1 CHAPTER 1: Within the ruins.

Slowly Joost made his way through the dark hallway. Every now and then some dim blue-ish light flickered.

He knew that this was dangerous. But his wife, Lisa missed her right arm so she had a hard time finding a job. And even he had difficulties finding another one that paid enough to provide their family.

So, he had to go on.

He was a seeker. Someone who ventured into the ancient ruins in search of the knowledge of a fallen civilisation.

Many speculated that they were gods. Their buildings, although older than time could tell remained standing. They had black windows that showed images of things that could not possibly stand behind them and glowed when they were turned on.

He had found many treatments for diseases here, most of which could safe many lives if used correctly.

It was quite possible that these beings would have almost been immortal. As many of their secrets had yet to be uncovered.

This was the weird thing. They weren't. They had presumably all died. The only traces left behind were the scraps of knowledge that survived the passing of time.

Joost pushed against a door made of a metal that could only be found here. the door made almost no sound when opened. But that eerie detail was soon overlooked as he stepped into the dark open space.

A dim smell of rotting flesh entered his nostrils, which left him slightly confused. He'd ventured this path for at least a dozen of times, yet he'd never encountered this smell.

Did some animal crawl in here and die? No that couldn't be it. Afterall he'd been here just yesterday. And with this cold weather it was unlikely that animals would rot this fast.

He ventured on forward on the same path. Scared of following an unknown path that could potentially be dangerous.

After a while he entered a different room. He hadn't been here before. This one was illuminated by the usually black windows. He was not sure why they were all on. But he didn't mind it that much since this gave him more light than what his lantern could give him.

Now he was actually able to see the black root like strings that were connected to the windows, so he wouldn't trip.

A strange code appeared on one of the windows. The language of these presumed gods had long since been lost. So Joost had no idea what it meant. He wrote all the symbols down in his notebook, hoping that they one day would help him to decipher this lost language.

The code was placed directly underneath an image of creature next to a strange cube.

The creature's legs were digitigrade, it had a long tail with a patch of fur on the end of it. It had two large wings and three sets of horns on its head. It was slightly hunched over, but it appeared that it could stand upright if it so desired.

The cube was rather blank in comparison to the creature. It had ten different symbols on it. Including those that were present in the code.

He walked further into the room. There he saw multiple of these windows placed on a table. Though the table wasn't made out of wood.

A humanoid was displayed on these windows together with two intertwining spirals and a cylinder filled with some kind of liquid.

There was a lot of text there but yet again he had no idea what it meant.

On the end of the room where two giant glass containers. One was too dirty to see what was inside and the other one appeared to be broken, with the glass scattered on the floor.

He walked towards it to look inside. But it was empty.

When he turned around, he saw the cube that was displayed on one of the windows before, laying on one of the tables.

He picked it up. And when he did so, he noticed that it was rather heavy for something this size. He put it in his bag and proceeded to look around for useful stuff.

Then he suddenly noticed the scent of rot much like he did back in the hallway. He didn't know what the cause was, nor did he know why he didn't notice before.

Something fell somewhere in the hallway connected to the room.

Fear immediately filled his heart. Never before had he encountered something that was alive in one of these buildings. Desperate, he looked around to see if there was another exit. but unfortunately, that wasn't the case.

He decided to try and sneak out, hoping that the creature wouldn't notice him.

Of course, there was always the possibility that a squirrel or a raccoon had entered the building. But animals seemed to avoid this place as much as possible.

He slowly stepped through the door that he had left open. When he had walked a few meters down the hallway he had the hope that it was indeed just an animal.

But then a shrill shriek filled the building. It was unlike anything he had heard before. Footsteps followed soon after and Joost ran without a second thought.

He had to survive this. He had to come back to this wife.

He ran as fast as his legs could carry him. For the first time since he had been here, he slammed every door behind him shut.

He kept running even when he was out in the open again. he didn't stop until he was finally home.

He busted in and locked the door behind him. Out of breath he leaned against the door, hoping that whatever was there had not followed him.

His wife, Lisa hurriedly approached him.

"Are you okay sweetheart?" Lisa asked in a concerned tone.

But Joost just shook his head. "I don't know. There was… something there. I- I don't know what. It chased me."

He carefully placed the bag on the floor while his wife checked him for any wounds.

"Maybe you should get some rest. I am sure that this was very draining for you."

Joost tiredly nodded and went to bed.

....

After Joost woke up he immediately checked if there were no strange creatures outside. But fortunately he did not find anything out of the ordinary.

After looking around for almost two hours he went back to his home.

His home was rather small and placed in the woods close to the village. they didn't live in the village because one of their ancestors had caused a mayor disaster and the people still blamed them for this.

This was why Joost had a hard time finding a safer job and why he still got paid barely enough to support him and his wife. Even though this job should be really respected since it gave the other people a lot of supplies and knowledge that could help their lives improve.

He decided that he would try and see what the box that he brought back was.

Lisa carefully placed it on the table and Joost picked up the notebook with the symbols in it.

If this box was useful then he would be paid enough to make it through this month without worries.

Lisa looked all over the small object.

"It seems that like many things from the ruins, it is made out of metal that we can't replicate."

"Yea, I already noticed that. What are other things that could hint at the use of this object?"

Lisa rotated it and looked at the other sides. "I think that it can be opened!" She exclaimed as he saw the thin slides between the sides of the box.

"Do you think that it will open if we enter the code?" Lisa asked her husband.

"It can't hurt to try!"

With that Joost gave the order of the symbols and Lisa pushed them in on the box.

Every time she touched a symbol the box let out a high beeping noise.

When she finally finished the box let out an ongoing beep as it slowly opened.

An icy cold steam was released and there, covered in tubes and wires was a small blue creature. It was just a little smaller than the average human new-born. It showed a great resemblance to the image that Joost had seen in the ruins. Only this one had just two horns and a more humanoid appearance.