Chapter Seven: Mapping the Dead

  I wake as dawn breaks, my body stiff and cold from sleeping on stone. The building I chose last night offered shelter from wind and rain, but no comfort. The floor beneath me is unforgiving, and I can feel where my hip bone pressed against it all night, creating a dull ache that radiates up my side when I shift. My shoulder, still sore from hitting the rocks in the river, adds its own complaint to the chorus of discomfort. Still, it was better than the hollow tree, and I slept deeply despite the hard surface and the weight of yesterday's discoveries.

  The pendant rests against my chest, caught between my skin and the tunic. I touch it through the fabric, feeling the carved surface. The matching symbol in the temple. The connection I do not understand. It kept me awake for hours last night, questions circling endlessly like carrion birds over a kill. Who were you? I think at the pendant. Why do I have you? What am I supposed to do with this? It does not answer, of course it does not.

  I sit up slowly, working out the stiffness. My muscles protest every movement because yesterday's exploration left me sore in places I did not know I could be sore. My tail uncurls from around my waist, stretching out behind me with a will of its own, and even it seems stiff. The ruins look different in the dawn mist, softer somehow, like they are sleeping rather than dead. The forest has draped everything in green, vines and moss creating a second skin over the stone. Nature healing what violence destroyed, or just burying the evidence. I am not sure which is more comforting.

  Through gaps in my shelter's partial roof, I can see the sky lightening from deep purple to soft pink. Birds are starting their morning songs, and I can hear the distant sound of the stream. The forest is waking up around me, indifferent to the tragedy frozen in stone. My stomach growls, loud enough that I almost jump. I am hungry again, but it is manageable, not the desperate, gnawing hunger of yesterday morning. I know I can hunt now. The knowledge settles in my chest, solid and real and still slightly disturbing. But food can wait.

  Yesterday I stumbled through shock and horror, reacting to each discovery like an open wound being touched. The destroyed temple. The matching symbol. The systematic erasure of my people. Every new revelation was a blow. Today I need to be more than just shocked. I need to understand, to see patterns rather than just broken stones, to know what this place was before someone decided it should not exist.

  I make a decision as I stand and brush moss and debris from my breeches. I am going to map this settlement properly, understand its layout, its purpose, its size, and give it the attention it deserves after being forgotten for so long. These people built something here. They lived and loved and raised children and created art. The least I can do is bear witness properly. The thought feels important, like a vow.

  I step outside into the cool morning air. My breath fogs in front of me, and I can feel the temperature difference between the shelter's interior and the forest outside. The stones beneath my feet are slick with dew, and I have to move carefully to avoid slipping. I start by walking the perimeter, not the quick survey of yesterday, but a proper exploration. The settlement is massive, much larger than I realized when I was processing the shock of discovery. Buildings emerge from the forest in every direction. Some are just foundations now, stone outlines barely visible beneath moss and accumulated soil. Others still stand partially intact, walls rising six or seven feet before crumbling into rubble.

  At the outer edges, I find the defensive walls. They are low now, mostly collapsed, but I can see how they were deliberately placed to create a boundary. The stones are fitted together with impressive skill, and even after centuries of weather and root damage, most joints are still tight. I run my fingers along one section, feeling where the stones were shaped to fit together. Post holes mark where wooden palisades once stood atop the stone walls. I crouch beside one, examining it carefully. The hole is maybe six inches across, deep enough that the wood would have been firmly anchored. I imagine the wall complete, stone base with wooden palisades rising another eight or ten feet above it. Defensive, but not aggressively militaristic. More like practical preparation than paranoid fortification.

  Watchtower positions dot the perimeter at even intervals. I count them as I walk, eight in total, equally spaced. The nekojin here thought strategically about defense. They knew they might be attacked. They prepared, and it did not save them. The thought tastes bitter in my mouth.

  Moving inward from the defensive perimeter, I start seeing organization in the layout. Residential clusters grouped in what might have been neighborhoods. Larger communal buildings positioned at intersections between neighborhoods. And at the center, dominating everything, the open square with the temple I found yesterday.

  The square takes my breath away in daylight. I saw it yesterday, but shock colored my perception. Now, in the soft morning light, I can really see it. It is enormous, maybe fifty feet across, paved with flat stones now heaved and broken by tree roots and time but still showing intentional design. The stones are not just rough cut. They are shaped to fit together, creating a level surface that must have taken months to construct. This was crafted with care, maintained, loved.

