Chapter 3) The temple.

Only a small amount of light through the hole, and my torchlight reflected in the darkness.

The village was built using red and light yellow clay.

And unlike cities where buildings were built apart from each other, this village's buildings were built so close to each other.

But there was a particular building that stood out among the other buildings.

It was a temple which was located in the middle of the village and straight ahead in front of me.

I had made my way there before, but I didn't explore the inside, since I didn't want to explore it with a sprained ankle.

I may be reckless, but that didn't mean that I didn't care about my life. What if I had explored the temple with my sprained ankle and mistakenly ran into something dangerous?

Yes. I have concluded that not a single alive soul was in the village. But I can never be so sure about that, since I have not explored the entire village.

The only thing I did was call out if anyone was there. My voice echoed with no response. What I did then was stupid.

What if something dangerous charged towards me after hearing my loud voice?

But who hasn't done something stupid like that in their lives before?

I took my final deep breath and stopped watching the village. Rather, I began to make my way to the temple. The temple may look close, but it was actually far from where I was.

The first time I headed to the temple, it took me thirty minutes to get there. Almost all the buildings were in ruins, so I had to climb through some time-consuming obstacles as I made my way to the temple.

I guess it was going to be a different outcome today, since both my legs were perfectly alright and were ready for some actions.

15 minutes later, after climbing my last obstacle, I could hear my breathing. If someone told me that I was running out of oxygen, I might as well believe them.

I was not usually out of shape. But today, I was in bad shape.

Out of all the other days that I might have experienced cramps, why did it happen to me today? No matter what, I was not ready to stop. Nothing was going to make me stop.

I stood in front of the temple. It was at this moment that I brought out the body camera that was inside my jacket pocket.

I hung the body camera on my jacket, before going ahead to open the two large heavy wooden doors.

I had to open the doors one at a time because I wasn't able to open them at the same time. They were too heavy.

After I entered the temple, I did not dare close the doors. What if I ran into something deep within the temple and was running for my life? And if the doors were closed, would they not delay my escape and I end up dying an unnecessary death?

I wasn't ready to commit such mistakes.

The temple was cold. Every step I took, I could hear them loud and clear. Also, the temple was dark, and the only source of light which reflected in the big empty hall, was the torch that was around my head.

Upon taking several steps forward as I looked around the temple, I flinched and stood frozen after the doors behind me slammed on their own with a loud bang.

I turned around in disbelief after seeing the shut doors. I ran over there and tried to open the doors, but they would not budge.

“Ha. What a bad sign”. I muttered as I touched the doors.

I felt something when my hands made contact with the doors. My gaze later fixed on the carved symbols on the doors. Strange. When I opened the doors earlier, the doors seemed normal, and I did not feel any written words or symbols.

‘Could it be that these symbols were only carved on the inward part of the doors?’. I wondered, before using my mouth to blow the dust off the symbols, in order for me to see them properly.

And there I saw them.

The symbols, which looked like a wolf, a bat, a cat, and a dragon. There were other symbols I saw, but I couldn't quite tell or understand what they were.

But, there was a particular drawing on the door that caught my attention.

It looked like a figure blasting off some sort of magic using its hand.

What was weird to me was that I saw a wand in the figure's hand.

“What the heck is this? Could this be the clues I have been searching for?”. I muttered but did not easily believe it.

I haven't explored any part of the temple, so there was no way that these were the clues that I had been searching for ages.

I wanted to leave the door, but I was very curious and wanted to decipher the symbols and the strange figure's meanings.

“Hmmm. Interesting. A wolf?”.

“Now, according to the ancients… wolves are actually spirits who had physical bodies and could deal with spiritual forces, including the spirit world. They express both fierce and untamed spirit, often representing freedom, strong bonds, and most of the time, loyalty. As for the bat and cat, what do they mean?”.

“Ha. It seems like I am going to spend a lot of time here trying to solve this strange puzzle. If truly it were a puzzle”. I kicked the door in defeat as I said.

I was in a hurry to find answers, making me impatient.

The instant I kicked the door, I heard something and turned around almost immediately. They were the sounds of hurried footsteps.

Standing still, my eyes did the walking and scanned the entire hall I was in.

'I thought that no one was inside this village?!’. I thought to myself, and turned around, trying to open the shut doors.

I totally regret it. If I had known that the doors were going to shut earlier on their own, I would have made use of something to keep them open.

I gasped, because the footsteps got closer and closer and echoed in the huge empty hall. It was coming from a particular open room that was far ahead in front of me and opposite to me.

As I calmly tried to find an exit, I saw a door which I hadn't noticed before.

It was strange, and I was reluctant to walk through the door, because I was afraid that it might be a trap.

But what other choice do I have at a ridiculously dangerous time like this? The footsteps got closer, and I was forced to run towards the door. I quietly opened it, and entered the room.

Whatever creatures owned those footsteps, I was certain in the deepest parts of my soul that I didn't want to see them.