A Wanderer's Lies

Isaac grabbed a few of the berries, holding them close to the wall to get a better look.

He ignored the fatigue he was feeling in his legs and proceeded to run his fingers through the gaps made in the walls.

'What is this?'

He asked himself upon seeing the poor drawings of what seemed to be a few stick men holding swords and spears.

Some were even carrying orbs and what Isaac assumed to be regular sticks.

There were five stickmen on each side, charging toward each other.

On another part of the wall, it showed the stick men dying, on the floor with their tongues sticking out as the numbers of each side increased and the battle proceeded.

'A war?'

Isaac continued, walking along the wall as he tried to find the next part of the drawing.

Next to the dead men, there was an arrow that was pointing to what Isaac could only explain as monsters.

One arrow pointed from a stick man to a giant bug or fly. Another pointed from a man to what looked like a bat with giant ears, and finally, an arrow pointing to a rat with a scorpion tail that seemed familiar to Isaac.

It was the same one he had witnessed being brutally murdered.

He paused for a second before carrying on, moving further and further along the wall.

The next scene showed the battle between the stickmen come to a halt as they encountered the various beasts and monsters.

The battle then changed as the humans joined forces to push back the monsters, using their combined manpower.

But countless stickmen continued to die while the beast's numbers only increased.

Isaac could once again see the arrows pointing from the fallen men to the new beasts that soon joined the fight.

A monster with armour, a giant serpent, something that was completely dark in colour.

The beasts were never the same. Each was different and increasingly more terrifying, joining the battle until the stick men were outnumbered.

It wasn't long until the stickmen turned and retreated.

After searching for a second, Isaac found the next scene and stepped back slightly.

This scene specifically was significantly larger than the others.

It showed countless stickmen leaving a large island on a boat.

An Island where the previous monsters and beasts could be seen inhabiting. However, Isaac squinted and noticed a few stickmen with their hands in the air, still on the island.

Isaac walked across the wall, looking for the next scene, only to find nothing.

Instead, he found a small paragraph of scripture in a language he had never seen before, beside it was what he assumed to be a drawing of a compass showing where north and south were pointing.

'I barely know English. What the hell is this crap?'

Isaac stared at the scripture.

Unbeknownst to his surroundings, he stepped on something that broke the eerie silence, clattering as Isaac leapt back, yelping slightly.

He waved his berries at where he was standing previously, only to notice a stack of bones leaning on the wall, clothed with the jaw wide open and something hanging from the neck.

It took a few seconds for Isaac to come to his senses.

Throughout the day, he had seen a scorpion rat, living plant life and a sphere-headed person who was born from the stomach of its victims.

A skeleton was not going to be enough to keep him petrified for long.

He chucked a few pebbles at the skeleton, making sure it wasn't dangerous while laughing at how his life had come to him checking whether or not skeletons were alive, and thoroughly checked the rest of the room for anything he might have missed in the dark.

He soon sat beside the skeleton, darting his eyes between the carvings and the skull.

'It's history.' He concluded.

'From what I can understand, there was a war that resulted in countless deaths. Then the monsters…were born from dead people?'

'The humans were unable to fight back and had to flee. But not everyone escaped.'

He wasn't sure about the first part of his story.

How could monsters be born from humans? It made no sense.

However, upon remembering how the sphere-headed creature was born from its victims, it didn't seem impossible.

Thinking for a few seconds, Isaac sighed.

'I guess I should stop using common world knowledge. Nothing that's happening makes sense.'

Despite pondering the monster's birth, he had no trouble believing the latter part of his theory. After all, he had the deceased corpse to prove it.

If he was correct, and this man was left here after humanity fled, were there other humans? Perhaps they were living in the other buildings.

Isaac thought for a couple of seconds.

He couldn't decide whether other humans being here he wasn't aware of was more terrifying than the sphere-headed monsters.

But he now had countless other questions.

'Why were they fighting? How is it possible those monsters exist? And where are the humans now?'

He thought for a few seconds before shaking his head and getting to his feet.

'Whatever. This won't increase my chances of surviving.'

