Philosophy Of Nothing Much

She had been in here for a few hours now and it was quiet. She had no idea why anyone would try t sneak into here. She had been looking around herself and found at most some paper and other such things. It was a very small room actually so there wasn't even much of that. She kind of wished the Preacher had left his book or something. She was not used to just staring at nothing. Sure she had her phone but it got no signal here. She instead was left to pace around the room and wait for tiredness or something to interrupt her.

She half wondered if this was a trick of some kind and someone would come to stab her at some point. Honestly that was more likely than someone going ahead and trusting a stranger. The joke would be on them of course when she disappeared, though she supposed they could lay a trap or something. Just in case she should be ready to bolt at the slightest sign of danger.

Her sense of smell began to slowly fade now. It started slowly at first so she didn't notice. However now the lack of smell was obvious. She felt half blind. She considered leaving through the door right now, but she could see normally just fine. She instead got into the corner and watched the door. She stood there for a while.

Something poked her shoulder, beginning to wonder if that was the customary greeting in these parts she turned towards the culprit. There was just a red mist. She backed away and the mist dissipated somewhat. Inside was some cloaked figure. She felt like a message hit her. It asked what she knew.

She didn't know how to answer that, it was a very vague question. She could say random facts for example. Maybe it was asking if she knew who was in the mist. Maybe it wanted to know why she was in here? Honestly she wasn't sure what it wanted or if telling it anything at all was a good idea. The message came again, this time asking something about the pilgrimage. She did not want to think about that. It was something that made no sense and seemed wasteful. She stood there for a while saying nothing. Her smell returned now.

Let it be known that the room now had a new smell, one that scrambled any coherent thought she could have. It was best described as hundreds of good smells all at once hitting her from all directions. Her smell waned again and the message repeated itself.

"Nothing but i don't li..." and the smell returned again, this time it was stronger and it knocked her to her knees before it disappeared again. The figure stayed where it was however, as far as she could tell it was just watching her. She tried to look at it with as much anger as she could muster but it didn't flinch.

"Do you always come in here," The figure shook its head no and pointed at her.

"Why?" Her mind was suddenly filled with an image of that stone face from last night, and with that the mist vanished as soon as it had appeared. Besides the puddle of blood where it had been there was nothing else left. Her smell was slowly returning, The room had a sweet smell to be sure but it wasn't as overpowering as earlier. She checked her phone now, the sun would be up soon meaning it was time for her to lay down. She was sure the Preacher would understand if she explained it tomorrow, surely.

* * *

She was walking home now. Work had once again gone relatively normally. Her coworkers were saying that she was a bit off but she felt fine. She was thinking a bit about what she would need to do when she woke up elsewhere tonight sure but that didn't affect her thoughts much. A few others swore they saw some bones on her. She promised them that it was nothing really. One ruder customer had said something about the police and their own safety but she was sure that wouldn't come to pass. She was at best a few blocks from home now. No one was out tonight.

That was probably for the best as she felt, almost distantly, someone poking her shoulder. She looked around but saw no one. Then she heard someone familiar say something about waking up. This made no sense, she was awake. She closed her eyes for a moment and shook her head, maybe it was fatigue?

When she opened them again she swore she saw two images. The modern street she had been walking on and the Preacher in that wooden room. He had a concerned look on his face. She jumped a bit and the image jumped as well. She felt herself hit the wooden floor yet she was still standing.

She tried talking to the Preacher, but ended up saying it in the modern world as well, "What?" The Preacher at least seemed to hear her. She was not sure what was going on as every part of her was now giving her a full report twice. She stood still as she laid there.

"It smells foul, what happened," she was pretty sure she knew what he meant. He was referring to the blood puddle that mist had left. She reached into her pocket, in both worlds, and brought her phone to her ear. The Preacher probably just saw her cupping her ear. She had to think about what to tell him and fast. There was no way she could run both there and here.

"Someone came to try and steal and I scared them off, that's whats left," She was very glad no one could hear her besides the Preacher, "Sorry I did not know how to clean that up," The Preacher at first seemed worried, though he seemed to calm down quickly enough. She swore he twitched just a bit though.

"I see... don't worry about it I can fix it," She swore he muttered something under his breath, "You didn't need to sleep in here as well," He didn't seem too bothered by that one.

"Its fine, it was just in case someone else came," She was calmer now, well as calm as one could be in her positions, "If you don't mind I would like to rest here just a bit longer," The Preacher nodded in agreement and left her to her own devices. She tried to focus on the idea of sleep while at the same time standing. She found that was pointless and sat down in the modern world instead.