  A fountain sits at the center, and I approach it slowly. The basin is cracked and dry now, filled with soil and moss and small plants growing in the accumulated debris. But I can see elegant curves beneath the damage. The stone is carved with flowing patterns, water motifs suggesting movement and grace. This was not just functional. It was art. Water once flowed here, probably from the stream nearby through carved channels, cascading over stones that are now softened by moss and time.

  I try to imagine it working. Clear water pouring from carved spouts. The sound of it filling the square. The way light would catch the flowing water, creating dancing reflections on the surrounding buildings. Children splashing in it on hot days while their parents conducted business nearby. The image is so vivid it hurts.

  Around the fountain, stone platforms are arranged in a semi-circle. Five of them, equally spaced. They are low, about waist-high for me, which means perfectly positioned for someone my size to display goods. Metal rings are still embedded in some, probably for tying down canvas awnings that would have provided shade. These are merchant stalls. This was a market square.

  I stand in the center, right beside the dry fountain, and close my eyes. I try to imagine it fully. Market day, maybe once a week or during specific festivals. The square full of nekojin from this settlement and from others nearby. I can almost hear it. Merchants calling out their wares, voices competing for attention. The sound of haggling, good-natured arguments over prices. Children darting between adults, playing games, splashing in the fountain. The smell of food cooking somewhere, vendors selling hot meals, roasted nuts, fresh bread. Laughter and conversation, the bustle and energy of a community coming together, sharing goods and news and gossip. My chest aches with the weight of it.

  This was not just some isolated survival camp scratching out existence in the wilderness. This was a trading hub, a place important enough to draw people from other settlements, a center of nekojin culture and commerce. These people had enough prosperity to build fountains and market squares. They had craftspeople producing goods worth traveling to buy. They had a functioning economy and trade networks. They built something real here, something thriving.

  And someone destroyed it so thoroughly that the world forgot it existed.

  The anger from yesterday returns, hot and sharp like bile in my throat. I push it down. Anger will not help me understand. Anger is just fuel burning with no purpose. But I am angry nonetheless.

  I need to focus. I need something concrete to organize what I am learning. The flat stones around the fountain are perfect. I start collecting smaller stones from the rubble scattered throughout the square, different sizes, different colors. Granite, sandstone, limestone, each one distinct. Each stone will represent a building or feature I discover. I will place them according to the settlement's layout, creating a map in miniature. It is crude and basic, but it will work.

  I find a relatively flat stone about two feet across and position it near the fountain to represent the square itself, then place a darker stone nearby for the temple. The beginning of my map.

  The residential district comes first. I move through clusters of small buildings, examining each one carefully, adding stones to my growing map. Dozens of structures. I count them as I go, at least fifty in this section alone. They are organized into what look like neighborhoods, with open spaces between clusters that might have been gardens or common areas. Some homes are larger than others. A few have additional rooms or more elaborate stonework, suggesting wealth or maybe just larger families. Others are small, single-room structures.

  I choose one house in the middle of a cluster to explore thoroughly. I need to understand not just what was here, but how people lived, what their daily existence was like. These were not abstractions. They were people with routines and preferences and relationships.

  The walls still stand at my head height. Two rooms, maybe three originally, though the interior walls have mostly collapsed into rubble. The doorway faces south, deliberate positioning to catch the sun and warmth. A window opening on the eastern wall would have let in morning light. I step inside carefully, testing each footstep. The floor is covered in debris and moss, treacherous with hidden gaps. But in the main room, I can make out the features. A raised stone platform against one wall serves as a hearth. The stones above it are blackened, but not from destruction. This is the gradual accumulation of cooking fires, life fires, years of meals prepared here, warmth shared here.

  I crouch by the hearth and close my eyes, trying to imagine it. A family gathering here in the evening. Two parents and three children, modest means but comfortable. The father comes home from one of the workshops, hands stained with dye or clay or whatever his trade was. Maybe he is tired but satisfied with the day's work. The mother is cooking over the fire, something fragrant bubbling in a clay pot, stew probably, with vegetables and meat and herbs from the forest. The children are nearby, the oldest helping prepare food, learning skills they will need, the younger ones playing with carved toys or maybe practicing letters if the nekojin had writing. The hearth would have been warm, casting dancing shadows on the walls, creating a pool of light and heat in the darkness. In winter, they would huddle close to it, wrapped in furs or woven blankets. In summer, maybe they would eat outside, using the hearth only for cooking, letting the breeze cool the house.

