11

I've been walking through this damned forest for hours now and nothing looked even remotely familiar. In the beginning I was relatively sure that I was going in the right direction, but that had changed in the meantime. The sun was already climbing up and down the horizon, so I'd been out for a day now.

As far as I could tell from the book, it should only take me a few hours, but it wasn't until quite late that I noticed that the speed of one was also assumed with this time specification.

At first I admired the backdrop of the forest. The tall trees covered in bright green moss combined with the brightly colored wildflowers created a fairy tale like sight. But after a while my enthusiasm subsided. The tall trees barely let sunlight through their dense foliage, and the wildflowers poked their thorns through my shoes. Now in the darkness it seemed impossible to take a few steps without tripping over a root.

Actually, I should have slowly reached my goal, at least I hadn't met a wolf yet. Apparently, now that they had conquered the cities, they didn't seem to hang around in the woods as much.

The biggest problem, however, was my uneasy feeling in the stomach area. My whole body seemed to be screaming that I should turn around and go back, that it was wrong to leave Cyrian and just run away like that. My thoughts seemed to revolve only around him. About his voice, his smile, his eyes.

I should hate him from the bottom of my heart. He was responsible for the death of my family, he had kidnapped me and almost completely wiped out humanity.

Still, I couldn't help but imagine what it would be like if his perfect, warm lips met mine. What it would be like to fall asleep in his arms and wake up next to him the next morning.

The more I got away from him, the more everything in me seemed to be calling for him. For his closeness, his affection.

However, I kept putting one foot in front of the other. I would never forgive myself if I just threw away my chance to finally find out the truth.

Lost in thought, I didn't even notice how the environment around me changed. The grass got shorter, the trees fewer and the wildflowers disappeared. The path that I followed now became steeper and steeper.

I remembered why Undervillage got its name. It was under the forest.

I quickened my pace and a little later I noticed things that seemed familiar to me. Carved symbols in the trees and flowers that used to grow in our garden.

I almost ran when I saw the rooftops of my old home. I was finally home again, to the place where everything had been good, to the place where I had been happy.

I was horrified to find that there was hardly anything left of my homeland. The street was covered with a thick layer of ash and most of the houses burned down. I remembered the bakery that had been to my left. The baker's wife's daughter was my age and we sometimes played together.

Now one could only roughly recognize the outlines of the house. I walked slowly along the familiar path. Even if the town hall had been destroyed, the whole journey would have been in vain. I couldn't think of any other place to look for information.

The road now split and I had to choose a path. After a few meters I would reach my old house on the left and the town hall was in the other direction.

It was surprisingly easy for me to choose the right path. I wasn't sure if I could bear to see my old house or not to see it and know that all that was left of my old life was ashes and dust.

I slowly followed the path towards the town hall. I remembered the people who lived in the destroyed houses and the shops I used to go to as a child. The butcher always gave me a slice of sausage when we bought something from him. Right next to it was the hair salon. The old woman who had run the shop had been a terribly grim person, but she was good at cutting hair. It went on like this. I remembered the pharmacy, the little supermarket and everything else. I was surprised how well I found my way between the destroyed buildings.

The worst was probably seeing my kindergarten and elementary school. The two buildings stood next to each other, but only the playground made it clear that children had once been out and about there.

To my relief, the buildings on the outskirts of town seemed more devastated than those inside. This increased my chance of seeing an undestroyed town hall.

In fact, I was lucky. The town hall looked terribly battered, but it was still there. Ivy vines snaked up the bricks and the windows were shattered, but otherwise it looked the same as before.

I entered the building through the ripped out door. Only now did I realize how spooky the prolonged silence was.

Actually, I wanted to go up the stairs on the right. As far as I knew, the offices of the important people should have been there. But just as I put my right foot on the first step, I realized that the stairs also went down. From afar, it doesn't appear that much at all.

Tensely I followed the stairs down. I quickly realized that if there were secrets, they were kept here. I crept anxiously down the dark hallway. Heavy wooden doors lined up on the right and left, but they were all locked.