She half meditated, trying to pretend the sun would not soon rise. She hid her hands and feet in her clothing and tried to bury her head in them as well in case the worse came to be. Luckily however her body managed to fall asleep with ten minutes or so to spare. With that she got up and ran. She barely made it into her apartment before the sun rose. After making sure her outfit was basically the same as it was the night before she laid down on the bag and fell asleep.

She was in the wooden room now, just the wooden room. It felt less like she had fallen asleep in the modern world and more like she had blinked and ended up here. This was good at least. She waited a few more minutes before walking out into the other room. The Preacher was there, prepping for something. She didn't really want to talk to him right now, she had something to check and walked out.

She tried to retrace her steps from yesterday. It was a bit confusing as she had only ever walked through here once and there were people out and about now filling the air with their own scents. She couldn't very well ask directions either. Eventually however she found the field again.

* * *

It wasn't as a long a walk as she thought really. Only about four hours if she walked straight towards it. She was not sure why that mist wanted her to come here though. There was nothing different about this place from the last time she had been here. She approached the face. Honestly it wasn't very well carved out and could be mistaken for just a rock face in the dark.

There was this hole sure but she had no plans to just crawl in. She couldn't lick away broken bones after all. She looked around. It was very smooth to be sure but that was probably deliberately done for ease of use. It smelled sweet however. Not only that the smell was fresh. She was concerned for a moment before something caught her eye.

There was blood here, just a few drops. It was placed in a groove in the side of the hole and would have been hard to spot if one couldn't both smell it and see in the dark. She reached for the groove. As stupid as it seemed to touch random blood she didn't have to fear disease and the worst that could happen is losing some of her own.

Something in the groove jabbed her finger, which she pulled out quickly and stuck in her mouth. The cliff began to stir now. The walls began to move and slowly revealed a staircase. The cliff-side did not look stable yet was being held up by two red arms. She had a pretty good guess what the arms were made of. She walked down the staircase. As soon as she reached the bottom the earth shook and the walls returned to their place. She saw a similar groove in a nearby wall now which she supposed was the opening mechanism. It was stained red.

The whole room was stained red actually, save for some higher parts of the wall and the ceiling itself. Honestly this did not look like a safe place. It did however smell rather nice to her, a thing she had began to equate with 'Probably a murder site or group gathering'. She walked forward anyway. There was no way whoever lived here had not heard that loud noise.

This seemed to be a long hallway, regardless of where in the hallway she was however blood still stained most everything. There wasn't even anything to light the way. Every so often she saw one of those wall grooves though she didn't have any intent of seeing what they opened. The smell got sweeter every so often however. It mostly came from down the hallway. Something seemed to flow past her, kicking up a wind as it did. That thing tapped her shoulder as it appeared in front of her face. Another vampire it looked like, male.

He spoke in the language those villagers were speaking. That was not odd to her. What was odd were his fangs. They were smaller than any she had seen in her lifetime. His were at best 1.5 inches long, half the length of hers. She tried to say hello in the least threatening way possible but as soon as she did he pulled out a bottle.

Preparing for the bottles contents she covered her nose. He did not seem to mind however as he threw the bottles contents, a red mist, at her. It hit her squarely in the face. As much as the average vampire liked or even obsessed over blood getting what smelled like blood splashed over ones face was not exactly a pleasant experience. She looked at him with as much anger as she could muster.

"The master ordered you here," All the anger drained from her face. Now she was just confused. He seemed to be speaking English but his mouth movements were not English in the slightest. Not only that his voice seemed to be filtered, almost robotic really. Also being told the master was waiting never bode well.

"I um.... guess we should address that?" Much like the day before she just followed him. It wasn't exactly a change of pace since it was still following the same hallway. She occasionally wiped some of the mist off herself only to find that she had to wipe in on the wall. Maybe that was why the walls were stained red?

They reached a large room. It seemed to be at a crossroad to many other hallways, she counted twelve but there were probably more. Many chairs, more rocks that had been smoothed, were placed on every wall. Most had people sitting in them, excluding one right here at the exit of the hallway and one across the room

"Take a seat," a voice from the center of the room yelled out and the man who had led her here walked to the other side of the room and sat. She assumed she was supposed to as well and sat down on the remaining chair. She looked towards the voice now. In the middle of the room was a large chair: A large rock carved into the shape of a throne. The person sat down it in was... different to say the least.