  I open my eyes and find them stinging.

  There is a niche carved into the wall near the hearth. I examine it closely and see faint scorch marks inside, different from the cooking fire. A lamp would have sat here, providing additional light when the fire was not enough. Clay or stone, filled with oil, a wick floating on top, simple but effective. I can see where soot accumulated on the ceiling above the niche, years of lamp smoke leaving its mark.

  I move to the other room, smaller and with no hearth. The floor is different here, smoother, worn in specific patterns. Beds or sleeping mats once rested here. I can see depressions where weight regularly pressed the same spots. A family sleeping together, safe in their home. Parents in one area, children in another, or maybe all together for warmth during cold nights.

  Then I find something that makes me stop breathing.

  A wooden peg, still embedded in the wall, somehow preserved by being tucked into a crevice where rain did not reach and rot could not take hold. It is small, maybe four inches long, carved from some dense hardwood. The surface is smooth, not from original craftsmanship, but from use. Years of hands touching it, hanging things on it, removing things from it. The wood is dark with age and oil from those hands.

  Someone carved this peg, shaped it carefully, fitted it into a hole drilled into the stone, and used it every single day. Clothes hung here, or tools, or bags. Such a small thing, such an ordinary, mundane object. And it survived when everything else was destroyed.

  I touch it gently, reverently. Then I have to step outside because my throat is too tight and my eyes are burning and I cannot breathe properly in the enclosed space.

  The morning air helps. I breathe deeply, forcing calm, but my hands are shaking.

  I explore more homes, and each one is a punch to the gut. Each one reveals small details that make the people who lived here real. In one house, I find toys, a collection of carved wooden animals scattered in what must have been a child's room. A lion, recognizable despite weathering. A rabbit with long ears. A bird with outstretched wings. Something that might be a fish. They are small enough to fit in my palm, made with care and skill. The wood is gray with age, but I can still see the detail work, carved feathers on the bird, the curve of the rabbit's haunches, the lion's mane rendered in careful lines.

  Someone made these, sat by firelight after a long day of work, carving toys for their child, taking pride in the craftsmanship even though they were just playthings, making something beautiful because they loved their child and wanted to see them happy.

  I line them up on a flat stone, creating a little parade. Did the child grab these when fleeing? Or did they have to leave them behind, running for their life with nothing but what they wore? Did they survive long enough to regret leaving their toys? Did they grow up somewhere else, remembering these animals, missing them? The questions hurt, but I cannot stop asking them.

  Another house yields a different kind of heartbreak. In the main room, carved into the wall itself, are marks at different heights. Growth marks. A family tracking their children's height over the years, the evidence of a childhood preserved in stone. The lowest mark is maybe two feet from the floor, with a small symbol carved beside it I cannot read. Maybe a date, or the child's name, or just a marker. The marks progress upward in uneven intervals, some years showing more growth than others. The highest mark is nearly four feet, almost adult height for a nekojin.

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  I trace them with my fingers, feeling the grooves cut into the stone. A child growing up in this house, standing against the wall each year, probably on their birthday or during some annual festival. The parent making the mark with pride. Look how much you have grown! Soon you will be taller than your mother! The child probably stood on tiptoes, trying to make themselves as tall as possible, excited about getting bigger, stronger, more capable.

  Did they survive? Did they reach full adult height somewhere else? Are they alive right now, an old nekojin remembering this house, these marks, this childhood? Or did they die here, never reaching the height their parents hoped they would?

  I will never know. I have to leave this house too, step outside and breathe. These are not just ruins. These are graves, memorials to lives interrupted, hopes shattered, futures stolen.

  I return to the square and add stones for each house I have explored. Each stone represents a family I will never know, people whose names are lost, whose faces were literally scratched away, whose stories ended violently. My map grows.

  On the north side of the square, I notice a wall I somehow missed yesterday. It is standing taller than most, maybe ten feet at its highest point, and it is positioned prominently, facing the square where everyone would have seen it. The stone surface is different from the surrounding structures. Smoother. More deliberately finished.

  I approach slowly, something making my heartbeat quicken.

  The wall is covered in carvings. Names. Hundreds of them, maybe thousands, carved in neat rows that cover every available surface. The nekojin script is familiar now from yesterday's discoveries, though I still cannot read it. But these are not random. These are organized, deliberate, carefully spaced.

