The Deal || Sanders Sides

23. The Village

I have so much I want to do with this, just you wait

The origin story gets to be left on a cliffhanger lmao

TW: swearing, talk of war, talk of death, fear.

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"This... this looks like it used to be a village," Virgil said quietly. "But where are all of the people?"

"I'm not sure I want to know," Roman muttered. "What happens if they aren't friendly? And what caused them to just be gone if they aren't here? I don't like this place."

"We should still try and figure out what happened. Plus, there may be somewhere we can stay until the fog clears up," Virgil pointed out. "There could be some useful supplies here, even if it is pretty creepy."

"Fine." Roman huffed. "But if we die I'm going to blame you for the rest of eternity."

"I'm alright with that."

They moved slowly into the village, trying to watch out for any holes in the ground or movement. With the fog it was hard to see many details besides where the houses were and that they were, in fact, houses.

"God, this place looks like a wreck," Virgil muttered, peering inside one of the doorways. "It looks like everything has been torn apart. Someone was certainly in rush."

"But why?" Roman looked inside another house, finding it in a similar state. Clothes were littering the floor, and objects were strewn all over the place. The only thing that could've made it creepier was claw marks, but luckily the walls were bare of those. "It just doesn't make sense."

"Well, if the fog was this bad all of the time I would leave, too," Virgil said. "This is far worse than I've ever seen fog. Maybe it's just a thing on this side of the ocean."

"Wouldn't it be the same on either side?"

"Not necessarily. The climate could be-" Virgil was cut off by the sound of something in pain. It sounded small and fragile. "Where did that come from?"

"Oh come on, are we really going to follow the noise?" Roman scoffed. "In every ghost story ever, someone goes to look for the innocent animal and ends up finding something worse!"

"Well, it's a good thing we aren't in a ghost story, then," Virgil deadpanned. Roman followed him with a huff as he started walking off towards the direction the sound came from. As much as he was creeped out and scared, being alone would have been worse.

They walk through the rest of the village in search of the noise, but nothing shows up. At least, nothing shows up until the noise sounds once again. They go outside of the town, and see a few large monoliths in some sort of pentagram.

"Maybe we shouldn't step inside of-" Too late. Roman tripped over his own feet, falling straight into the pentagram of monoliths. He blinked, looking around. "Holy shit, you're going to want to see this."

Virgil stepped inside of the pentagram, blinking in shock. The fog was gone. Once you were inside of it, the fog was gone, and sunshine glittered on the beautifully carved monoliths.

"What the fuck is this?"

"Hell if I know." Roman approached one of the monoliths, examining the shapes and words carved into it. "It looks like a story, but which one starts it?"

"Let's start at the top of the pentagram," Virgil suggested. "That would make the most sense as to where the story would start."

The first monolith had a picture of s sun rising from the water. There seemed to be something on top of the sun.

"Oh, that's showing the dawn of creation. One of the gods is pulling the sun from the water," Roman said, traces of excitement seeping into his voice. "I remember reading about this. The first god pulled the sun from the cold depths of the sea, lighting the world up. The water falling off of the sun was so iridescent that it made the first rainbow. Then every other god emerged and formed, coming o help in the creation of life itself."

"An origin story," Virgil murmured, looking over the monolith with newfound attention. "That's an interesting thing to have on monoliths that are out in the open. What's with the second one?"

They moved to the next one, chin showed people riding up from the ashes of a great volcano. The volcano was large and prominent in the background, filling up most of the sky.

"The earth god got into a war with the fire god," Roman whispered, running his fingers over it softly. "The fire spread and plunged into the earth, seeking revenge for the fall of the sun god. From their anger a volcano formed, spewing the ashes of the fallen god. Then people arose from the ashes."

"How do you know so much about this? I haven't even heard of this." Roman gave him a sad look.

"I had to search deep in the history books. At this point, the story has almost been erased."

842 words.