As she stopped delivering her guts onto the grass floor, Ava found herself looking at the cabin in horror. Seeing how the outside was the same, she had concluded that the decorations inside were completely different. Yet it wasn´t. As far as she could see, the cabin was decorated the same way, down to the chipped corner of the wooden table.
"The hell is this place?" she questioned with a shaky voice.
Ava continued to walk back and forth for a while, wondering to herself if she should try and get inside of the cabin or if she should run for the hills. She didn't necessarily want to break into a cabin that looks the same as hers, and she didn't want to meet the owner of the cabin either.
Her stomach kept turning as she paced aimlessly around. Should she be doing housebreaking? Should she leave? If she left, there was no saying how far this forest went. She would run out of food and water in a day without a guarantee that she would run into another town soon.
Shit.
After what felt like hours, Ava found herself standing outside of the front door once again. There must be some records, something, which could either explain the cabin or the numerous runes outside. Sick and tired of being pushed around like dust, Ava decided that it was time to take the matters into her own hands. If someone lived here, she would just have to apologize for breaking in.
She crouched down in front of the door handle to get a better look at the lock, but to her surprise - it was unlocked. The hair on her arms stood up as she fell over and landed on her ass. Someone must live here, she thought to herself. Why else would they leave the door unlocked?
Before she started to overthink, she got back up on her feet and knocked on the door. She cleared her throat as she took a step back.
"I´m -" her voice trailed off. Everyone knew her name. If it was the wrong people, she would get shipped back to the galleon in a heartbeat. "Is there anyone home?"
No answer. Not that she expected there to be one.
She drew in a sharp breath for determination, before opening the unlocked front door. The scent of rotten flesh immediately made its way up her nose, which made her cough. She placed her hand over her nose as she stepped inside to find wherever the decomposing body was.
As she took a step inside, she felt homesick. Her gaze wandered about, over the wooden chairs, the chipped corner of the table, to the color of the table cloth which didn´t match the curtains, down to the bookshelf stacked with books she didn´t recognize. Ava came to a halt as her gaze searched all of the book covers, none of them belong.
She looked around again, someone with this attention to detail wouldn´t use different types of books on the same bookshelf. Ava raised her eyebrows as her brain continued to work overtime, as it had done for the past days. Once again, she continued to question who would put this much detail into creating a replica of her home. Was it a sick joke? Was it once again the universe trying to play a sick joke?
The bookshelf had taken her off the rotten smell, but it soon became apparent again. She continued down the halls to the left of the living room, where the smell was more intense. She walked a few steps but stopped as her gut told her something was off.
As she looked down to her right, she looked at the small table, with the same candle and color, without the picture. A low sigh escaped her, as she knew she would have freaked out if someone had a family photo of her and her parents. She brushed her finger over the small counter, before turning her head back to the living room.
Maybe it is a sick joke and she is putting too much into it? Maybe her father had been a carpenter in his early days and built a replica of the cabin. Thinking about it, she wouldn´t have been surprised. There was a lot she didn´t know about her parents and had been ignoring the fact for long.
She walked down the hall and opened the door at the far end where the smell had taken root. Determined, and still with her hand over her nose, she opened the door. The body, which lay on the bed, close to decomposing didn´t surprise her. The fact that the room was exactly like her parents´ bedroom didn´t bother her either. The thing which shook her to the core was the runes, engraved into the bedroom walls along with bloodstains. Judging by the engravings, they appeared to be engraved by fingernails.
This must be the owner, she quickly realized. It made sense considering the door was unlocked. Ava took a step into the bedroom and ignored the nauseous feeling which grew the longer she stayed in the room. As she got close enough to the body, she recognized the woman.
She looked at the leg, which had been severed with charred skin around what had been a wound. Her shoulder had suffered the same fate as the leg, and the once vibrant yellow boils had now turned gray.
She should have been dead, that's the first thought that struck her.
Ava´s hand clapped over her mouth as she once again felt sick. With quick steps, she turned around and sprinted out of the house. She barely managed to get out to the front porch, before her body tensed up.
How the hell had the woman gotten here? She had died, evaporated almost, burned on the table back at the city hall. There wasn´t a single logical explanation as to why the woman was here, decomposing in a home that resembled her own.
Ava turned to the cabin once again and immediately knew that she had stepped into something she should have kept her nose out of.