  This is a memorial wall.

  My hand goes to the stone, fingers tracing the carved symbols. The letters are small but deep, meant to last. Meant to be permanent. Each name takes up maybe four inches of space, arranged in neat columns that march across the stone from left to right, top to bottom.

  Generations of nekojin, their names preserved in stone. Ancestors remembered by their descendants. Or maybe the opposite, children who died young, commemorated by grieving parents. I cannot read the script, cannot know if these are birth names or death names or family names or something else entirely. But I know what this wall represents.

  Memory. Connection. The need to remember those who came before.

  And then I see where the names stop.

  Near the bottom right corner, the carved names simply end. Not at a natural break or the edge of the stone, but mid-column. Several rows of blank space remain below, ready for names that were never carved. Ready for generations that never came.

  The wall was full of names, each generation adding their dead to the stone. And then one day, the additions stopped. No more names. No more dead to commemorate because there was no one left to do the commemorating.

  The attack. The destruction. The end of this community.

  I can see it now, the story told in stone. A thriving settlement with hundreds of years of history, carefully recording their dead, maintaining this memorial across generations. And then violence came, and the names stopped, and the blank space at the bottom of the wall became the most eloquent testimony of all.

  I stand before the wall for a long time, my hand pressed against the stone, trying to read names I cannot understand. Each one was a person. Each one was loved and mourned and carved into this wall so they would not be forgotten. And now they are forgotten anyway, their names meaningless symbols to anyone who might find this place.

  Except me. I am here. I see them.

  I cannot read your names, I think at the wall. I do not know who you were or how you lived or how you died. But I know you existed. I know someone loved you enough to carve your name in stone. And I will not forget that you were here.

  The promise feels inadequate. What good are promises to the dead? But it is all I have to offer.

  By midday, my stomach is demanding attention again with increasingly loud growls. I move to the forest edge, following patterns I am learning, where rabbits tend to feed, where squirrels travel between trees, where birds scratch in the undergrowth.

  I spot a rabbit relatively quickly. The stalk is patient now. I have learned to move with the forest's rhythms, to freeze when the wind shifts, to time my movements with other sounds that mask my approach. The kill is still hard, that moment when life becomes meat never gets easier, but it is faster now, more efficient. My body knows what to do.

  The preparation has become routine. My claws work with practiced precision. The eating is fuel, nothing more. My body purrs with satisfaction while my mind stays carefully distant. I wash in the stream after, scrubbing away blood and viscera. The water is cold enough to make my fingers ache. I avoid looking at my reflection because I do not want to see what I am becoming.

  The afternoon passes in continued exploration. More residential areas expanding outward from the market square. More workshops. I find at least a dozen different crafts represented. Each building gets a stone in my map. Each stone represents lives and loss.

  I find a building that might have been the temple's administrative center, a place where religious leaders lived and worked. The interior has stone shelves built into the walls, presumably for scrolls or books or whatever they used to preserve information. All empty now. Knowledge lost. History erased.

  I find what must have been a school. Low benches arranged in rows, facing a larger platform at one end. A teaching space. Children would have sat here, learning whatever was important to nekojin culture. History, probably. Crafts. Maybe the script I cannot read. Whatever knowledge their elders wanted to pass down.

  The walls have faded markings that might have been teaching aids. Diagrams too weathered to interpret. Lists of something, the symbols arranged in columns. An alphabet, maybe, or numbers, or categories of plants or animals or stars.

  I try to imagine it full of students. Young nekojin fidgeting on the benches, some eager to learn, others counting the minutes until they could go play. A teacher at the front, patient or stern or enthusiastic, passing down knowledge accumulated over generations. The sound of young voices reciting lessons, asking questions, laughing at jokes that have been lost to time.

  All of it gone. The students, the teachers, the knowledge they shared. Erased as thoroughly as the faces on the carvings.

  Near the edge of the settlement, I find something different. An open area, partially cleared of buildings, with features that do not match the rest of the ruins.

  A training ground.

  The evidence is unmistakable once I know what to look for. Wooden posts set in the ground at regular intervals, rotted now but the holes still visible. Practice targets, probably. Low walls arranged in patterns that would require climbing and jumping to navigate. Raised platforms at different heights, connected by what might have been rope bridges or balance beams.

  An obstacle course. A place to practice the physical skills that nekojin bodies are built for.

  The community preparing to defend itself. Building skills together. Getting stronger together.

