03 - Hello?

As he walked, Ataz noticed that the sky was getting darker and darker, as if it were becoming night, but he had not remembered walking for so long. From a distance, he saw a small, old, dark wooden house. It had some strange designs on the door that were oddly large for a normal door. Around the place, it was full of trees with small symbols made of old branches hanging from the limbs.

When he reached the door, he noticed that it was left ajar. The cat peered through the crack, but he couldn't find any living beings inside. Ataz decided to risk entering the house, quietly listening for any noise that might provide him any danger. Strangely, he felt familiar with doing that. He managed to feel that there was magic in that environment, however, it was not just any magic. "Black magic? It's infested here... but why do I feel so strong?"

He felt his blood running through his veins, and realized that he had started to absorb some of that energy. Even though it was almost nothing, he started to have the sensation of something entering his body, starting in his arms and legs, reaching the heart that began to beat faster and faster.

Inside, he found many shelves with books, flasks with strange liquids, and even some skulls scattered around the place, but which were apparently only for decoration. The place was very dusty, with cobwebs and almost no light that came in inside it, so closed that the environment was.

In the center there was a table with some candles - the only brightest spot in the place. Sitting still, seated at the table, there was a woman. She was seemingly about 60 years old, with white and long hair. The woman wore strange clothes made of a combination of different cloths, half torn and dirty. She was small and very thin.

Ataz started to approach the lady. In front of the table where the old woman was sitting, there was a small chair. The black feline jumped on top of the chair, coming face to face with the woman, who was apparently sleeping because of the snoring he heard coming out of her nose. On the table there were some strangely scrawled out letters and some little balls in a glass in the corner of the table that apparently were eyes, bearing no color or life. He noticed that she had many rings on her fingers; their nails were long and as she slept, her fingers made small spasms as if they were trying to point some certain direction.

Curious, Ataz looked at the direction her fingers seemed to be pointing and there he saw, in the center of a huge and tall old bookcase, a large book with writing on it he couldn't read very well because of the dust, and with a luminous symbol in the middle that drew the majority of his attention. Slowly, he guided his small body to the shelf. It was tall and slender; Ataz couldn't just pull the book to himself, however, he noticed something: the shelf was not completely full, so he could sneak through the empty spaces that were between the books.

He still wasn't very skilled with his paws, but he believed he could already jump up to that point. He approached the bookcase, flexed his front legs, and jumped. Even though he had difficulty holding onto the old boards of the bookcase, Ataz reached a shelf below the desired one and started to sneak through the books and bottles that were placed on it.

He put his two paws on the top shelf and pushed his little body, making it possible to climb one more flight. From a distance, he could see the small glow that the symbol produced. He then started to move his little body by sliding it through the bottles and ornaments that the shelf had on it.

Ataz was finally in front of the book. Passing his paw over the cover, he was able to read 'Atra Pestis Servus'. Having spent so many years studying runes and dead languages, Latin was almost his native language, so he read the cover to be "Slave to the Black Death". Ataz stopped for a second quietly, thinking confusedly about what he had just read and remembering that upon entering the old woman's house, he felt an energy familiar on her magic.

Before he could even open the book, he, with his new senses of cat, felt that something was wrong. Something was watching him, but he could feel that it was not just one thing: there were several. He turned his head towards the old woman and realized that she was no longer there. Instinctively, he put his claws out and looked at all corners of the room with goosebumps running up and down his spine, but even with a cat's senses, he couldn't see anything. He could hear all the creaks and groans that that old house made, but at that moment, not even the crackle of moldy wood was possible to hear, just silence.

Ataz noticed a small speck of smoke rising from the floor. This did not seem to make any sense to him because the house did not contain a fireplace and the floor seems to be composed of dirt. He heard a small, almost imperceptible, noise coming from the door, and when he turned his small eyes quickly towards the direction, the door closed brutally, causing some dust to fall from the roof of the house.

Strange black shadows began to come out of the bottles and drawers the house contained. They infested the house and everything went dark. Ataz was barely able to see even his own paws. In the midst of the darkness, a shape began to form before him. It looked like the figure of that old woman who was sitting at the table when he entered. She no longer had her spine bent or her hair standing on end; her spine was straight and it looked like her hair was smoother than it should have been. Her eyes were white and empty, as if she were blind, and in her hand she held a small shiny necklace.

Approaching slowly, the old woman started to laugh, a loud, high-pitched laugh that even bothered his little ears. "So you're here looking for answers? Do you want to know who you are?''

Her voice was thick, as if it were duplicated. The old woman was holding something in her hands, but Ataz hadn't even noticed it; he could only think of a way to escape. ''Or rather…" she continued, "who you have become?''

'Who I have become?' Ataz asked himself confused, now turning his attention totally to the old woman.

"A filthy and weak worm. Apparently they were wrong about you."

The woman stopped walking and stood for a few seconds smiling coldly at Ataz with an empty look that pierced his very soul, however, he was not afraid.

''What a shame.'' The woman placed one hand close to her chest, palm towards Ataz. Her mouth opened into a bizarre smile and her eyes, apparently blind, seemed to look straight into the void. She started to whisper something, and around the old woman, some lights like energy balls appeared. Ataz couldn't stop looking at them, even though they almost burned his vision as bright they were, until in a matter of seconds, the balls started flying towards Ataz.

Without thinking twice, he ran to the other side of the bookcase and could hear behind him the sound of wood burning and the light of a mini explosion that the balls caused. Fortunately, none of the lights had hit the book. Ataz decided to run back to retrieve the book and get out of there; he needed to find out how his magic worked and knew that that book could have at least a little bit of information for him.

He realized that the woman was replacing her mana, as he saw that the magic balls were growing little by little. Ataz took the opportunity to run to the book, dodging all the jars and pots in front of him, and when he got to the book, it suddenly dawned on him that it was huge. Ataz had no idea how he was going to carry it out, so he was going to have to stop the old woman, but he didn't have enough power for that. He pushed the book with his little body to the floor, making a huge noise, and with that, the old woman closed her smile and even with that lifeless look she gave, she looked directly at Ataz.

The old woman opened her eyes wide and the necklace started to shine brighter. The old woman's energy balls increased in size and started to grow more and more. Ataz ran, leaving the book behind and stopped in front of a small mirror on the floor. Before the fireballs hit him in the mirror, he could see the old woman's reflection in the mirror behind him without the light from the balls hindering him and he realized that in one of the old woman's hands she was holding a necklace that gave off a small green glow. He realized that the old woman had not mastered magic, she only knew how to master objects with magic, so Ataz needed to destroy that object to come out alive.

It was then that he remembered that little bit of smoke rising between the old wooden boards of the floor...