A.N. General disclaimer for all things copyright. I do not own the characters, setting, or lore utilized in the creation of this piece. My work is inspired by the creative thought of the original authors
After spending an hour perusing the grounds she came to a conclusion.
She was not dead.
Well, admittedly, she was pretty sure she wasn't dead. She certainly felt like she was dying in the locker, and her arrival to this place was suspicious to say the least, but her salvation had come in the form of something she was very familiar with: books.
She had found them in an abandoned building, located just a ways from her field. It wasn't very large, maybe the size of her home, and looked like a mausoleum. Tall and made of a dark stone, the structure supported several Gothic designs; several spires, four on the corners and two on the sides, rose above the roof a couple meters with plums of stone flowers held aloft in memorial. The front door was heralded by a vanguard of stone steps that curved around the building, merging into a cobblestone pathway that wound itself through the area. A second door was located near the back, a path leading off to a garden in the back of the building.
It was large, imposing, and dark. It also continued the theme that seemed to compassed everything she had discovered.
The grave.
There were several connotations connected to such a thing. A final peace, a respite from the hardship of life, and an end to a path long traveled named a few.
She tried not to think about it.
Instead, she busied herself with the contents of the building. To her surprise, it was not filled with coffins and cold decay. Instead, it was furnished with numerous bookshelves, spaced on either side of a long open space that spanned the structure, and warmed by an fire crackling in its place. Antique cabinets, ones like those she had seen in on those expensive road shows, lay here and there, windows fogged up and dusty from ill use. Two large rugs, while circular designs spread across a pale blue field, covered a old but well kept hardwood floor. A few desks, filled with various implements that looked more appropriate in a forge, rested by the walls, their wooden chairs weathered and cracked from age. Ahead, near the back, sat an alter. It was large, about a meter and a half in length and half that across, and stood up to her waist. Over a dozen lit candles, sitting in bronze candlesticks, sat on upon the alter, their gentle flames bobbing. Upon the alter, surrounded by the candles, rested what she could only assume was an artifact of some kind.
A bloody shawl.
It was pale, faded, and hung half way down the stone. The blood was centered on the top, surrounded by the candles, and formed a familiar shape that sent a shiver down her back.
A head would fit there.
She tried not to think about it.
Directly behind the alter lay a raised floor, two sets of stone stairs leading upwards a few steps, elevating the last few meters of the interior. There lay two more pale and blue rugs, one along the left stairwell and the other just behind the alter. A couple stacks of dusty tomes sat in silence along the walls, but that wasn't the important. No, this space was bare save for a single statue, the only evidence of humanity she had seen. It was a young woman. She wore a dress mostly covered by a shawl that flowed over her head and shoulders, covering her upper body and flowing to the floor, leaving her front exposed. Her arms were crossed at the wrists, just over her abdomen, her hands limp and resting. Her face was of serene peace, eyes closed and head tilted slightly to the side and down.
The statue was at peace, calm and quite in gentle supplication. It also held a great position of importance, its figure being the thing one immediately saw when looking up from the alter.
It meant something, that she knew. Maybe something of worship? An idol?
She didn't know. Part of her didn't want to know.
The books themselves posed more questions than answered. To her surprise, most of the texts were written in some kind of language she didn't recognize. Curved and hard angles made up most of the letters, or what she thought were letters. Fumbling through dozens of similar books left her at a loss for what they could mean, or what was even written on them.
She stopped searching when she noticed that when she wasn't looking directly at them, the words seemed to bend and crawl, moving like spiders over the yellow paper.
She tried not to think about it.
Thankfully a portion of the texts, a few dozen, were written in alphabets that she recognized, even if she didn't understand. Sitting in one of the chairs, she flopped against the back and breathed a sigh of relief. There was something recognizable here, something that connected to her world. That meant something important, something good. These books came from somewhere, were written by various hands of various backgrounds. It meant that someone had been here before.
It meant that there was a way back.