  I spend the next hour putting myself through the training course. It is harder than it looks because my body is still adapting to being nekojin, still learning what these muscles can do. I fail more than I succeed. I fall and have to start climbs over. I miss jumps between obstacles. By the end, I am exhausted, scraped up, and covered in dirt.

  But I am also better. I can feel it. My movements are more confident. My balance is improving. My strength is building.

  The nekojin who lived here knew something I am just learning: this body is capable of things human bodies are not. But those capabilities require training, practice, development. They do not just appear automatically.

  I will come back here. Use these training grounds. Build the skills these people spent generations developing. Not just for survival, but to honor what they built. To make sure their knowledge does not die completely.

  By late afternoon, my map is substantial. Dozens of stones carefully placed according to what I have learned about the settlement's layout. I stand back and look at it in the golden light.

  Based on everything I have seen, the number of homes, the size of communal spaces, the capacity of storage buildings, I estimate at least two hundred people lived here. Probably closer to three hundred if I account for temporary residents during market days or seasonal workers. A real town. A functioning community with all the complexity that implies. Families who loved and argued. Workers who took pride in their craft. Traders who built relationships over years. Children who grew up secure in community. Elders who passed down wisdom and skills. All the messy, beautiful, complicated reality of life lived together.

  All ended in a single attack, or maybe multiple attacks. The destruction is so thorough it is hard to tell. But the result is the same. Hundreds of lives ended or scattered. A community destroyed so completely that the world forgot it existed.

  The sun is lowering toward the horizon now, painting everything in shades of gold and orange. The light is beautiful in a way that feels wrong. How can the world be this beautiful when I am surrounded by evidence of such terrible violence?

  I am drawn back to the temple for reasons I cannot articulate. Maybe because it is the heart of what this place was. Or maybe because the symbol there matches my pendant, and I am still searching for understanding.

  The afternoon light angles through the broken roof perfectly, illuminating the altar like a spotlight on a stage. The crescent moon and star symbol seems to glow in the warm light, the deep carving creating shadows that make it three-dimensional.

  I pull out my pendant again and hold it up to compare. The match is perfect, not just similar, but identical in every detail. The curve of the moon. The position of the star. The proportions and style. This is not coincidence. It cannot be.

  I examine the altar more closely, running my fingers over the carved surface. Around the main symbol are fainter carvings, text definitely. Symbols arranged in lines, carefully spaced. The style is elegant, flowing, each symbol connected to the next in a way that suggests cursive writing. Some symbols repeat, maybe common words or grammatical markers.

  I try to read them, but it is hopeless. Even if I could identify individual symbols, I do not know what they mean. I do not know if this is a prayer or a dedication or the name of whatever deity the nekojin worshipped here. I do not know if it is ancient history or practical instructions or poetry. All of it lost. A language extinct or at least unknown to me. Knowledge that died with the people who spoke it.

  The frustration is physical. I want to scream at the altar, demand it give up its secrets. But stone does not speak. The dead do not explain themselves.

  I notice details I missed yesterday. In one mural, partially destroyed, a figure is dancing, arms raised, body twisted mid-movement, tail extended for balance. Joyful worship. Celebration through movement. In another, children are present, smaller figures among the adults. Teaching the next generation. Passing down faith and tradition.

  All of it erased or damaged, but not completely destroyed. Enough survives that I can see what was here, understand what mattered to these people.

  I am about to leave when I notice something low on the wall near the altar. A carved recess, maybe knee-high, cut deep into the stone at an angle. I would not have noticed it except that I am crouching to examine the lower altar carvings and it is right at my eye level.

  I peer into it curiously. The interior has geometric patterns carved into the walls, interlocking shapes creating a complex design. Decorative, probably. Or maybe it had some ceremonial purpose. Maybe sacred objects were placed here during rituals. The recess is deep, maybe two feet. The angle makes it hard to see all the way to the back.

  Outside the temple, the sun is touching the horizon. The light is fading fast now, the golden hour giving way to twilight. My shadow stretches long across the stones as I walk back toward the square.

  My map is waiting for me, and I spend the last of the good light adding final touches, a few more stones for buildings I explored this afternoon, adjusting positions to make the layout more accurate.

  When I am finished, I stand back and look at it in the fading light. It is impressive in its own way. Dozens of stones carefully placed, representing the layout of an entire settlement. A memorial in miniature. Each stone is a building. Each building represents lives, families who lived there, workers who contributed there, children who played there. The map is a way of remembering a place the world forgot. Of saying this existed, this mattered, these people were real.

