Raised
Chapter Two
The entrance to the hideout was hidden, just as it always had been. Underneath one of the large rocks, large enough to be a small plateau really, was a hole. It was surrounded by spiky bushes on three sides, four if someone counted the 'roof' it provided, and the rock on the other side. The bushes continued on around the rock for a bit, looping out every so often to form rings as to make this particular one look inconspicuous. The entrance itself was nothing special either. It looked as though it had been dug out by a giant wormhole or something, well if anyone could see it without the bushes. As it was, Piper had to hold back the spiky bush while jumping into the hole. Her body prepared for the landing on the ground below, some of the impact being absorbed by the sand pit at the bottom.
She slowly drudged her feet back up through the foot deep soft sand pit until she was standing on the top. The cave was dark, no lighting anywhere, and it was silent as a grave. The young brunette moved down one of the hallways, though really it was more like a crack large enough to let people through, and went from muscle memory to where the main chamber should be. Once she got to the chamber she stopped dead in her tracks.
It felt weird in here. Abandoned. Empty.
Trying to shake the feeling off Piper slowly stepped through the room, the one she knew like the back of her own hand, until she able to find a torch. It was rudimentary, sure, but it would have to do. It took her a while to light it with one of the new devices that she had learned about on her way there. They called it a lighter because it produced flame from friction and gas but her fingers had barely used the thing before so her attempt was clumsy. But once she got the flame to sustain itself, lighting the dried pitch on the torch was easy.
Piper put the lighter back away in one of her leather pouches as the warm glow of the fire gave the barest of lighting to the room. Having just come in from the sun and quickly navigating herself in the dark from memory, it took a while for her eyes to be able to see anything still. The room wasn't exactly large but other than the singular torch she placed in it's holder, there wasn't anything else casting light. Which meant that as Piper moved along the piles of pillows and rugs in the center of the room, she could barely make out the intricate designs on the fabric. Though she was able to feel the layers of dust coating each piece.
Reaching down to feel just how dirty the pillows had become, Piper frowned heavily as her heart clenched painfully in her chest. This place had been a safe haven and it was used often. In fact, it was the very place where she had lived most of her staggered life. So to see it in such disuse broke her heart.
"Where is everyone?" The young woman's voice was a mere whisper, but amidst the silence it felt deafening.
Slowly she moved back to the torch and pulled it out of it's slot. With the fire held away from her body and to the side so she wasn't actually staring at it, Piper continued with her exploration. If the room could have been considered having a corner, that was where she went. It was almost a trick of the eye considering how the rock and dirt met one another but there was an opening there that led her down another passageway. Piper moved down into the earth a bit more, twisting and turning as she followed what seemed like a natural break in the earth. There were turn offs every so often which would ultimately form a confusing maze for anyone who did not know their way.
When Piper found the room she was looking for, her heart sank further. It was her old room. It was still filled with all her old things. The bed, however, was not how she remembered leaving it. Her pillows were almost as though someone had cuddled with them before ultimately deciding to get up and never come back again. It wasn't the only thing that showed signs of having been moved. Many of her leather bound journals had been ever so gently used and organized. Piper knew just who had organized it too because no one else would have taken the time to do that. No one else would have read her things either.
The young woman knew that the invasion of privacy should make her angry. But as she stared at her old things Piper couldn't help but feel the crushing weight of how many years must have passed since anyone had been in this room. It was around five hundred years if what she had picked up had been correct. She didn't want it to have been but the more she saw of this forgotten place, the more the truth started to sink in.
Piper moved over to her bed. Unlike the gathering main area a while back, this didn't have nearly as much dust on it. Probably because the walls, including ceiling and floor, were made of stone and not a compilation of dirt and stone. There were tapestries hanging from the stone walls, making it looks as though she was surrounded in richly colored fabric, and rugs lining the floor. It gave the room a very inviting feel if it wasn't for the fact that it felt so utterly neglected. Piper ran her hand along the old pillows and blankets before stopping to pick up a singular, exceptionally long translucent piece of hair.
Bitterly she smiled as she looked at the hair glimmering in the torchlight. If it really had been five hundred years since she was last awake then it was no wonder that this place was abandoned. That way everyone was protected just incase Spirit World had eked something out of her head while they held her in her coma state. It didn't make Piper feel any better to know the logistics behind the move but at least she could understand why this place had been abandoned.
She sat down on her bed and allowed the weight of the situation to hit her. It felt like hundred of gallons of water slamming into her from all sides. She was drowning and floating all at the same time, unable to move without feeling completely swamped. Five hundred years…
Then again, what was five hundred years really?
...okay, so it was a lot to a human but the people she grew up with weren't human. Not in the slightest; Piper wasn't either, not really. She might have been at some point but everything over the course of her life had seen to that being changed up.
Still - five hundred years…
The brunette couldn't help but wonder where everyone was.
Piper curled into the pillow blockade. She had been so happy, so hopeful, on her way to this place. Now that she found it this empty there wasn't a single part of her that didn't ache. The emptiness was seeping in and she really wished it wouldn't.
Suddenly the exhaustion of her day set in and she found herself drifting off to sleep. Which was funny because she would have thought that five hundred years asleep would have been enough as it was.
