The rain, wind, thunder, and lighting all conspired together in some grand awful scheme to make me run into the odd shaped building. I normally like to make camp out of doors. You can never tell when the old timers architecture might collapse in on you and my tent was fine and dandy for most nights. Tonight was not normal though. All three moons were obscured by the dark forbidding clouds and the wind that echoed through the ruins seem to carry the keen of the ghosts of the civilization that had once call this place home. I didnt normally go in for all of that fairytale crap, but a storm like this would make a hardened soldier believe, never mind a thirteen year old girl on her own for only her second winter.
The interior of the place was all curves, with not a straight line to be found. It also seemed somehow brighter in here then it had outside. I felt my large pupils contract even though there didnt appear to be any specific source of light.
I pushed back the hood of my over shirt to set free my large cavernous ears to hear the slightest reverberation from another inhabitant. Hello? I called out, listening intently to the echo. Nothing. My sopping wet pack got set down on the floor and I went out to explore my surroundings.
It was bizarrely clean. I pick over these ruins for a living and I’m constantly covered in a fine layer of dust as a result. Not a speck was to be found in my new little camp.
A peal of thunder crackled above the dome with stood at the center of the room, but it seemed so much less menacing inside of here. In fact everything seemed strangely better. I shook off the feeling as best I could. It was one of the reasons I was good at this sort of work. The old timers had left machines that let out gases or tones that made others afraid or lulled them to sleep. Not me though, Mama had always said I didn’t trust anything, even myself.
As I shook off the contentment creeping over me I heard the first sound that told me I wasn’t alone, and it sounded like nothing so much as an exasperated sigh. I spun toward the sound. I forced my small mass to crouch into an even smaller space, and my blade launched out of its sheath on my calf and in my hand in a flash of lighting.
In the exact center of the dome was a long stone table with the tatters of cloth still clinging to it. No one was to be seen, but that didn’t mean they weren’t there. I almost jumped three full feet in the air when a small ball of fur jumped up onto the table and stared at me in a questioning manner.
It looked like some of the images left behind by the old timers. Completely black, it had a long body and legs and a tail that twitched back and forth as if it was agitated. Its peaked ears and amber colored oval eyes were pointed at me with intense curiosity. “Meow?” It asked me, which made me chuckle at my own foolishness. I slide my knife home and picked my way carefully over to the ball of fluff.
“Did I barge into your camp fur ball? You’ll have to forgive me. The storm you understand.” My hand reached out to give her a pat, only to stop frozen in place as she spoke.
“Perfectly understandable. After all it took me a full week to change the weather patterns enough to get you to finally come in here. It’s not my camp by the way; so much as it’s my temple. You may want to get comfortable. I have a lot to teach you before you leave here.”