  I sit beside it as the light fades completely, thinking about the day. The homes I explored. The workshops and storage buildings. The administrative center. The school. The memorial wall with its generations of names, all cut off at once. The training grounds where nekojin prepared for threats that came anyway. All the small, ordinary details that prove people lived here. That they were not just abstractions or statistics. They were real, with hopes and fears and daily routines.

  And someone destroyed them. Someone decided these people and their community should not exist. Burned their homes. Killed or scattered them. Defaced their art. Tried to erase all evidence they were ever here.

  But they failed. Because I found this place. I am here, witnessing. Seeing what someone tried to hide. Creating a record when all other records were destroyed.

  The anger returns, but it is colder now, more focused. These people deserved better. They deserved to live in peace, to raise their children, to practice their crafts, to worship their gods, to simply exist without someone deciding that existence was unacceptable.

  I cannot bring them back. I cannot undo what was done. I cannot even tell anyone about this because who would believe me? A fugitive nekojin with no papers, no standing, no credibility. My testimony means nothing in human courts.

  But I can remember. I can bear witness. I can refuse to let this place disappear completely. The thought feels like a vow, a promise to the dead. To all the families whose names are carved on that wall.

  I will not forget. I will not let them be erased.

  Darkness is falling fast now. The forest transforms around me, day sounds fading, night sounds beginning. My enhanced vision activates, turning everything silver and gray. The ruins take on a different quality at night, more mysterious, almost alive in a way they are not during the day.

  I should find my shelter. Get some rest. Tomorrow I will continue exploring, maybe follow the settlement's edges more, see if there are other features I have missed.

  But as I turn to leave the square, something catches my eye. A faint glow, barely visible, soft and greenish-blue, coming from one of the stone platforms at the edge of the square.

  I stop and stare. The glow is subtle, and I almost did not see it. Like certain fungi I have seen, or the way some sea creatures are supposed to glow in deep water. But this is not random. The light is following a pattern.

  My heart starts beating faster. I approach the platform carefully, my enhanced vision making every detail clear despite the darkness. In the side of the platform, at knee height, there is a carved recess I did not notice during the day. And inside it, glowing with that soft bio-luminescent light, is a symbol or marker.

  I crouch down for a better look. The carving is deep, maybe eight inches, angled upward into the stone. The glowing material, paint or some kind of cultivated growth, follows the carved lines precisely, creating a pattern I do not recognize but that clearly means something.

  Deliberate. Intentional. Created by the nekojin who lived here. But why only visible at night?

  My mind races with implications. I search the square with new urgency, examining every surface at the right height. And there, another recess with the same faint glow. And there, a third one. All positioned low. All at my eye level when I crouch or kneel. A human would have to get on their hands and knees to see these properly. And even then, the glow is so subtle they might miss it entirely unless they were specifically looking.

  This was meant to be seen only by nekojin. Only at night. Only by people with enhanced night vision who knew what to look for.

  The nekojin built hidden layers into their settlement. Invisible by day. Invisible to taller people. Requiring specific abilities to detect.

  What else did they hide?

  I stand in the square, surrounded by my stone memorial and these faint glowing marks, and realize I have only begun to understand this place. The nekojin who lived here had secrets. Built contingencies. Prepared for threats in ways that used their unique advantages.

  And tomorrow, I am going to find out what those secrets were.

  But tonight, as exhaustion finally catches up with me, I make my way back to my shelter. The building feels familiar now, almost comfortable in its consistency. The stone floor that seemed so hard last night is just my bed now. The cold that seemed unbearable is just the temperature I sleep in.

  I curl up with my tail wrapped for warmth, the pendant resting against my chest. My shoulder gives a final throb as I settle in, reminding me of everything I have been through to get here.

  My last thoughts before sleep pulls me under are of those glowing marks, hidden for centuries, surviving the destruction and the forgetting and the long years of abandonment, waiting for someone who could see them. Waiting for someone like me.

  What were they for? Where do they lead? What other secrets are hidden in these ruins?

  Tomorrow I will find out. But tonight, I close my eyes and let exhaustion win. I have earned rest. I have created a memorial for a forgotten people. I have borne witness to their lives and their loss. I have learned that there are hidden layers to this place, secrets waiting to be discovered.

  For now, that is enough.