"Wake up."
His mother's voice spoke.
Disheveled, unkempt, and aged. Henry stood up a makeshift cast around his arm, holding it in place. It still hurt, but he had slowly begun to feel it healing. He kicked out the fire, and found the best coals, wrapping them in an animal hide.
He picked up the waterskin, and with a sharp knife carved a mark into it, along the waterskin's body were now eighty one markings. Each a restless night, he had been trapped within the ancient city.
Running his fingers through the dirty mop on his head, he mumbled out,
"Maybe today's the day."
Grabbing his knife, Henry slid into a side room. The long thick locks of hair he had accumulated were good for keeping warm but in recent times had begun covering his face too much for comfort, besides he wanted to look neat, at least… as neat as he could.
Blindly he cut the volume out of his hair, slowly shedding a good amount of weight from his head, and leaving a trail of black, greasy hair on the floor. When he felt successful, he set the knife down and felt his hair. Due to his inability to perceive his face, he had to guess, and that never made for a good haircut.
"Not bad."
He mumbled before grabbing his knife and returning to his belongings.
The past month was strenuous, and had taken an extreme amount of mental fortitude to survive.
But regardless… Henry survived, the urge to do so alien to him, yet Henry knew he had to survive. It wasn't like he wanted to die either, though giving up was always tempting.
Packing his belongings into the now worn backpack, He sat out leaving the ruins, and exiting back to the streets of Rakh'el as he did so, he carved a symbol into the floor beneath the ruins entrance.
It had taken nearly a week to prove, but this place didn't remove markings, or change, fully at least. It just moved, messed with your mind, altered paths, and other such ways. He had now thrice found old base camps using markings, though the interiors were morphed and moved around, it was still a good first step to knowing his way around the city.
*****
Wandering the streets had become almost a mind numbing task, everything looked the same, and when it didn't, it was most likely just another section of the city.
Nothing within Rakh'el had changed with its queen's passing, the streets continue to lay barren, the sun didn't shine, and no birds sang. It was truly desolate, and now it had no queen. There was no future for this city, only a past.
Following, a line of phantasmal energy, he ducked away into a small enclosed space where a medium-sized number of vines was growing.
'Dinner.'
Hesitantly, he cut the vines down, stuffing them inside his bag for future cooking, then consumption.
Slowly, Henry turned back to the entrance, having to contort his body much more to exit than it took for him to enter. As he stumbled out of the nook, something caught his eye… 'Smoke?'
What must have been a mile away, smoke was ascending from some ruins. He almost let it off, thinking that it must be the excess from his campsite, and it had just moved closer this time… but Henry had never seen something like this before.
A quote rang in his head. One that Joshin enjoyed teasing him with a lot.
"Curiosity killed the cat."
That wasn't what Joshin found funny about the quote, it was the quote's long forgotten second part.
"But satisfaction brought it back."
Henry kicked the floor.
"Goddammit, why am I like this."
Henry made a dash for the smoke, never taking his eyes off it. If he was lucky, he could catch it before it dissipated. He would have to be fast, and get there before the city moved.
Smoothly weaving between different ruins, he found himself edging closer, and closer to the smoke. Thoughts racing through his head.
'What if it's a person? What if it's a monster… What if it helps me escape?'
These thoughts terrified, and intrigued him. Either way, he would find out, and get the satisfaction he so deserved.
***
Finally, he was on the road next to the smoke, visible able to see the ruins they were coming from, he could tell by the architecture that it wasn't the same as his old camp.
'Am I hallucinating?'
With haste, he ran for the ruins, holding on to them as if they could leave him at any moment.
Slowly he peeked inside. And with awe he found a camp.
"Hello?"
No one responded besides his echo. Peeking in the camp, he saw clothes, a freshly stomped out fire, and vines neatly stacked in a corner.
'Holy shit, someone was here.'
Henry walked inside the ruins, continuing his investigation. Within he found an elaborately renovated ruin. Someone has lived here for a long time, and from the still active embers in the fire, only left recently.
The first room closest to the entrances was wide and comfortable. In the back left corner was a fire pit, the bottom dug out so that heat would funnel to under a small bed made of old animal skins, and dried out skin from the edible vines as a base. Henry had never even thought of the idea, using the vines for anything besides sustenance.
He was almost jealous it felt like a home, averting from the bedding he found clothes hanging from a thin rope made of dried, and twisted vine which fashioned into a strong dense rope. The clothes were however trivial compared to his, they were made of sewn together clothe scraps, gathered from the ruins.
Henry had never stopped to realize that without his luck finding the castle, he would be in a much worse place resource wise.
Crouching down, Henry studied the wet marks in the floor, the dense moisture splitting in some areas which Henry presumed were footsteps. Following them led to the next room in the large camp, the entrance not specially made like the others throughout the ruin, but hand carved and broken down. Henry had never stayed in one place long enough to consider connecting ruins like this. He looked into the room, and stepped in.