I stood adjacent to the doorway, breathing hard to suck oxygen in through the filters. Waiting for unknown men to burst through with their clubs and stones.

My suit was not made for mobility, the amount of running was exhausting me beyond what adrenaline could account for. The boots and metal plates were digging into my body, making it difficult to stand and difficult to breathe.

Even so, I had endured worse than being out of breath and sore legs. I faced the old woman who’s home I had invaded, searched for some kind of reasonable explanation and came up short.

“Please don’t tell those guys I’m in here.” I settled on, making sure to grip the elven blade extremely obviously. A silent threat that wouldn’t harm a person’s pride the way a stated threat would.

The woman snorted, “I’m not friends with them. If you want to hide then shut the door behind you and take a seat away from the windows.”

It took me a moment to register the words between panting breaths, but I did step away from the door while eyeing the woman.

She was old with grey hair and a simple brown robe covering her wrinkled body.

But she was not dead, that I made sure of. Her eyes held life and she did not have her chest carved open. The room lacked obvious shadows, though I was still wary of the closed cabinets this room appeared remarkably safe and well lit given its placement in a dirty alleyway.

Why was her home located in the middle of an alley, sandwiched between two buildings? Did she have a front door leading to the streets or did the only entrance come from a maze of alleyways?

Scant light made its way through the glassless windows. A small fire and a few candles kept the room easy to see in.

I slowly and quietly closed the door. The woman clamped a set of wooden shutters shut.

“So, nice place you have here.” I offered.

“It’s a shithole.” She corrected.

I swallowed, looking around. The room was somewhat bare with only a few wooden shelves and chairs. She held little in the way of metal and almost nothing made from any type of fabric. I could see what must have been a bed with a few animal skins draped on top. The floorboards were old and I could see where they gave way in places to a drop that could break your ankle.

There were plants and what must have been herbs hanging from the ceiling to dry.

“Well…” I struggled to find words, then gave up. “Do you happen to have any books on the local wildlife?”

The woman looked me up and down. “Maybe I do. Who sent you?”

I wondered what the best answer to that would be, well you see I was abducted by space aliens and…

“No one sent me here specifically, but I was hired to find a book on local beasts and plants.”

“So you just happened to walk through the alleys and make your way into my house?” The old lady asked.

I answered simply, “Yes.”

The woman sighed, “I worked as a healer in my youth, I do have a catalogue around here somewhere of the medicines I worked with.”

My gut instinct was to purchase it, but I reigned my desires in. If I showed the amount of silver I had and this turned out to be a hoax it could potentially turn violent. The old woman might not be a match for me, but she could tell others of the riches I possessed. The people here undoubtedly knew the city better and I doubted the guards would do much to save me.

“May I see it?” I settled on, “I can offer you money if it’s detailed enough.”

The woman sighed, “I will have to find it, why don’t you sit down and have a meal. I can tell you are barely standing, some food will do you well.”

“I uh-” I wondered what a person living in such squalor could be cooking, rat? Pigeon?

My stomach growled and I realized I didn’t really care, if it was boiling it couldn’t be that disease ridden. I had a cube of meat in one of my pouches, but that was barely even food. It felt like eating compacted sawdust.

“The bowls are on the mantle above the fire. Grab some of the bread out of the cabinet on the right.” She left the room and I knelt next to the fire with a wooden bowl in hand.

I could see some kind of grain in the thick brown liquid as I ladled it out, along with chunks of what may have been fish. I grabbed a heel of bread and sat back in a chair, feeling the furnature groan dangerously beneath my weight.

I noticed after sitting that I had no spoon, nor anything else that would count as one. I ripped my helmet off and poured the hot liquid into my mouth, burning myself on the thick stew. It was bland, spiceless; tasting of grain, salt and fish.

It was one of the best things I had ever tasted, it had a texture. I tried to bite the bread and felt it resist my teeth as if I was biting into a stone, but I found myself barely waiting for the liquid to soften it before trying my teeth again.

The large portion I had taken was downed in scant moments, the second portion went down just as fast and it left my shrunken stomach bloated. I leaned back feeling ill as I struggled to keep the food from coming back up.

Minutes passed in front of the fire, I sat pretending like I couldn’t smell the filth outside of the door. Did this city not have sewers? Or did they not reach this place? Ironically I was not as bothered by this smell as I was by the scent of my ship’s cleaners at this point.

Eventually I found myself wondering where the old woman went. My mind immediately went to the worst as I had learned to do.

“Hello? Lady, are you coming back?” I called down the hallway and received no response.

I cursed and rose to my feet, eyeing the windows and door. In a confined space, I could back against the wall and likely take on multiple opponents with my armor and weapon advantage.

My legs felt like jelly, I did not think I could run much longer. I threw my helmet back on and drew my sword. How long had I been sitting? How long did I have before men threw the doors open and advanced on me with their spears and clubs?

