He passed through the city gate, which was a large black stone frame that had been broken. Now part of the arch lay on the ground, broken and shattered.
As at the beginning, the city appeared like a silent titan, filled with empty houses without any visible belongings. Each house is perfectly aligned with its neighbors, creating a series of straight, well-structured roads.
The streets within the city are paved with round amber and black cobblestones, which decorate the entire city, giving it an air of human civilization, as impossible as that may sound.
On either side of the streets, scattered along the black sidewalks, lie countless sandstone lighthouses, with the same amber stones embedded in the black stone columns that support the extensive, high ceiling above the city. Many of these lighthouses lie on the ground, broken and consumed by the sand, but the stones still shine.
Nova bent down to look at one of these lighthouses.
'This will be very useful to me.'
With the help of the staff, he broke the remains of the sandstone from the lighthouse and took out the stone, which was the size of his hand. This stone glowed a little brighter than the dim light of the communicator screen.
'Now I don't have to keep wasting battery power.'
He put the stone in his makeshift backpack and looked up to continue appreciating the ruined city.
He was barely at the entrance to the city, but he had already found something very useful.
'Hmm... There may not be any people in this place, but maybe I can find more things that will be useful to me.'
Although he felt irritated to know that there was no intelligent life in the place, let alone rational life, he felt a little hope knowing that there might be things more useful than a simple walking stick.
He walked down the center of the streets. His eye wandered over the landscape, looking for weapons or anything that sparkled with usefulness.
The houses, mostly cubic and single-story, had no doors. Perhaps these old walls, corroded by time, once had doors, but surely those doors had already lost their battle against time.
Now there were only ruins: houses with broken walls and lots of accumulated dust.
It was a depressing sight for someone who had lived his entire life in the big city.
As he looked at the walls with curiosity, Nova stopped. He closed his eyes and imagined something.
He imagined he was at home, surrounded by long roads with vehicles going back and forth. People walk on the sidewalks, making noise. Birds fly through the sky, and the pleasant weather caresses the soul.
When he opened his eyes, Nova was faced with the harsh and lonely reality.
There is none of that here.
Just a lonely, empty, purposeless place.
Just like him...
***
He continued his journey exploring the main houses, finding nothing important. Then, he entered one of the largest three-story houses.
The interior was partially empty, but there were things to note. There are tables, chairs, and polished sandstone shelves that, although in ruins, still hold things that are not so deteriorated.
It's as if...
'It's as if humans had lived in this place.'
It's impossible for there to be humans on the other side of the portal. They must all be dead: killed by the Aberrations, died of hunger and thirst. Perhaps they lived their entire lives, dying alone, unable to return home.
Nova began to wonder if that would also be his fate.
He approached one of the shelves on the first floor. He touched it with his fingertips, imagining that all of this had a history as hidden as the city itself.
There on the shelf, on the second support, lay a small stone sphere.
He picked up the sphere and looked at it. There was a strange eye carved into the black rock.
Nova smiled crookedly.
'You're mocking me, bastard!'
It was as if the world was playing a joke on him. If the world had a voice, it would have said, "Kukuku. Where's your right eye, huh?"
Exasperated, for the first time in his life, Nova felt angry. He threw the sphere on the floor, but instead of breaking, it rolled across the black stone floor until it reached the stairs leading to the second floor.
Nova put his hand to his forehead. He took a deep breath and calmed down.
"I'm going crazy."
How many days have passed? Fifteen? Time flies. Not everyone could survive more than fifteen days in a desolate and dangerous world. Let alone stay sane.
Ignoring his previous tantrum, he went upstairs to see if there was anything else. Maybe something else that would really make him angry.
On the second floor, he found two rooms. The first one didn't have much in it, just a broken bed that had turned to sand. In the second room, there were three large chests made of wood that looked like it could fall apart at any moment.
Nova was surprised that the wood had resisted the corrosion of time. Anyway, where did they get wood in this desert world? That's another mystery to solve.
'Let's see if there's anything interesting.'
He opened the three trunks. He found nothing in the first one. He wasn't disappointed, because with everything that was going on, Nova was already expecting to be disappointed.
In the second trunk, he found ten different types of fabric. Most of them disintegrated just by touching them, but there was one that was undamaged. It was a piece of thick, sand-colored fabric. It was shaped like a hooded cape.
'Great. Will it protect me from the sun?'
He would have to try it. The cape is very thick, but it already has a few holes from corrosion. It's surprising that it has survived this long.
Without waiting any longer, he put on the cape and continued searching the next trunk. When he opened it, the lid broke into pieces, but what mattered was inside.
Nova's eyes widened in amazement.
With trembling hands, he took out the contents of the trunk.
"A sword."
A weapon that was still hidden in its sheath. It was shaped like a thick cat's claw, a meter long and about nine centimeters wide. The hilt was small, but it had a guard shaped like a feline's eye pupil. The sheath was the same shape, but it also had some old straps to carry it on the waist.
'Amazing. Finally, I have something to defend myself with.'
Impatiently, he drew the sword. Surprisingly, it was neither rusty nor blunt. Well, this place is too dry, so it's normal that it hasn't rusted. Besides, the sword had been protected under this roof in the trunk for who knows how many thousands of years.
