Before The Fall (origins)

Chamber

"What is that?"

Two children entered the huge chamber that sat beyond the door.

"Wait..."

Magathea ducked out of the door again.  From the outside, the chamber couldn't be seen.  Only a dusty old room was visible.

"Krista!  Can you hear me?"

A muffled reply came from the opening.

"So there's some sound cancelation."

Magrathea ducked through the opening again, and found himself in the chamber.  It was spectacular.  He chamber started as a cylinder on its side, and then grew larger, in what looked like steps.  It was hard to describe.  It was like being in a conch shell.  The room got gradually wider, and then at the midpoint, started to shrink down into its original size.  And it wasn't a small chamber.  It could at least fit an entire forest tree on its side.

The weirdest part was it didn't have any concept of a floor.  There were ladders equally spaced going from the door all the way to the other side.

"There's a door on the other side.  Look!"

Krista's finger was raised straight at what looked like an identical pair to the door they just came through.

Before Magrathea could respond, Krista was already running down the path.  The room did get wider, and Magrathea was forced to walk down a series of steps that went on forever to reach the bottom.  Krista was already at the bottom, right in the middle of the room.  Her blue eyes still glowed, and Magrathea was more than a little freaked out.

That still didn't stop him from admiring the feel of the place.  It was so silent, his footsteps felt like thunder in the calm.  He was afraid the every step he took would collapse something.  The chamber looked that fragile.  The walls were gold, but looked like they were carved from stone.  The bedrock of the world, shaped to form this room.

"Krista, slow-"

The world bucked under Magrathea's feet as his vision started to blur and distort.  His hands felt heavy, and he wanted nothing more than to put whatever he had down.  But he had nothing to put down except...

The stone.  It was glowing with a blinding light.  And it was getting hot.  His hand started to go red.

"Magrathea!"  Krista sounded so far away.  She was saying something.  Something really nice.  But it also sounded like a warning.  Why?

"Magrathea!!"

The shout shook him back to reality.  He was standing still, right at the middle of the room.

It was just a hallucination.  He checked the stone again.  It wasn't glowing.  Or talking for that matter.

He glanced upward to see why Krista was calling him.  And he saw her at the end of the chamber, standing next to the door.  But it was what was behind the door that really got him.