“Take a look,” he whispered, indicating a small black book that sat closed in the center of the altar. “I’m guessing that’s what he wants us to see.”
“You might as well open it,” she muttered. “You were going to do it anyway, right? Feel free to read aloud anything you see in there too while I just go hide myself in a corner somewhere.”
Kre’s head tilted slightly, wondering why reading a strange book aloud would make any difference. He ignored the quip, certain that it related to something that only Ylveryans know and asking would only inspire more of her snarkiness.
While she took a sidestep away from the altar, Kre took a couple of slow steps towards it. He ran his fingers along the cover of the book and found it odd that it seemed to have no texture at all, despite the leathery look. He shifted it slightly to the side and looked at the gold gilded lettering along the spine.
“Holy Writ,” he muttered. Though his words were spoken softly, it was still loud enough for Kitalia to hear. She closed her eyes, shook her head, and muttered her own something… but her words were far quieter.
He took a deep breath and popped the cover open.
A momentary pause and then his hand flipped the first few pages. “Strange,” he said aloud.
“I shall hate myself for asking, but what is so strange?” Kitalia asked in return. She had taken a tentative step forward, her curiosity overriding her natural instinct to be far away from anything down here and far away from the stranger.
She glanced up quickly, feeling slightly comforted in the fact that the strange man hadn’t moved from his seat at all. In fact, he seemed to be sitting in a more relaxed position with a huge smile on his face, which brought her back to being slightly on edge.
“This book,” Kre responded, still examining the tome on the altar. “It’s blank.”
Kitalia chewed her lip thoughtfully and stepped up next to Kre. “Blank?”
Kre nodded, “Yeah, every page.” He waved a hand down and shrugged while she riffed through a few of the pages in slight disbelief.
“Why would they be blank?”
“Well,” the stranger said in his oddly cheerful, almost pleasant tone. Kre and Kit nearly jumped out of their skins when they realized he was standing directly behind them. “Obviously this whole thing is just… a figment of my mind.” He gestured all around the room.
“The book,” he said, sounding almost sad all of a sudden, “is something that I know was… is, I should say, very important to me, but I cannot remember anything about it other than how it looked. It’s like… every word that once graced those pages is just as missing from my mind as they are in that book before you.
“It is,” he continued, gesturing at himself, “as if a part of me is missing… incomplete. Like I shall have no rest until I can know those words again.”