He walked to the corpse, feeling the rough and durable material of the jacket. Isaac had never felt anything like it. It was flexible yet sturdy, protective yet light as a feather.

Isaac glanced at the clothes he was wearing. He still had the red vest and torn suit pants from his scam.

He didn't have a chance to change.

He tried his best to remove the jacket from the skeleton, without causing any damage to the deceased. As he did, an item clattered against the rib cage of the skeleton.

He reached out his hand and stared at what he assumed to be a compass on a piece of string hanging from the skeleton's neck.

He looked back to the engraving of the compass he had ignored before, placing the real compass over the drawing.

'Is it broken?' He thought, noticing the compass wasn't facing in the right direction the drawing indicated.

Where it should have been facing straight ahead, north, it was facing toward the east, to his right.

'Maybe this guy drew it wrong…' He turned, looking toward where the compass was facing and before he could finish his thought, his heart skipped a beat as he faced the only entrance in the room, noticing the sphere-headed creature standing silently with its arms by its side, unmoving.

Isaac had also noticed the large, yet vastly smaller than the previous, root slithering toward him.

In that moment, Isaac froze, not knowing what to do or how to act. He was defenceless and his only exit was being blocked.

Without thinking, he held his breath, not moving an inch as he sweated profusely.

A few seconds passed as the root slowed down, soon coming to a stop as it turned its tip left and right as if it were lost.

Isaac, still holding his breath, stayed quiet.

It wasn't long until the root slowly backed away, retracing over the hole in the wall and disappearing into the vines and plant life.

Soon, the sphere-headed creature turned its head, walking away with silent steps, leaving Isaac still frozen in the same position.

After a minute, Isaac took a gasp of fresh air, dropping to the ground and grasping his chest, trying to get rid of the feeling of his lungs being twisted.

He breathed heavily, hyperventilating as he leaned on the wall, staring at the exit and keeping his guard up.

Isaac was confused. Some people might think they had just gotten lucky, but not Isaac.

He didn't believe in luck.

'Why?'

There was a reason the monster had left him.

In the time he wasn't paying attention to when the creature left, something had happened for him to be able to survive.

He thought back, remembering his beating heart, his frozen state and his suspended breath.

Nothing made sense.

While thinking he looked to the compass, noticing it was no longer facing the exit, but instead moving steadily in the same direction the sphere-headed creature had walked in.

In the next second, the needle shot away from what it was following, pointing east and refusing to move.

'Does it point to the monsters?' He thought, looking east then to the skeleton.

'No wonder he died. This place is…hell.' Isaac thought, thinking for a few seconds before concluding.

'If I'm right, there are two possibilities. This compass is pointing to another sphere-headed creature that's closer to me, or…'

He gulped.

'There's something far worse waiting for me due east.'

Isaac stood up, looking toward the carvings yet still keeping his guard up, taking a few glances toward the exit.

'You were left here and couldn't survive. You don't look like a victim of that thing, so maybe it was starvation.'

Isaac looked around, seeing nothing in the area but pebbles and debris.

'Hell, maybe it was suicide. I wouldn't wanna live here either.'

Isaac ran his fingers through his messy hair, sighing and sitting back down.

The memories of how he got here ran through his head. From the man-eating ghoul to the revelation of other worlds.

And to think he was hours away from having everything he's ever wanted.

Unbeknownst to him at the time, it was the opposite. He was hours away from losing everything he had worked so hard for.

And maybe even his life.

Trapped in this purgatory with no money, food or even the possibility of freedom and peace seeming so foolish made his head hurt and his blood boil.

He stared at the skeleton with no emotion.

It was like a mirror. An inevitable fate of what was to come.

'Goddamnit!' Isaac yelled inwardly.

It wasn't enough he had become a lamb for slaughter, he also had to suffer the mockery of his malefactor.

Isaac gritted his teeth as he walked to the skeleton, snatched the jacket off of him, tossed his vest as he tried on his new attire.

'F*ck off. Give it your best shot.'

Isaac dropped to the ground, crossing his legs and watching the exit intently with his new compass lying before him.

'I'll survive. Just watch me.'

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