I turned to survey the house, maybe I could hide? Or perhaps the old woman was near deaf and just in the next room? I rounded a corner and saw nothing, walking down a small unlit hallway I came to what must have been a storage area with a dirt floor and a dirty rug.

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

This house had two rooms, the main one and a large storage closet filled with bags of grain, dried food and chopped wood. There was only one way out, if a surge of people came then I would be trapped.

There was no old woman, there were no windows? So how did the woman leave the room and disappear? I eyed the rug I was standing on.

Why would a storage room with a dirt floor have a rug? I wasn’t exactly an expert, but wouldn’t you first use fabric in the living area? She didn’t have cloth blankets or drapes or even a rug in the main room. Wouldn’t that be where you wanted these things? How long did she spend in here daily?

I tossed a bag of grain away, then kicked the rug up to find the edge of a small wooden hatch.

Most of the hatch was buried beneath more bags of grain and half of a shelf, I lifted one such bag and found a small hole in the side leaking sand.

These bags of goods weren’t filled with anything useful. They were here to hide something, but what?

I shoved the bags out of the way and ripped the hatch open, seeing the steps leading into darkness I hesitated for a moment.

My hand went to a small control section on my armor near my armpit, I grasped at a few buttons until my headlamp came on and made my way down the stairs.

The old woman had gone this way. I was completely sure she hadn’t left through the front door, I would have noticed, the wooden boards squeaked too loudly as people walked upon them.

That meant this underground room had to lead somewhere. Surely this was some sort of escape, what reason would an old woman have need for an escape tunnel I did not know. Was she a smuggler? Was this some kind of safehouse? It didn’t make sense, this wasn’t a crawlspace there was enough room for me to stand back straight and march down the halls.

I descended the stairs with a weapon in hand, sure that this would be my salvation. The uneven cave slowly descended into the earth and eventually the smell of filth and waste was replaced with that of cold earth. My light reached dozens of feet away, but I still felt myself pointing my blade ahead of me towards any unseen horrors.

I stepped slowly watching for wires or disguised pits, but the oddly flat ground made it easy to tell that nothing was hidden.

How long is this tunnel? Who built it? Surely not an old woman. I walked for hundreds of meters below the ground in a hole large enough that there were inches between my head and the ceiling.

It gave me the creeps, I began to wonder if maybe there were more people down here. Then it began to widen from a roomy hallway into a wide room. I began wondering if I was seeing this correctly.

Rows of candles burned on the dirt floor, a stone slab carried a bowl next to piles of jewelry. I slowly entered the room wondering what I could have possibly wandered into. There were side tunnels leading away from this… shrine?

I walked forwards feeling a cold sweat make its way down my back. As I neared the stone slab I identified the items on it. The bowl was filled with an equal mixture of small coins and small rusted nails, beside it was a cross and my mind immediately understood the religious symbol. But how did two worlds both have…

The wooden cross was crudely made, two thick sticks sanded down to round off the edges. The bottom had been filed to a point making it almost seem like a weapon rather than an object of worship. Beside it were copies in different materials.

I stood in shock, thousands of questions going through my mind. How? Why? Who had hidden this? Why was it hidden? How did…

Next to the wooden cross was something more opulent. It was not something that someone would own, but a large piece of artwork that might be on display in a public area. It was made from gold and small gems, a carving of a near naked man being hung from the middle. It was large enough that it would be difficult to carry, heavy enough that you could not just hang it off of drywall.

On the other side of that was a pile of rings, coins and necklaces. Some were dull grey, others looked like shined brass. There were gems mixed with shards of stained glass and the occasional pretty stone. A small tray covered in ash sat alone on the far end of the stone slab.

One item in particular caught my eye and I pulled it out from under a few pieces of glass. A simple cross necklace made from a tarnished grey material, its chain must have been forged from rusted cast iron. The piece of jewelry fit within the palm of my hand and I stared at it for a moment. It was small enough that I could pocket it easily.

“That piece belonged to my late son.”

I almost leapt out of my skin hearing the old woman’s voice, she stood in the entrance to one of the side tunnels and I felt her eyes bore straight through my armor.

“What is this place?” I felt my voice crack. This place had beyond unsettled me. I stared at the image of an emaciated and bleeding man in the depths of this cavern on an alien world.

I felt drawn to this place, I longed to never leave. My legs felt like they were made of lead. I struggled to move, to even turn to face the woman.

What if she had brought people with her? What if there were people down the hallway that I hadn’t seen? Why was she not surprised about the flashlight I had sticking out of my helmet? A million worries flashed through my mind but I could not move my eyes from the altar no matter how I tried.

I felt something sharp digging into my palm and then I realized I was squeezing the tarnished necklace hard enough I felt it through the glove.

“Sit. Relax. This is not a place for violence.” The woman commanded and I felt my legs go out from under me.