Only at the very end of the corridor could the last door on the right be opened without any problems. The squeaking sound of the door burned my ears.

But even more shrill was the scream I uttered when I saw the interior of the room.

Time seemed to stand still for a moment. I didn't know how long I stood there screaming.

After all that time as a fighter, I had already seen some gross things.

I still remembered the sound of the sword when a fighter had his arm cut off in a fight.

I still remember his arm falling in the dirty sand. twitching.

But nothing I've ever seen in my life was remotely as kinky as the one before me. The strong smell of disinfectant was nothing compared to the sight of the limbs stacked in different sized glass jars on shelves.

I identified hands, feet, eyes and other things floating in bright yellow liquids.

I didn't know why but something compelled me to enter the room. The tiles shone clean and the cold concrete walls showed no signs of soiling. It was oddly sterile.

It was only after I could tear my eyes away from the various body parts that I realized why this room had not been discovered and vandalized. The only dirt in the room was in flower pots and I was pretty sure the red buds were the wolfsbane I described in the book. Once this stuff got into a wolf's bloodstream, there was no saving it. But the smell also caused pain to the wolves, which is why they avoided coming near the plant.

Every step I took left an echoing sound in the room. I hardly dared to take my eyes off the ground. I didn't want to see what else was abnormal to see. Nevertheless I went on.

I didn't raise my head until I almost bumped into one of the shelves. When I reflexively raised my head I stared straight into a huge eye. The eye of a wolf.

I backed away screaming. Only now did I understand what I was seeing. These were not human body parts, nor were they wolf parts. The partial white crippled strange jar contents were parts of a human body as it transformed into a wolf.

I couldn't stop shaking. On the walls I discovered drawings of the structure of a human body and a wolf.

The silver metal chaise longue at the end of the room was the last piece of evidence I needed to confirm my suspicion.

They had poisoned the wolves with wolfsbane and then brought them here to dissect during their transformation.

Tears pooled in my eyes. Cyrian had been right, I had no idea what had really happened.

I was about to turn and run when a big old book on one of the shelves stopped me. On the cover was written in curved letters: "Member List". I was surprised that she had such a book just standing here, but then I realized that a wolf would never enter this room anyway.

I slowly reached for the book, trying to ignore the glass it was leaning against. It's hard for me.

In the jar was a hand with fingernails already beginning to look like claws and surrounded by thick fur. But it was still a hand.

I pulled the book out with a jerk, but still carefully enough to be sure the glass wouldn't fall off.

I opened the book with trembling hands. It was handwritten and sorted by date. I went through the names slowly.

"Linda Brown." That had been the nice baker's wife.

"Aaron Lexington" That had been the cheerful butcher.

"Marissa Black" That was the somewhat grim hairdresser.

They were all listed. All the people I knew It didn't take long for me to find my father's name. "Marcus Cleeves."

A tear fell right on his name. I didn't even realize I had started crying. I kept turning the pages looking for my mother's name, but what I found was much worse.

"Thomas Cleeves." my older brother.

He was 14 years old when he died in battle. When did those pigs send my brother to that hell? How was it even possible that they had initiated him here so early? When did they do that?

Then I remember it again. My father sometimes took my brother fishing. I always thought it was unfair that I wasn't allowed to go, but my father said it was a man thing.

It got too much. This disgusting room, these disgusting people who had lived here, everything.

I just dropped the book on the floor and ran. I left the town hall and followed the path I had come from. I kept running. I didn't know if I was going the right way, I didn't even know if I should go back to Cyrian. Because he was so right. I knew nothing. Such horrible things had happened and I hadn't even realized it.

The tears blurred my vision and branches whipped my body, but I didn't care. I ran and ran. I nearly ran into a tree several times.

It was getting harder and harder for me to concentrate on the surroundings and the next moment I ran into a tree.

A surprisingly small tree.

A surprisingly warm tree.

A surprisingly good smelling tree.

A tree that wasn't a tree, but Cyrian, silently wrapping his strong arms around me and hugging me. I buried my face in his shirt and at that moment I realized there was no place I would rather be than in his arms.