Role

Chapter 5

Is that the smell of smoke? Opening his eyes, Lanathalis vision was obscured
by thick black smoke billowing around him. How in the hell did he end up
here, as he swore he had set his house ablaze the night before. Yet looking
around, the familiar signs of his room soon came into focus ablaze in the
light of the fire. Thrashing the covers off himself, he soon found himself
crawling upon the floor gasping for breath and any way out of the house. The
crackling sound of the fire raged in his ears, and the heat kissed his skin
as he felt the hairs start to burn. Reaching up, he was able to find the
lever to the door and barreled out of the inferno into pitch blackness.

As his eyes adjusted, he found that he was now within a cave as he could hear
the rhythmic pitter patter of drops of water falling into a lake. Looking
behind him, there was no sign that a door had ever existed, and all around
him watch pitch black. As he hauled himself up, the pain of his blistered
skin seem to sooth as he walked across the cold damp floor of the cavern.
Looking up towards the roof of the cavern, it was a glow with insects giving
off a soft light making it appear as if the night sky was above him. Such
beauty was soon destroyed as he stumbled upon two corpses which were huddled
together in a state of decomposition. Gagging, Lanathalis reeled back from
such a sight and heaved nothing but bile upon the rocks. Yet he felt
compelled to look back upon his gruesome discovery, as if something was
pulling at his attention. Familiar brown robes garbed these two figures and
they were adorn with each with a necklace of a raven holding the moon. A
crest..the crest of Ca'Valis, his family's crest. He knew, he knew that these
two corpses were that of his parents but how was this so? It had been over a
decade or two when it was said they died. Yet here they were before him in a
state of decomposition. Yet as he reached out to touch them, their corpses
crumbled right before his eyes. Even that of the robes turned to dust and all
was left was that of a leather bound tome which had charred marks upon the
fringe. Reaching out, Lanathalis grabbed ahold of it and clutched it to his
chest.

Cold drops slowly fall down upon his face and Lanathalis is pulled back
awake. Resting against a tree under his tarp, he can see the charred grounds
of where his house once stood. Three days it had been since he set it
ablaze, as there were no embers or smoke from the site. Yet looking down at
his arms, he noticed that his hair was still burnt and clutched within his
graps was a leather tome.