The wood creaks under my light boots. I shiver, look at the sky, then down at the ground. This is the middle of summer but in the forest, the breeze is always cold.

I drop my firewood as I see a large deer in front of me. His dead black eyes disappear behind a curtain of trees. I follow in his footsteps.

In the middle of the forest is a cave. Hidden under the roots of a millennium oak tree, the cave is fresh and damp on my skin.

A drop of water pearls and rolls along my forearm. There must be a spring nearby. An oak tree as big as this one couldn’t conceivable have grown far away from water, even though I never found the spring.

If the entrance to the cave is only big enough for me to crawl into, it soon gives way to a gallery in which I have no trouble standing straight up. Although the cave is spacious, the difference with my memories is even larger.

It has been so long.

The breeze whistles as it enters the cave after me. Despite it, I don’t feel cold anymore.

I slowly make my way as the light dims. The cave entrance and the green of the roots is already far behind me. I don’t remember ever bringing a lamp with me before but the darkness is stifling me. Perhaps was I bolder before.

Why did I suddenly want to go back to this cave? It has been close to twenty years of me forgetting its very existence, so, why now?

Not thinking about it for another second, I keep on walking. The slight slope under my feet is slippery. I slow down. The damp is more present than ever, the smell of the earth and moss as well.

I almost can’t see anymore but the oppressive nature of the cave has disappeared as fast as it had come.

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My eyes slowly get used to the dark and I can’t stop my lips from smiling gently. This is the reason why I never had the need for a lamp.

Rocky and irregular walls whose shape I only discern, barely. Enough to see the difference when they get taken over by smooth and carved stones.

The Ruins. Right. That is the name I had given them I think. It is strange how I didn’t have any recollection of all of that a few minutes ago. I welcome these tendrils of familiar memories like old friends.

Pieces of dilapidated walls inside a large room with an arched ceiling. Large is an understatement, though.

What were the Ruins before they became the Ruins? I never knew. A castle? A village? This is too large to have been the home of only a handful of people. The end is too far to see and I have been walking for a long time. Is it already night outside?

I scrape the tip of my fingers on the walls, ignoring the prickling sensation of the centuries old cement and the dust I stain my shirt with.

Past the Ruins is the Corridor, as I named it once.

A thin and oppressive space bordered with tiny alcoves. There had been doors once upon a time, the small rock debris piled in front of each opening being a testimony to that.

Whoever walked these floors before me must have pillaged everything the alcoves once contained, as usual.

I think of the many treasures that could have been resting peacefully in the Ruins.

The alcoves are barely big enough to fit a small wooden idol. I don’t know if doors were ever needed for something else. Coins, jewels, none of that requires doors. But again, idols wouldn’t have been stolen.

Had I ever found what was originally the purpose of the Corridor?

I am lost in my thoughts and doesn’t realize I am already at the end of the Corridor. I have been walking for too long to count, but feet don’t hurt at all.

There, in front of me is a stone door. Older even than the Ruins and the broken alcoves, the door is locked shut.

The dampness is such that my eyes are damp too. Goddamn spring water.

You will be free, old friend, one day I’ll open this door for you. I promise.