"Could there be more stuff?"
Happy as a thief who found a gold bar, Nova ran through every house he could find, looking for all kinds of things.
It took him a few hours to loot everything his hands could carry.
In the end, he only got a lot of fabric similar to his cape and another sword, only this one was broken. It wasn't much, but it was certainly extremely useful.
Since arriving in this desert, this had been the best day of his life. Now he was sitting in a kind of square in the center of the city, where the largest building stood.
The building was shaped like a sandstone dome with many ancient pillars, some broken, others barely standing, and others in almost perfect condition.
This is the last place he can visit, as the houses seem to have the same things, and carrying more than you can store is not a good idea.
With his sword hanging at his back, his yellowish cloak over his shoulders, and many pieces of cloth in his makeshift backpack, he is ready to continue his journey.
'Only this place left. Hopefully there's something better.'
He walked through the large, non-existent door. The interior opened up into a large hall filled with ancient columns, inscribed with an illegible language, but with a strange drawing on each one.
At the end of a torn and corroded carpet that stretched from the entrance to the front center, lay a black stone pedestal, surrounded by six distinct pillars.
Each pillar had a drawing that Nova could understand, as each drawing was shaped like something he already knew.
Arranged around the pedestal, as if each represented something, the pillars showed:
❖ Broken Crown—It wasn't actually shaped like a crown, but it resembled one. A crown with three points protruding from the ring, wrapped in twisted and sad thorns...
❖ Hourglass—It was drawn in such a way that it looked rusty around the edges. The glass was broken, and sand seemed to be spilling out of it.
❖ Black Hole—Drawn perfectly in a circle with a ring. The circle was painted black, and its surroundings seemed to have exploded into sand.
❖ Empty Circle—It was just that, simply that. Empty. A circle that was nothing special, but somehow evoked a certain mysticism.
❖ Crescent Moon—This is the only symbol that was not drawn. Someone simply broke a shiny stone into this shape and stuck it on the wall.
❖ Broken Sword—It has the same shape as the sword Nova has. It is broken in half, with black blood spilling down the pillar until it touches the ground.
Nova ran his fingers over the symbols. For the first time since he arrived, he found something he could understand.
Not knowing what these symbols meant, he looked at the pedestal in silence.
"What is this?"
There is another drawing on the pedestal. It is more detailed than the other drawings, like a work of art carved into the stone, waiting for whoever would discover this ruined city.
The drawing is:
❖ Endless—Represented by a dragon-like snake eating itself. Its body is shaped like the infinity symbol.
He brought his fingers closer to feel the art, but a deep, chilling hiss echoed behind him.
He immediately looked back.
He heard something slithering outside in the streets.
'Another Aberration...'
Exactly. Come to think of it, the tunnels that brought him to the city didn't seem to have been built by humans or human-like creatures. The stone was always chipped away in spikes, as if something had crawled through there, pushing the stone forward.
So what is capable of doing something like that?
'Crap!'
The hissing grew louder. Whatever was crawling is outside, looking for something. With no time to think further, Nova hid behind the pedestal. He gripped his staff with all his strength and stood as still as he could, his back against the warm stone.
'If it's something worse than the octopus, I'll definitely be dead. Even if I use the seeds, I'll fail to throw them.'
Fighting something with one eye disabled is absurd. Nova's depth perception has deteriorated because of it. If it comes down to hand-to-hand combat, it would definitely be suicide.
The hissing sound entered the room. The sound of something crawling intensified greatly, echoing off the empty walls of the building. Judging by the sound, the Aberration was so heavy that it needed to crawl on the ground to move, but it also seemed to do so quickly and nimbly.
A deep, gloomy energy filled the air.
At that moment, Nova felt a chill run down his back. In order not to attract Aberration's attention, he covered his mouth and held his breath. His heart began to beat faster along with the sound of the dragging.
'What's happening to me?'
This feeling; the deepest, most primitive feeling of a human being. Could it be...
Ssssss...
The dragging sound stopped. The hissing echoed over the pedestal.
It was in front of the pedestal.
Nova unconsciously closed his eyes. When he opened them, that strange coldness took hold of him. His heart began to beat slowly again. His breathing became smooth. The chill stopped and determination appeared on his face.
'I see. If I have to fight, I'll have no choice.'
Slowly, he moved his hand toward the hilt of his sword, ready to draw and stab. He waited patiently, looking up to make sure the beast wasn't watching him.
He opened his eyes wide when he saw a small part of the Aberration's head, which was looking at the wall with curiosity.
It was only the tip of its mouth, but it was enormous. Its scaly skin looked like broken sandstone in the shape of jagged spikes. Its small, elongated tongue, split in two at the end, came out and went back into its mouth, accompanied by an eerie hiss.
'Is it a snake?'
Unaware of feelings of fear, Nova relaxed, still holding his sword.
'We have those in my world too.'
After a few seconds, the Aberration seemed to find nothing. It turned around and slithered back across the floor to leave the place.
Its hissing grew deeper in the distance. When the slithering sound also faded into the background, Nova sighed in relief. His eye regained its sparkle as a result.
'Damn... Why is this world full of horrible monsters?'
It's supposed to be something to ponder.