When he opened his eyes, he had to immediately squeeze them. Whoever had lived here put the bed into the right position for the sunlight to wake them up. He rubbed his eyes carefully and rolled to the side, away from the light.
His back cracked softly as he adjusted his posture. Yesterday’s pain followed. He got hit in his side and on his arms. His legs felt like they had just run a marathon. With stiff muscles, he hoisted himself into an upright position and sat on the bed. Slowly, he walked over to the window and looked down. Ruins. What was once a well stood in the center of them. He could imagine people walking in the streets, talking about their everyday topics. The breeze was refreshing. It smelled of nature. Trees in the distance, grass underneath, and the wild garden from below brought together a scent that could be described as… pleasant.
Theo turned his head around as something made a soft bristle behind him.
It was the piece of paper that lay on the table.
With heavy legs, Theo sat down and pulled it closer. A letter folded in half with a crease in the middle. The paper felt elegant in his hands. Nothing compared to the cheap paper he took his notes with in university. He opened it and looked at letters he had never seen before. They looked like ornaments, like details that were there to give the letter decoration.
He tried to read it, but couldn’t even find similarities between the alphabet and whatever this was… until something clicked. As if he had stared long enough to force the letter to reveal itself, the language all of a sudden just made sense.
?
Dear reader,
If you read this, I will long have left this fine establishment I once called home.
Years of research have finally proven their worth, and the people of this settlement are no longer in danger. What we fought here has left most of them unable to work, but at least they live. At least I live.
These people have given me a lot, so it was just that I returned the favour and worked on finding a cure. What you may find in my home may be yours. I doubt it will be of much use to someone unbeknownst to the art of alchemy, but the garden should still be of use to you. The glass containers have been used for experiments; it is not advisable to proceed using them.
If you see them, thank Harlen for the wood glazing. I hope this house does stand for a hundred years.
Tell Marla that I have never gotten the guts to surrender to my love. I hate myself even writing this.
May this establishment bring you as much joy as it did to me. And excuse the mess.
M. R.
PS: I have sensed an anomaly today. If you notice it too, be careful!
?
“An anomaly…?” Theo folded the letter and put it back on the table. Before he could continue his thoughts, his stomach gave him a clear sign of what to focus on. Food.
Each step made a soft noise of old wood under pressure until he arrived downstairs. He opened the other curtains as well and soon stood in a pleasantly lighted room. Except for the total chaos. It looked worse than it did last night with the sun revealing every little detail. Even shards of glass lay on the ground. He stopped for a moment, looking at the wet spot underneath the shards. He hadn’t noticed it the day before.
Theo thought for a moment and carefully picked up the bigger pieces and shoved the smaller ones into a corner with the help of a rag that was on the counter.
Good… now food… and water. He made his way into the kitchen once more. It didn’t stink today, and he inspected the inventory. Pans, pots, spoons, plates, and rope hanging on the wall. Just an ordinary kitchen with the exception of a strange device that connected tubes to glass. However, no food.
Theo’s pace now changed as his hands created fists. His legs moved less heavily and more intentionally. He closed the door to the kitchen behind him and left the house. He scanned the area and then remembered. The well!
With eager steps, he arrived at the ruin of what once was the well to provide people with water. He picked up a stone, let it fall and… splash. Water! But nothing to pull it up with.
He quickly ran back into the kitchen, fetched a long piece of rope, and tied it to a small pot. Then, he stood at the well again. He carefully let the pot down until he heard it hit the water. It didn’t. In hopes of reaching it, Theo pushed his arm as deep as possible into the hole until… splash!
He pushed and pulled the rope up and down in hopes of filling it up. “Fuck, how do I do this?”
Then, he pulled the rope up. Slow. Steady. Hoping not to spill anything. When the pot arrived in sight, a wide smile formed on his face. The pot wasn’t full at all. But it wasn’t empty either. He emptied the pot in one large sip. The water tasted like cold stone. Like drinking from a bottle he had left in his car for weeks. But it was water. And despite his criticism, it felt good.
Theo repeated the process twice more, and now, at least one of the two problems was solved.
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He brought the rope around his body and held the pot in his hand, searching for food.
I would have never imagined I’d end up like this anytime soon…
He rummaged through the ruins in the hopes of finding anything. Then he went further away from them. It felt like an hour of walking until he looked up at a group of trees. Birds left the crowns and darted to bushes a few steps away, picking up orange berries and vanishing in their nests.
Well, if it doesn’t kill them... and soon he started picking some of the berries. Orange in color, round in shape, and with a few brown spots. He could fit around ten of them into his hand and started eating. The berries tasted unlike anything he had known. Sweet and salty at the same time. He ate a bunch of them and filled his pot with more berries when he looked at the sun. It stood at its zenith, and its light felt pleasant on Theo’s skin. He enjoyed it for a moment before he decided to explore the area further. He soon came across a small river where the water tasted better than the one from the well. He filled up the space between the berries in his pot with water and decided to make his way back.