I felt the weight lift from my shoulders, the terrible pressure suddenly gone and I turned to look at the old woman.

“Are you from Earth?” I asked. “Did you come here, like me?”

She sighed, “I don’t know where that is, child, but I was born in this city.”

“What is this place?”

“From the looks of things,” She said in a tired voice, “You know exactly where you are.”

I was in a church of all things. A church to something I had never paid much mind to. William had told me a little bit about various religions and their beliefs while we were in our cells. He had told me that in bootcamp you were guaranteed church visits on Sundays and that those were the only place drill instructors couldn’t follow you.

I could practically hear his voice.

Everyone is always religious when shit goes down man. That’s just how it is. Look I’ve been praying all day and I haven’t done this since I officially became a private. You should pray too, even if you know you’re taking a placebo it still works, idiot.

I tried to remember the words to the sermons that he gave but I remembered little other than the biting hunger and painful exhaustion in those cells. William had been interested in the stuff and looked into various religions and their mythologies since his days as a rifleman.

I wish he was here. He would know what to say.

“You have lost someone? And you have come far to a strange land. These things can be troubling.” The old woman said. “Our doors are open to anyone who respects our halls.”

I tried to wipe my tears away, but the helmet interrupted that process.

She was down here, but the hidden door leading here had a shelf and sandbags stacked on top.

“Why are you hidden down here?” I asked. “How did you get through the door without moving those crates? Are there more tunnels?”

“The elves do not take kindly to forces beyond their control child.” The old woman shook her head. “Few do so, but most men know better than to challenge God or his servants. We dug these tunnels long before the empire moved in, and it kept a few of us safe when the worst happened.”

“God.” My voice shook and I said the word like it was a foreign thing. “Why did this all happen if he’s real? Why didn’t he stop it?”

“God does not ‘let’ anything happen.” She corrected me. “Things happen and sometimes God acts. He gave us the ability to make our own decisions, even if our decisions are incorrect.”

“Then what do I do?” I asked myself as much as her. This world was primitive, they could not help me against the empire that was coming after Earth. I had demons and ghouls haunting me. My friends all died and I was alone.

“Tell me of your problems.” She answered. “My flock has left for safer lands, but I can do at least this much for a lost child.”

I sobbed. For a moment I thought about lying. Of telling this strange woman on a strange world nothing, I knew that I should not divulge my secrets so easily.

But in the end, did it really matter? What would the humans here do? Fight me with their spears? I could call Blue Stripes for an emergency extraction if I was willing to give up on my goals here. The people here learning of what I knew could cause panic but I doubted they had the infrastructure to catch a man with access to a shuttle.

So I told her about the cruel things that had abducted me. I spoke about the long days and the cold alien cells that I had been trapped in. I recited every name that I had sworn to carry with me in that ship and I told her about the demons that lurked in the shadows. I cried about how no one had believed me when the corpse had spoken and how I was so tired I could barely stand.

And the entire time she listened without a hint of disbelief, silently nodding.

“You were drawn here.” She concluded. “Your ship was carried here without rest or resupplies or repairs and then you were drawn and you too ran until you could run no more. I can offer you little at a time like this but for now I wish you would keep my son’s necklace.”

“I-” I didn’t know what to say. There was no way I could keep something that used to belong to her lost child. I tried to hand it back but she held up her hand.

“Thirty years ago on this day my son was taken from me for refusing to give up the faith after our city was claimed by the Empire.” She explained. “It is no coincidence that a man was chased into my home on this day, nor is it coincidence that this man gazed upon the gold and jewels and took only that which my son had once treasured.”

“I should not be the one.” I stated. “William should have been chosen. He at least had actually read the bible.”

“This William is not here, and I do not sense faith from you but that is of little consequence. You are not a priest, nor are you a prophet. You are not meant to be a man of faith, but something else.”

I denied it. “Prophesies are not real.”

“Was it the fact that you believed you should be here that got you chased by hoodlums? You searched for a book detailing plants and animals, something no farmer would need to write to remember, and yet instead of searching for a scholar you just so happened to find me. You carry an elven blade and yet you have been neither enslaved nor tortured for touching it.”

Enslaved?

The woman continued. “I have seen blades like that before. That elf will not be far behind you. Do not believe that they have anything good planned for you, they do not see those lesser than them as deserving of life. Go now, follow the path to your left and show those star-creatures the enchanted blades that our enemies hold. Learn to save your world.”

“Will you come with me?” I asked. “A priestess? The demons wouldn’t come near you. You could teach me how to resist them. To fight them.”

Slowly the old woman shook her head. “My place is here. If God is willing I will meet the elf I met Thirty years ago. If God smiles upon me I will have my vengeance. Go now John. Your time is not yet over.”

Without another word I turned and left.

The old woman muttered a single prayer.