Sealed Garden of Gods

Chapter 4- Silent Altar

The silence here was different. In the forest, the silence was like someone holding their hand over your mouth, trying to choke you. Here, inside the gates of Aldenora, the silence was like a heavy shroud. It felt old. So old that even the air felt like it hadn't been breathed in a thousand years.

I stood just past the threshold of the white stone arch. My legs were shaking so bad I had to lean against a pillar. The pillar was cool, made of some kind of pale marble that had veins of gold running through it like frozen lightning.

I looked back one last time.

Beyond the gate, the mist was a wall of gray soup. I couldn't see the spiders anymore, but I could hear them. Thousands of little legs clicking against the stone, just inches away from where the white marble started. They wanted me. They wanted to wrap me up and suck the life out of me just like they did to Vax. Just like they did to Elian.

Just like they were doing to Borg right now.

"Damn it," I whispered. My voice cracked and sounded small against the massive ruins.

I looked down at my hands. They were covered in that yellow spider guts and Borg’s blood. I tried to wipe them on my pants, but my pants were just as filthy. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Borg’s face. That stupid, brave smile he gave me before he charged into a nightmare.

He was a Knight Captain. He survived wars and politics and plagues, only to die in a pile of bugs for a murderer like me.

It wasn't fair. None of it was. Vax should be back at some border town, bragging about his "great escape" and buying medicine for his sister. Elian should be in a library somewhere, complaining about dusty books and church idiots. And Borg... Borg should be leading men who actually deserved a leader like him.

But they were gone. And I was here. The "hollow man" who didn't even want to live in the first place.

"Why me?" I shouted at the empty courtyard. "I didn't ask for this! I didn't ask you to die!"

The only answer was the wind whistling through the oversized buildings.

I forced myself to move. I couldn't stay by the gate forever. The spiders might find a way in eventually, or I’d just starve to death staring at the mist. I had to explore. I had to find... something.

I walked deeper into the ruins. Everything was too big. The stairs were too high, the doors were wide enough for three wagons to pass through at once. It felt like a kingdom built for giants, or for the "Gods" the legends always talked about.

There was no grass here. No weeds growing between the cracks in the stone. It was like time had stopped. I passed a fountain that was shaped like a weeping woman, but instead of water, the basin was filled with a shimmering silver dust that glowed softly. It didn't feel like magic. It felt like the ashes of something that used to be holy.

I reached a large plaza. In the center stood a statue that reached higher than the trees outside. It was a man holding a spear, but his face had been chiseled away, leaving only a smooth, blank surface.

I sat down at the base of the statue. My body felt like lead. The adrenaline from the run was gone, leaving only the cold realization that I was the last one left. I reached into my pocket and pulled out the small rock Vax had been tossing around last night. It was just a regular river stone, smoothed by water, but holding it felt like holding a piece of him.

"I have to keep going," I muttered to myself. "Borg said... he said he was saving one life to make up for the others. If I just sit here and die, I’m making him a liar."

I stood up, my joints popping. My side hurt where the Queen spider had grazed me. The wound was shallow, but it was turning a weird shade of purple. The venom was slow, but it was there, a cold burn crawling toward my heart.

I walked toward a massive building that looked like a temple. The doors were already open, hanging off their hinges like the jaws of a dead god. I stepped into the shadows. The air inside smelled like ozone and old incense.

In the center of the hall, there was a shallow pool filled with that same silver liquid I saw in the fountain. But it wasn't just dust now. It was swirling, moving in patterns that hurt my eyes to look at.

I knelt by the pool. I didn't see my own reflection. I saw them.

Vax, Elian, Borg. Their faces appeared in the silver liquid for a split second, looking up at me with eyes that didn't have no pupils. They weren't screaming. They just looked tired.

"Is this it?" I asked, my voice echoing off the high ceiling. "The Garden of Gods? Just a place to remember the dead?"

I reached out my hand and touched the silver surface. It wasn't wet. It was freezing, a cold so intense it felt like my skin was being ripped off.

Suddenly, the silver liquid climbed up my arm. It didn't splash; it moved like a snake, wrapping around my wrist and sinking into my pores. I tried to pull away, but I was stuck. The silver light flowed into the purple wound on my side, and I felt a scream tear out of my throat as the venom and the silver fought inside my blood.

I fell to the floor, gasping for air. The silver had stopped moving, but it had left a mark. A jagged, glowing brand on the back of my hand, shaped like a broken crown.

My side didn't hurt no more. The purple was gone, replaced by a silver scar that looked like it was made of metal. But the weight... the weight of the three of them... it felt heavier now. It felt like they were literally standing on my shoulders.

I stood up, shivering. No voice talked to me. No windows popped up. Just the same heavy silence and the cold weight in my soul.

I looked at the silver scar on my arm. It felt cold to the touch. I didn't know what I had just done, or what this place had done to me. I wasn't a hero. I was still just a murderer. But now, I was a murderer with a debt to pay.

I turned toward the back of the temple, where a long, dark hallway led deeper into the heart of the ruins.

"I'll live," I whispered. "But I'm taking you with me."

I gripped my rusted dagger, which now had a faint silver sheen on the edge, and walked into the dark.