They were both small and large at the same time. They were small in stature, standing around four feet if Iris had to guess. However the way they sat took up the entire chair. They, she was not sure what gender this person was yet, were dressed in many layers. She was sure they were expensive and valuable at one point but now they were rather blood stained. This was understandable as a large bowl was placed over them, dripping drops of the stuff slowly down. One of their other hands rested over another such bowl, the hand was bleeding at about the same rate as the bowl dripped.

They rose their free hand and brought a goblet to their mouths, drinking from it before setting it down and pointing at her, "It has been brought to my attention that you appeared in my domain about, oh, 4 nights ago." This person sounded ticked off. They spoke with no accent but they didn't sound robotic either, suggesting that they actually knew English. In fact if one didn't know better they would just assume this was a high pitched child.

Iris tried to reply, "I didn't have a ch-" The child started laughing as soon as she opened her mouth. She didn't know why the laughing started but it confirmed two things. One, this person was a child, at least mentally. Two they were probably female, that was a feminine laugh as much as it was a childish one.

Iris tried to continue after the laughing slowed some, "a choice, I just sort of ended up here." The child looked her dead in the eyes now. She wasn't sure what it would mean to piss off this person but somehow the central position she had suggested bad things.

"You know you look like you haven't eaten in weeks. very hard to take you seriously," She turned to one of the others who were sitting around the room, "Like seriously look at her teeth." Upon mentioning that Iris realized the kid also had smaller teeth.

"Yes they are very large," The other person sounded robotic as well. They also had smaller teeth. Iris was starting to think they all might have smaller teeth. Maybe these people filed their teeth down? Did people do that sort of stuff in older ages? Her head felt heavy for a second.

"No you just eat too little," the child drunk from their goblet again, "seriously though you almost interrupted something two days ago," the child snickered for a moment, "maybe you knew what be coming." Iris had no clue what she was talking about, or how they knew what she was thinking. Her head felt heavy again.

"You know where you bit your tongue really hard... wait maybe with those teeth you just lightly scr.a.p.ed it? Doesn't matter it was funny to hear about," the child took another drink, "Oh and just some mind reading, don't worry everything you say and think will be used against you." Iris thought a very clear 'why thank you' upon hearing that. There was literally nothing she could do but go along with what this person said it seemed.

"Now listen jokes aside if I thought you were just after my property you wouldn't be here right now," Iris was not exactly a fan of that wording, "your here because of yesterday." Iris didn't bother with speaking out loud, she just thought what she wanted to say now.

"What about yesterday," she thought.

"Oh were you convinced a bunch of them to not throw you out or stab you," her voice dropped a bit, "if that happened and you attacked some of them you really not be in a good way right now." There was no reason to really be afraid of that now, Iris hoped she would get out of here alive and fear wouldn't help matters.

"Fear is a valid response sometimes," The child's voice picked back up, "Listen every time we try that it never ends right and yet you on your first try succeed. Now I don't know why or how but listen," the child stopped talking and leaned towards Iris. She wasn't exactly sure why. She sat there for a bit waiting.

"So are you listening," Oh that's what she wanted, it made sense but still.

"I'm listening," Iris spoke that one out loud so the crowd heard as well.

"Good, now listen good... you threw me off my tempo," The child drunk from the goblet and continued, "For a good long while now we've had this operation going where one of them throws themselves down here every so often in return for us keeping them safe and their fields fertile but they never let us near without freaking out. I don't know why." She took a loud drink with that line, Iris assumed as a joke.

She continued, "So listen I need someone to... help me collect. Either you help me or your banished from my domain," The child dropped her voice once more, "Its not my domain for a reason," Back up her voice went, "So what do you say." It felt like a physical weight was lifted from Iris' mind and been replaced with a mental one. She assumed that was a sign saying your thoughts are your own now.

She did not know how to take this request. She had been asked to basically play the Grim Reaper to those whose times had not yet come. She didn't exactly know what she gain from it or if she could even bear the burden of such a task. She didn't exactly want to get banished to outside what she guessed was the safe area either though. Who knows this person might even reward her for assisted murder.

"Can I be given a chance to think about it?" it was a risk to be sure but she gave it a shot. The child sighed and motioned to one of the others in the circle.

"I mean you were punctual... fine, I'll give you a day. Please take her to a room," She snickered," and open the door for her, I doubt there be much left of her if she tried on her own"