FELLOWSHIP || Ateez Fanfiction

Chapter Thirty Four: Undiscovered Lands

We enter through the big golden door that has fallen out of its socket and is lying on the floor. The inside is full of sand and very dusty. On the floor are the remains of a carpet. On the walls are big empty candle holders and I can faintly see paint on the walls. In the middle stands a disintegrating desk. At the back of the room are two doors. The room seems to be completely empty otherwise.
"That's kind of lame. I thought it would look at least look as cool as the outside.", San utters.
We go through one of the doors. In the next room is a spiral staircase that leads upwards and two doors that lead to the smaller rooms at the side.
The two room are full of furniture that is in similar condition to the desk.
It seems like someone took the furniture from the main hall and put it in here. Since there is nothing down here, we go up the stairs. We go through the door on the second floor and land in the remains of a kitchen.
There isn't really something of interest here beside some residues of crystals in a weird stove like thing.
"The furniture here looks also very different to what we have seen until now.", Yunho comments.
"I wonder how old this building is. Everything is in a very bad condition or has almost completely turned to dust.", Hongjoong says. We decide to take a short break to eat our lunch before we go further up.

On the third floor is a corridor that connects four smaller rooms. Some of the furniture was moved into the corridor. The rest was pushed against the walls. Otherwise here also isn't anything that is helpful for us.
"It's very odd that the furniture was moved out of the way like this.", Seonghwa states.
"Ah, I think I know why. Maybe the volcano broke out. There was maybe a village or something like that which was destroyed and they fled here because it was safer. So they had to make space for a lot of people.", Wooyoung explains.
"Yeah, they probably fled. But I don't know if it was because of the volcano. Why would they flee to a building that is directly next to it. And wouldn't it get destroyed first?", Jongho says.
"But from what would they flee if it wasn't from the volcano?", I ask.
It gets quiet as the others think about it.
"Let's move on. Maybe we will find something that tells us what happened.", San exclaims and goes up the stairs.

The fourth floor is smaller again. The furniture in this room hasn't been pushed to the side. There are remains of what seems to once have been a bed. We search through the room but find nothing besides dust and sand.
Mingi suddenly starts screaming at the top of his lungs and hides behind Jongho who looks at something with big eyes.
The rest of us walk over to them. There is a spider in the size of the palm of my hand in a rotten drawer.
Besides Yunho the rest of us also panic and hide on the other side of the room.
"Why is it so big!!!", San screams.
"Is it moving or is it dead?", Wooyoung who hides behind me ask.
"It is definitely alive.", Jongho states.
Yunho carefully closes the drawer slowly and Hongjoong motions us to go to the stairs.
"Eww, it was so hairy and it's eyes were so big.", Seonghwa whines.
"That was probably the ugliest and creepiest spider I have ever seen.", I add.
"Wait until we get to Tongcheok. There are a lot of creepy insects.", Hongjoong utters.

The last floor is one big room. There are a lot of remains of shelves. In the middle of the room someone pushed the furniture a bit aside to leave a big circular space. The floor has a few smaller holes there which edges look a bit charred.
In the middle of it lies something. It is too damaged to make out what exactly it is. Seonghwa picks it up and turns it around. It immediately crumbles into pieces but for the brief moment it held together it looked like a book.
"Is it just me or are these holes weirdly equally spaced?", Mingi remarks.
"You mean somebody made them on purpose?", I ask.
"Maybe candles?", San comments.
"Candles?", Wooyoung repeats.
"Why would someone put candles in a circle?", Seonghwa questions.
"You know like a creepy ritual. You and your friends put candles in a circle. You make some pattern on the floor with sand or ash or salt or something. One person stands in the middle with a book, the others stand behind the candles. And then you say some spooky things and something magical happens.", San tells.
We giggle about his story.
"You read too many books.", Hongjoong says.
"He only reads children's books.", I remind him.
"You really have an amazing imagination.", Jongho comments.
"It seemed logical to me.", San mumbles and pouts.
"The candles could be right though. Maybe some people just sat together to talk here.", Yunho speculates.
"Either way we haven't found anything here.", Jongho states.
"Yeah, unfortunately there is nothing here. Let's go back.", the captain says.