New World

Mendaciu slipped the dragon tooth into his pocket and began to walk toward the door. His footsteps thudded across the floor, small clouds of dust following him. His face was obscured by the dark of the room's edge, but there was a strange atmosphere to him now, even more strange than what he had already shown.

"I should get going, still got a long journey ahead of me." He stated while I sat in silence, still enjoying the gift of food.

"Where you headed?" I asked, wondering where he would go in this supposedly empty wasteland.

With his hand rested on the door's handle, Mendaciu answered. "I... still have something to fulfill." He said nothing more on the subject, keeping his intentions very vague. His voice was distant and his tone cold, so obviously hiding something from me.

"By the way, does thou intendest to head for Seraphil?" He asked.

"Seraphil?" I questioned, playing along to the sudden subject change in fear of what he might do if I continued to pry.

"The sanctum of angels, as they now call it. The one looming over us." He said.

"Yeah, I... I need answers." I said.

Mendaciu stared at me, then looked to the dusty floor, the light of the ruin piece barely outlining his face. "Well... I hope thou findest what thou art looking for, especially in that miserable place." He said.

"You've been there?" I pressed him.

"Barely set foot in there. I haven't the strength alone to change that place." He said, the end of his sentence trailing off. "No way I could stay there much longer. Guess I'll just have to do this a little bit at a time." He said as if not talking to me, but to himself.

After his quiet rambling, he finally opened the door, revealing the cold gray just beyond the stone walls. The ambient light of the dark sky seeped in, casting Mendaciu's face in shade. There was a split second when he was turning that I had noticed something that I could not see in just the light of the ruin piece alone. In his sunken face, his left eye sat, pale and whited over, presumably blocking any sight from entering it. On the adjacent ear, a strangely shaped black mass curled around his helix, its shape seemingly attempting to reach down into his eardrum. Mendaciu looked at me with an unhygienic smile, barely visible against the light of the dark sky. With that, he gave his farewells.

"Stay safe on thy travels miss. This wretched view is lovelier with thee in it, so don't go dying on me." He paused, as if trying to hold something back. "Thy memories shall return to thee soon enough." He said, strangely subdued.

Finally, he said his last goodbye. "Farewell... and grace upon the new world."

"Yeah, grace upon the new world." I responded mindlessly, assuming that it was simply a common way to say farewell in this world. His kind speech surprised me, despite the strange mannerisms he had been displaying until now.

With that, Mendaciu crossed the threshold of the door frame, the door following his motion as he left. It was strange, but just before the door shut, I saw a dreadful look on his face. His eyes were downcast and his eyebrows were furrowed. He held a smile, but it was a smile that held sadness behind a veil. It was the face of a man with serious guilt. 

A moment after Mendaciu had left, I began to ponder all the things that he had dumped on me. My mind began to pile with thoughts and that pile only grew even as I sifted through it. Just who is Mendaciu and how did he know all of this? Why did he need the dragon tooth and why did he not just let me throw it away? Mendaciu became more and more of a mystery as I continued to think about him and the way he talked to me. He seemed so reluctant yet so desperate to take the tooth from me, confusing me as to what he was really after, like he wanted to tell me everything yet nothing at all. Never making eye contact with me, as if he was talking to someone behind me. All of it was so off putting. In the end, my suspicions of him stirred enough that I had forgotten to ask him about dark knights and those people I had found eating a dragon. I thought about quickly heading out to catch up to him, but his demeanor was far to weird for me to want anything to do with him again. Though he seemed kind, I could not help but think he was after something I wanted nothing to do with. Now all that was left was to worry about my destination.

The sanctum of angels, Seraphil. So that was where I was headed. The way Mendaciu spoke of it made me anxious for what was to come. There was a tinge of fear and regret when he spoke of his visit there. "The sanctum of angels" was a title that brought peace to me just upon hearing the very words, yet spoken from Mendaciu's lips, I only felt dread. Maybe going there was a mistake. Would I really find a way back to my old world within those towering walls? I had no way of knowing and no way of quelling my doubts. Still, on my journey so far, as I looked out into the ashy dunes, that looming fortress, Seraphil, was the only thing I could lay my eyes on for miles and miles. The desolate gray against the horizon offered me nothing except the colossal shade of the grand  structure.

After finishing my small meal and packing the rest for later, I headed out, the tingling cold of dusty wind greeting my cheeks. Mendaciu was long gone now, nowhere in sight, perhaps obscured by the shifting shapes of the dunes. I walked around the corner of the house to gaze upon my destination. The ominous high wall blocked my view from anything that could be inside, all except for the top of a some sort of castle or palace just barely peeking over the rampart's height. The longer I stared into the dark abyss of its magnificent shadow, I began to question if I would truly meet angels within those walls, or if I would come across something more akin to hell.