A Crossroads of Connections

I've never met a man or woman I didn't like. That's why I travel alone.

Of course, now, I'm not sure that was the best idea.

Five days since I left the caravan, and I'm in trouble. No sign of help for miles.

I'm on a rocky hillside above the sea, looking at the remains of what looks like an old stone hut, maybe a shepherd's shelter from long ago... or maybe something else.

I'd been tracking some sort of animal. Their prints were fresh. Didn't know if it was an injured wolf or something bigger...

They led up to this ruin, and they went inside the only thing that looked like a building--a thick-walled stone hut. Still, I wasn't worried -- there were splinters of wood scattered around on the ground outside the door, as if someone had tried to break in...

That's when I noticed how eerily quiet everything was--no birdsong, no rustling in the bushes nearby... Nothing. Just silence... The kind of silence you get during a lightning storm when all the animals have gone silent and hidden themselves away in fear...

I began to feel... uncomfortable... It was late afternoon, but it felt like dusk. And then it got worse.

A figure walked out of the hut and stood just outside its doorway... Tall. Greyish white skin with long light red hair cascading down its back to its knees. Its eyes glowed red like coals in a fire and they fixed on me as it stepped forward into full sunlight.

There was something wrong with this creature's head--it seemed shaped wrong somehow... too narrow at the top, with a strange ridge running down its forehead to its nose--like some kind of ancient Egyptian Pharaoh statue you see in museums sometimes...

But it wasn't just its head that caught my attention -- it was its body as well: graceful movements, fluidity of motion like nothing I'd ever seen before... The way it moved reminded me of some sort of dance or ritual from ancient civilisations from long ago... A dancer from ancient Greece perhaps? Or Egypt? It was hard to tell because it was so far away from me and dressed only in flowing robes with no sign of weapons or implements that might have indicated hostile intent... But still -- I didn't want to take any chances -- so I did what anyone would do: I ran!