Sera walked along the river, passing by vast fields where hired workers from town toiled. Their voices were faint in the distance, but Sera could make out the kinds of conversations they were having with each other as they worked based on the emotions that drifted through the air. She heard the lilting of laughter, hints of concern, various sounds of fatigue, and sharp tones of exasperation.
The valley was alive around her as she continued on along her path. Farm hands worked to plant or harvest various crops. Cows lazily grazed in their pastures. Shepherds watched over herds of sheep.
It took a little more than an hour before Sera reached an old wooden bridge which led to her left over the river. She waved awkwardly down at a couple of fishermen who sat on the bank, who regarded her with confused expressions as they took notice of the strange girl carrying a sword across the rickety structure.
Sera pressed on along a worn dirt path, past a small stone house where a woman sat on the porch, nursing her child, past a fenced in pen where an old man was dumping slop to his pigs, and finally to a T-shaped junction before leaving the crude road behind and continuing east across the plain.
Before long, the plain gave way to hills. Beyond that, the cleared land ended at the forest where lush trees crawled up the mountains. The land here was covered in grass with patches of wild flowers here and there. The hills were dotted with eroded boulders and ancient rubble which scarred the landscape. Ahead of her, the mountain range dipped down and then up again, as if an impossibly massive fist had driven right through it. It was there that the ruins rested, the remains of a broken piece of Heaven had fallen over a millenia ago. It was there that Sera was said to have been found as a baby.
Sera stood at the wall of trees which towered over her. She considered, for a moment turning back the way she came, back to her innocent little life. But she knew, deep down, that it was no longer possible. The walls of her innocence had been torn down, and beyond that laid mysteries that defied her understanding. She needed answers.
Taking a deep breath, she pressed on.
It took about thirty minutes or so before she saw it. Through the trees, a massive wall of what seemed to be solid stone rose up from the forest floor. Sera could only assume that it was the underlying structure on which the ancestor gods had built their heavenly cities upon. Now rubble laid around it as roots of ancient trees had burst from the strangely textured stone, snaking down its sides and into the soil below. Off to one side, a massive, shattered section of the structure sloped down to the forest floor, providing a relatively easy pass up to the surface. Upon climbing over the broken edge, Sera was met with a view that took her breath away.
It was an area that must have been only a little smaller than her entire town. Most of what must have existed before was now piles of ancient rubble, but there were still some larger broken up ruins that were still recognizable as buildings, at least somewhat. Even a few towering structures that somehow remained almost entirely intact, towered over it all. Birds sang out from their nests in the branches of trees and varying kinds of brush which grew out from the tops of buildings and out of piles of what were once buildings themselves. Squirrels chittered, nervously aware of Sera’s presence. The late afternoon sun filtered down through the trees, creating illuminated patterns of green, yellow, and orange light over the ruins.
Sera walked along what must have been a street in days of old. It was huge, easily as wide as Rivera’s entire town square. Her feet stepped along on a soft carpet of leaf-covered soil, created by centuries of fallen forest debris. She gazed reverently around her at what had become of her ancestors’ legacy, a once glorious city taken over by the nature they created.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Further down the street, where the wide roadway split on either side of a tall wedge-shaped structure, Sera could see evidence of residence. Remains of tattered tents and shattered crates sat in the wide area. Rusted pots hung over leaf-covered fire pits. As she passed by, through empty windows and doorways, she could see old beds covered in moss. Mildewed books sat decaying on desks. Loose remains of parchment and scrolls mingled with dry leaves scattered across the floors.
As Sera walked closer to the center of the abandoned camp, her foot brushed a pile of leaves. The sound caught her attention and when she looked down at the disturbance that she had made, she felt her heart leap in her chest.
Grinning up at her with a hollow gaze was a human skull.
Sera stepped back in horror and in doing so, her foot caught a piece of fabric. The rotted clothing pulled away along with the remainder of the piled leaves, revealing more of the poor soul’s skeleton. Sera took a moment to regain herself as she stared out around the site. She hadn’t noticed them before, but she did now. Sera recalled her father mentioning the College Reclaimers of Bastion, who came to investigate the ruins. This was where they studied, where they dwelled, and it was where they died. All around her were human-sized piles of leaves, each one marking an undignified grave.
As she gazed across the forestfall covered street wondering at how many bodies must be unceremoniously buried there, a ruined building stole her attention. Like most of the surviving structures, it covered a large area with several empty windows and a single large doorway. Vines climbed up the ancient brickwork, anchoring themselves into the crumbling mortar. Only the first story and some of the second remained, having long since collapsed, and trees with thick trunks grew out from its center. What had caught her attention was the doorway which, despite its size, must not have been big enough, as it bore signs that something larger than itself had pushed itself through. Sera approached, cautiously.
Sera peered inside. Through the door, she could see that it led into an entryway with a second ruined doorway just a short distance from the first. She took a deep, determined breath, and entered.
Once inside, the structure opened up into a large room. It was empty. Anything which had once been there had long been swept away by the hard uncaring hand of time. The walls on either side bore many doorways and continued on for a ways before sloping down into rubble. The entire back half of the building was gone.
Sera jolted at a sound to her right. Spinning around, she awkwardly held up the sword John had gifted her as a startled deer bounded out the back, up the pile of rubble and down again out of sight.
Sera lowered the weapon with a nervous laugh. She felt ridiculous.
After regaining herself, Sera wandered through the ruin, exploring the dilapidated building and searching for any clues that might lead her to the answers she so desperately craved. As she stepped past a doorway, she looked into the chamber and was startled by a decomposed figure sitting against the wall. Scraps of gray flesh clung to the bones, and the figure's clothing was torn and exposed bone bore signs of having been fed upon by scavengers long dead.
Sera held her breath as she viewed the scene. Part of the room’s ceiling had given way, laying broken upon the floor. Sunlight poured in through the void and cast its light upon the decomposed figure which sat against the wall.
Sera stood in the doorway for a while. She felt sad, the tattered clothing which hung ragged on the decomposed body hinted at what was once a well dressed man, confident and commanding. Yet here he was, alone in a secluded ruin, left to rot in the open air. She entered and crouched down against the far wall from where the corpse was sitting, its sunken, empty eyes staring sorrowfully at the floor. For a moment, Sera felt something towards this man. Deep inside of her soul, she seemed to feel a familiarity despite his aggressive signs of decay. Sera looked to the corpse’s right, where the ceiling had fallen. Upon the debris, just peeking out from beneath the leaves, she saw the edge of a book.