The whole area consisted of smaller and larger hills so that he could not see the settlement from there. The forest he had passed the day before was on one side, and a larger group of hills was on the other side. Along the water grew more bushes with berries. He sat down for a moment and washed his face before returning to his shelter. As he got closer, he noticed that the ground beneath the ruins was somewhat dark. As if it had been burned years ago, and nature had taken it back since then.
As he moved toward the only house standing, he noticed that the door was open. Not wide, but just enough. He quietly placed his bucket on the ground and knocked.
“Hello! I’m sorry, I thought it was abandoned!”
No one answered Theo’s shouts. When he entered, something cracked underneath his soles. Glass. There it was again. Same spot it had been before.
“Well, that is strange… Hello!?”
But his voice hollowed through the room without an answer.
Theo fetched the bucket and his rope, placed the bucket into the kitchen, and found an empty piece of paper next to a stick of coal under a pile of rags, letters, and dust, and started drawing. A rough map of his surroundings. The house, the forest, the river, and the bushes with berries. He brought his new map upstairs and laid it on the table next to the letter. “Good. I won’t starve here. Now what is this place?”
Starting in the main room, he rummaged through the books. Recipes, description of plants. All written in the same writing as the letter he had found earlier. He could even identify the leaves at the ceiling. They were a cooking ingredient. He picked one and started chewing. Sweet, almost like sugar cane.
Someone had left detailed instructions for brewing potions of all kinds… and they loved to give their creations names. He could read the letters, but the names just didn’t make any sense.
Theo looked up from the pile of books that lay on the table. “I cannot stand this madness.”
It took him a while until he had organized all the books and open letters. One straight pile of books and one pile of open pages. He put them all upstairs into one of the smaller rooms. Then, he fetched another pot of water, cleaned one of the rags, and started cleaning the table as well as the chairs. It was harder than he had expected. Stains of all kinds and a thick layer of dust needed some strength to get off. But after a while, they were clean. Acceptable clean. Not presentable, clean.
He continued on the counter. Then he rummaged through the other piles. Most of it was just stuff that needed to be thrown out. So he packed a basket that stood in the kitchen with things that were broken and emptied it on top of another pile in one of the ruins. It took Theo the rest of the day to only throw things out that either time or men had destroyed. When he was finished, the room became wider, more welcoming, and after leaving the door open for some time, the dusty smell vanished and instead was replaced by one of spices.
That reminded Theo of something. After going through the kitchen, he found a mortar. It was quickly washed using the water left in his pot, and next followed one of the sweet dried leaves and a handful of berries. After some work, the mixture turned into a jam. He picked some up with his finger and tasted. Now that was better! Almost like marmalade with a pinch of salt!
For his next experiment, he crushed another handful of berries without a leaf and mixed them with water in a mug he had freed from dust. Now that he had diluted the jam with water, it almost tasted like one of these energy drinks that had a poisonous green color on their can and screamed “You are a beast” at you, even though you probably were just a 16-year-old who liked caffeine. But considering the option of drinking water that tasted like stone or walking an hour to get clean water, the self-made energy drink tasted like a cold beer after hard work on a Friday afternoon.
He just sat down on one of his cleaned chairs when he shrieked and jumped up again at a strange sound.
[Class obtained: Alchemist]
[Alchemist Level 1]
[Skill obtained: Basic Cooking]
Theo did not move.
His eyes stayed where they were while his mind tried to catch up with what he had just heard. The room felt the same. The table. The chair. The mug in front of him. The faint smell of berries and dried leaves.
He listened.
Nothing.
No echo. No second sound. No movement from upstairs. No wind pressing against the walls.
Slowly, he turned his head to the left. Then to the right. He even looked up toward the ceiling as if the voice could have been stuck between the wooden beams.
His throat felt tighter than before.
“…hello?”
The word sounded wrong in the room. Too loud. Too present.
He waited.
His heart had started beating faster, and he became aware of just how loud it was in his ears. He swallowed and wiped his hands on his pants, only now noticing that his palms were damp.
“I’m just tired,” he muttered to himself. “Too tired.”
But the words did not feel convincing.
He stood up carefully, as if sudden movement could make whatever had spoken happen again. His gaze wandered across the room. Under the table. Behind the counter. Toward the stairs.
Nothing had changed.
The house looked exactly the same as it had a moment ago.
For a long moment, he simply stood there, breathing slowly, trying to force his body to calm down before his thoughts could spiral into something worse.
Then he rubbed his face with both hands, exhaled, and turned toward the curtains as the sun turned red.
It would have felt wrong to leave them open now that he had made himself a little like home. He pulled on one side when he saw a shadow moving on the outside. Then it was gone again. His throat tightened. He put the mug on the table and continued to look outside. Nothing. He switched the windows, looking out another one, but… nothing.
“Man, I really am tired, time to go –”
Then it knocked on the door.
Once.
Twice
Theo didn’t answer, and the door slowly began to open.