In the Heart of Pernelle

Episode 3 (2)

The door clicked open as Inuro stepped through, glancing around the small cottage. The place was rickety, and though it looked clean and homey it appeared as if no one had touched it in years. Jars hanging next to a window chimed with the fading wind as he stepped inside, looking at the crowded, jumbled little home.

A table took up much of the kitchen, wooden and not well made. It had a centerpiece on top of it which was strewn with fresh smelling flowers of different assortments. Around it were three chairs each tied from wicker, cheerful amongst the clutter. Shelves on the opposite wall were lined with bottles and pots and dishes, sometimes making way for odd trinkets such as a ring and a small doll of cotton.

Inuro made his way through the cramped house cautiously, noticing nothing too out of the ordinary, although it was eerily silent. 

"Hello?" He called as he walked, glancing about in search of the owner of the home. There was no reply, and that was when the boy suddenly noticed a silver plate strewn with berries and white chicken and greens, with a little roll on top in decoration. Inuro's eyes widened as he looked at the delectable meal, his stomach grumbling with desperation. 

The food looked better than anything he'd had in weeks, and he could practically taste it already. He moved closer to it, examining it before smiling and picking it up, ready to take a bite of the surprisingly warm chicken. 

"Wait, boy..." A voice whispered from somewhere Inuro couldn't see. He hesitated and looked around, still holding the chicken leg. The voice was faint enough that he couldn't tell the source, and for a moment he'd thought he'd imagined it before it spoke again, a wispy sort of sound. 

"Down here, child." It said, and this time Inuro turned to see something he hadn't noticed before- a grey, old door in the corner of the room. It looked rusted and unused compared to the rest of the room, the rest of the cottage, even, but it drew Inuro to its depths, and hesitantly the boy set down the chicken leg and followed the voice.

The door creaked open, exposing dusty stairs that Inuro hadn't any indication were there. They led down to an area he couldn't see from his vantage point, winding and twisting around. He took the first step on the stone stairs, wary as they echoed in the stagnant silence. His stomach still growled with persistence, but he forced the urge to eat away for just a few more minutes. 

"Hello?" Inuro called again, voice shaky, as he had previously believed he was alone. There was no need to fret, he knew, since Eirian was just outside, but that didn't ease the tension any as he made his way down the stairs one step at a time. He finally came to the bottom, the basement, where hardly any light shone. 

In the basement, the walls were hidden with great shadows along the mossy stone, forcing Inuro to only see silhouettes of objects. The area itself was no bigger than a storage closet, per say, but to Inuro it felt like it harbored many secrets, as if the walls were whispering. 

And there, in the shadows, laid a man, short and lifeless, on the cold ground. Inuro could not see the man's face, but he did see a chain connecting him to the far wall from his wrist. 

The man turned to look at Inuro, and in the darkness the boy could only make out the intense whites of his eyes, along with the dark, void-like irises he possessed. 

"You're here." The man said with some sort of amazement, staring up at Inuro. 

"Who are you?" The boy asked, a little frightened by the man's shadowed appearance. 

"Do not fear me," The man said, his voice sounding more like a frog croak than a human, "For I mean you no harm."

Inuro tilted his head in confusion, his ears lowering. The man sighed in response.