Erin sat up shortly after waking, shaking her head slightly to try and dislodge the feeling of unease she had. She jumped at the sudden sound of a woman’s voice. She thought at first it could have been her mother, but… As she looked around herself she got the feeling that she was suddenly very, very unlikely to ever hear her mother’s voice ever again. 

The.. cabin, she supposed, was a mess. A strange, strange mess. Books and bones and many broken things littered the place, while the building itself looked as if it had been attacked by nature incarnate. The only thing in the room that didn’t look broken or cast aside was a lantern which shone with a soft red light. 

She carefully rose to her feet, attempting not to touch anything that had been on the ground near her. [b]”All this is so strange, these books and symbols… Have I been taken by a witch?”[/b] She couldn’t help but speak her thoughts out loud, but she realized her mistake as she heard the conversation going on just outside. Luckily she had spoken quietly, it didn’t seem like she’d have been heard. [b][i]I have to get out of here.[/i][/b] She thought to herself after listening to the conversation for a moment. She looked around again, this time trying to decide if anything here might be useful to her in her escape. 

Through the holes in the roof she could see that it was nighttime, so she had to take the lantern if she wanted any chance of finding safety. Unfortunately that meant that the people outside might be more likely to see her as she left, their eyes drawn to the movement of the light. She considered taking one of the the weapons or armor, but they were all piled on top of each other so that she doubted she could pick up what she wanted without making a heap of noise, and she didn’t like the strange symbols she could see on them. The witch could have put some nasty curse on it all. Instead she walked carefully across the cluttered floor to the nearest sharp-looking piece of metal lying around. It was small and difficult to hold without cutting herself, but it was better than nothing. 

Next, she made her way over to the table that the lantern was on, but just before she touched it she noticed that it too was strange, but not the same strange as everything else here. She hadn’t looked very closely at it before, why would she have? It was a lamp. Now, however, she realized that it wasn’t a simple flame producing the light, but rather what seemed like a large egg of sorts. Engraved into the iron of the lamp were more symbols, but these were obviously different from those on the armor and weapons. The first thought she had was that these symbols were a better kind of strange, a sort of strange she was willing to deal with as opposed to pretty much everything else around her right now. 

She didn’t hesitate in picking up the lantern and carrying it over to the door. The voices she’d heard had been behind the cabin, so perhaps if she went straight forward they wouldn’t see her leaving. She gripped the small piece of metal tightly as she pushed open the door, hoping for a silent escape.