Each Lost Soul... :-(

After school was done for the day, a little boy named Jackie, no more than 7 years old, was walking home from school. His home was 10 blocks from his school, so he was tired, trudging along with his backpack on a hot day. On his way home, he spotted a stranger in a car. The stranger was motioning for the little boy to come near her.

"You look tired! Hop into my car. I will give you a ride home."

Jackie neared the strange woman, slowly and carefully. Then, the boy came to an abrupt stop. He remembered what his mother had told him before school started that day. Jackie yelled out to the woman.

“I can’t talk to strangers!” Then then the little boy whipped around and started to walk home again, although it was tempting to just relax in a car on the way home.

“Wait!” The strange woman called after him. “If you cannot talk to strangers, then how exactly did you just say that to me?”

Jackie pondered this for a moment before replying.

"Yes, I suppose I did just talk to you."

"And I wouldn't be a stranger anymore if I told you who I was, now would I?" The stranger asked.

"I guess not," said Jackie.

"Ok then, it's settled. Hop on in my car and I will tell you the story of who I am. I will give you a ride home." the stranger said.

The boy, who did not really understand what was happening at this point, happily got into the cool, air-conditioned car, and relaxed.

The stranger began her story.

"My name is Eve L. Helper. My ancestors sailed on the Titanic..."

Young Jackie was so engaged in the stranger's story that he did not notice that the car was not going to the little boy's house. In fact, the boy was so clueless and so quickly pulled into the car that he had never stopped to think about how the stranger would even know where his house was. He was being driven to a strange place. It looked like a completely deserted area.

"Anyways, when the ship crashed into a jutting-out rock from an island, the ship sank, but only the people who were locked in, and the musicians playing last requests, died. Everyone else on board swam to the island." Eve said.

"How did they survive on the island?" The boy asked with curiosity.

"It was Old Man Miracle, as we used to call him. He took every single dead thing on the island and turned its energy into a feast of all kinds (rice, fruit, meat) for 1,000 people to enjoy for 1 whole year! But that is not all. Old Man Miracle also did a very queer thing with the corpse.

"What?" Jackie was bursting with curiosity and excitement, but also a little bit freaked out by the mention of corpses.

The stranger replied.

"He lifted the corpse and himself in the air, without touching the corpse at all, and placed the feet of the corpse on the island, and left the rest of the corpse jutting out into the ocean."

This sent a chill down Jackie's spine.

Eve continued.
"Miraculously, the corpse hardened into land - one step closer to connecting to America! Old Man Miracle is immortal, so he has been living all this time.

I was born on the island, with a special talent. I could swim as far as I wished, and anywhere I wished. When I swam back to America and told people that the survivors of the Titanic were waiting to be rescued, nobody believed me. They all thought that the survivors went on another ship and were brought to America. I had to think of another plan. But, I could not carry fully-grown people on my back to America. And if I had children on my back, whatever would they do without their mothers? But, I could help build the bridge between the island and America. I could bring children on my back to the island!"

Jackie had a feeling that something dreadful would happen.

"So," Eve continued. "We are on the verge of escaping to America. We just have one tiny little problem."

Jackie gulped.

"And what would that be?" Jackie said, already knowing the answer.

"We need more corpses." Eve stared at Jackie with a dead-cold icy glare...