Braginsky Apocalypse Home

Chapter 7

The personifications stepped into the room in shock and repulse. There, in the midst of the already small room was a massive collection of books. Ivan walked up to the bookshelf and pulled out one of the works and opened it. The pages were covered with dust, and the blonde cleared the front page.

"This is Преступление и Наказание. The original." He stated in awe and traced the handwritten letters. The book itself was written in 1866, and the original was kept here, in the middle of nowhere this whole time. After examining a few more books, the group figured that this was a collection of original Russian classics. Someone took the time to assemble all of them in one place.

"Hey, there's something in the corner." Raivis noted, looking around the room thourghly. He had a bad feeling about the thing, but made an effort to comment on it anyway. The personifications glanced at the corner, to see a dark outline of a figure, most of it hidden behind a bookshelf. Their hearts sank: if there was something alive in this house, they were for sure going to have trouble on their hands. Although the figure was outnumbered, if it had any weapons, the nine would be faced with a challenge. Ivan's mind raced back to the time when Katerina told him something about there being a large amount of weapons in the residence. Most likely, they were going to need them.

No one from the group had the courage to face the figure first, and they stood frozen in shock and fear. Yao, being the oldest one, decided that he should do it, and he rest would back him up if needed. The Chinese male slowly walked up to the bookshelf. Bracing himself for any oncoming impact, Yao took a shaky breath and thrust the shelf to the side, only to reveal an old, already rotten mass of a skeleton, in dark, worn out clothes, its arms lowered, as if it were protecting something. The ebony-haired male let out a yelp of surprise and terror: such an unexpected discovery was rather disturbing, while the group behind him cringed and stared at the sight in disgust and horror. They've all seen the familiar things before, it wasn't uncommon to see the remains of a human as a personification, but this wasn't the time or place to see one.

"It's hiding something." Toris pointed at a small vault-like compartment in the wall, which stood out due to its pearly white color among the dark walls.

"Someone has to move the... thing, so we can see what it is." Natalia commented with repulse. She has always been more on the dark side of things, but her mind wandered only at the thoughts of there being more of the human remains over the reidence. One of them might even be present in their own room, and they just didn't know. The Belarussian made a mental note to herself to check the dressers and closets of all rooms once they were finished with this.

As on cue to her phrase, Gilbert advanced towards the carcass, and shoved it into the shelf nearby, sending bits of bone and cloth flying into all directions.

"What the hell was that for?!" Ivan exclaimed, irritated with the fact that a personification would disrespect the deceased in such ways.

"That thing is too much of an eyesore. It gives off a bad feeling, don't question me." The albino was breathing heavily now, and he seemed glad but slightly terrified with his own actions.

"What matters now is that we have access to the vault." Yao interrupted the intense conversation and knelt down to the small metal door. He felt relief wash over him as soon as he realized that that the vault didn't have a lock of any sort. The group anticipated what might have been hidden in the space. It was small, about the size of one and a half of a human hand.

"It's just a bag." Yao stated with disappointment and pulled out an old cloth bag which was tied at the top with a string.

"Open it." Natalia urged, and the older reluctantly untied the sack and looked inside, keeping the thing a good distance away from him in case something living was inside. But there was no movement whatsoever. Instead, there was a piece of paper, some gold coins, and a stone of some sort.