The first thing this witch noticed, it was the how stagnant and stale the air was. She pulled up her shirt to cover her nose. It wasn’t a horrible smell, but it unsettled her. Like something was wrong. She turned around slowly, taking in her surroundings. There’s nothing. Not even dust. But it feels like it was abandoned a long time ago. She suspects the worse.
Turning back around, she noticed a sheen. An iridescent sheen that covered the entrance...or exist of a cave. She took a few steps closer, pressing her hand to it. It put up a small resistance but it allowed her hand to pass through. But it really didn’t want her to leave. Removing her hand she turned back around, seeing what seems like a thrown room. Missing a king or queen.
This place was, eerily familiar. From what she imagined from stories. So she should have- she have felt someone alive here but...there’s nothing. At least in this room. Not even in passing. With slight urgency, pushed her body to move fast through the rooms. All the rooms she could find. The only noise was a soft hum of something electrical and her steps. The clacks echo, almost mockingly.
Was no one here? Abandoned? It was rare for the portal to drop her in a place barren of life.
She arrived at the long hall, it intimidated her for a moment, but she saw a figure, hunched over. They were in the shadows, almost barely viable with how bright the hall was, the light bouncing off the walls. She had to blink a few times before she saw him clearly.
On the floor, kneeling, stark still, using a bone to help keep him up. They almost look like a statue. But she saw the slight movement of breath. Nerves scream at her to turn around, summon a portal and get out of here.
Isolation isn’t kind.
She took slow steps forward. Two steps was all it took for them to turn around and look back, a surprise in their eye lights, they shrink as they study her as she approach. He, at least she assumes, wearing tattered cloths, looking barely washed and the dark staining under his eyes, making him look more tired. He gives off the impression he had been waiting in this hall...for a long, long time.
She watched the gears turn in his skull; confusion, fear, anger, wonder, but most of all, relieved. He had a look of unbridled joy. That hurt more than she thought it would, brushing up a memory she didn’t want to recall at this moment.
He coughed. Voice nearly croaks, and he looks slightly embarrassed at the sound. “Y-Your not...something I made up, right?”
She smile, chuckling a little. “I hope not. That would make me question my existence.”
Even a soft chuckle echos in these deafening halls. She took a step closer, watch him flinch and materialize a bone. When she stilled, he looked a bit sheepish, apologetic. He quickly made the bone vanish but she spoke before he could.
“It’s okay.” She watch his shoulder sag a little. He was still on the floor. So she reached out to him with both her hands.
He looked at her hands then up at her. Then back at her hands. He reached slowly and then let his hand fall. Fall into hers. The look he had, made her think she wasn’t real. That his hands would simply slip through her image. On impulse, she gripped his hands and took a step back, pulling him up on his feet and he wobbled forward but she hugged him as he fell into her embrace.
It took him a long moment to realize she was real. Living, breathing, ALIVE. Then he pulled her into a bone crushing hug, leaning more of his weight into her. She kept him steady and hugged him just as close.
“...Your kinda heavy for bones.” She mused.
A laugh erupted from him. “Mweh-heh, I can’t feel my legs.”
And for a brief moment, their laughter echoed in the halls.
