for thousands of years, he turned into a Gumiho, a powerful fox spirit. In this legend, this Gumiho could change its appearance to anything and anyone it desired. The story said that the Gumiho once shape-shifted into a beautiful woman that stole the hearts of every man that laid their eyes on her. As it lured the men, the Gumiho was able to rip out the hearts and livers of those men, straight from their bodies. It feasted upon the fleshy delicacy for sustenance. That's how it survived.
After a while, all the villagers grew scared and frightened of the creature. Although the villagers were wary, this allowed them to keep their guard up. They were suspicious of each other, everyone and anyone. Their suspicious behavior made it hard for the Gumiho to feed. However, it didn't stop the Gumiho. The Gumiho started to adapt. It began to take the forms of men, children, the elderly, even animals, anything to get its paws on its only means of nourishment. One day, the Gumiho's attitude changed when it met a young woman. That is where the legend begins and where it all began for our heroine, four hundred years ago.
YOU ARE READING
Dancing with a 구미호 Gumiho
RomantikAn excerpt previously published in Love Journey's AMBW Anthology: Shades of AMBW: Asian Men and Black Women Short Story Collection, this tells the story of a man eating fox, who meets a young human woman and the two instantly fall in love. However...