Solomonari:Fables/Tales/Welcome Home
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//: [Welcome Home]
[Dice] | [2/6/2026]
Hidden deep within the Aokigahara Forest lies a single wooden cathedral. The ancient trees surrounding it have seen many come and go. Those who wished for an ending to their previous lives find solace in what lies beneath the church and the curious… often suffer a different fate. This tale is no different, for it is simply just ‘another day’ for the undisturbed, and a great loss for those who cherished the lost.
“An apple? This seems rather cryptic, doesn’t it?” The apple was examined by a slim man with dull-brownish yellow skin. He squinted, rotating the apple slightly to see it shimmer beneath the rays of sunlight gently piercing through the forest.
“Like I said, it’s a sign of trust, take a bite of it and I shall appear to aid you.” Behind the apple was a woman draped in fair crimson robes. Her face hidden beneath the shadow of her hood, but her black doberman ears made no effort to hide the rest of her features. She sat up, dusting her hips, offering her hand afterward. “Anyway, I believe our interview is over. Shall I give you another lesson, dearest Researcher?”
The man looked at her, smiling as he took a moment to gaze at her features: soft but tired hazel eyes, subtle dark circles beneath them and a slightly crooked smile with a scar running down the corner of her lips. He grunted, then took her hand, stashing the apple into the inner pockets of his white lab coat. “Already? I feel as if it’s only been a day since the last one.”
The two exchanged a look, one of trust and the other of restrained optimism. They soon left the little clearing where they were previously chatting and arrived at the small wooden church. “Protect the Ego from those who seek to corrupt it.” The robed woman recited with a hollow voice, as if she had been repeating this over hundreds of times. The ground rumbled as the double doors slowly swung towards them, allowing entrance with a low growl.
She quickly ushered the Researcher inside, stepping a step ahead of him as they switched interiors from a wooden, rustic church to a tunnel of flesh, blood and bone. The smell of lavender creeping in as they wandered deeper into the strange underground structure.
“I don’t want to cause offense or anything but…I would think a structure of flesh and blood would smell more… metallic and nauseating.” His steps quickly matched hers as he caught up with her.
“It was once, we installed an organ capable of providing different olfactory sensations to give those within the Kiraak a comfortable experience while they remain here.”
The two then arrived at a large, round, well-lit chamber. It was filled with all manner of people wearing robes similar to the woman the researcher had been talking to. Each one had a small variation in their clothing, a symbol of some unknown sect here, an extra sleeve for the third crab arm there, one even had cat ears and goggles hanging lopsided on the top of their head. But that was not what drew his attention. They were only appetizers compared to what sat in the center of the room.
“Welcome to the Seeding Chamber.” She strides over towards the center of the room, a massive circular platform of flesh hovering beneath an even bigger item — a globe of the world made of bones, red sinews tying the joints together while stretched, unidentifiable organs were organized into an accurate recreation of a world map, with pulsing red tumors decorating the land. “This is one of our stations to catalog locations of Kiraaks.” She points to one of the tumors sitting in North America, precisely in New York but this one was giving off a bright yellow pulse. “Rotting Kiraaks are marked in yellow - “ Her finger flew over to another tumor, which was giving off a slower pulse in milky white. “These are cleansed Kiraaks or Kiraaks that are currently in the process of being cleansed.”
The man scratched the top of his head, his brown pompadour bouncing as he scratched. “How do you even tell the difference?” He took out a comb and brushed the area he scratched, maintaining his well-kept appearance. “There is no change in design besides colors and the size — which I assume is judging the level of development of those… Kiraaks? - doesn’t differentiate enough.”
“We can manipulate the flesh and cast magic… you didn’t assume we would also have our own way of identification?” She chuckled. “I can’t explain it to you in any other way but…she tells us.”
“Theia, right?”
“Precisely.”
The man nodded, taking out a notepad and pen from his coat. “And you imply that you have more of these?” He repeatedly glanced at the flesh-globe and back to his notepad, jotting down things in writing that could be almost read as manic.
“We do, but not of this scale. They are more detailed and fine-tuned for different scenarios.” She turned away from him and began walking down another tunnel. The researcher soon followed, jogging to her side and giving the bone-construct one last glance to be in awe of it.
His heart raced, his mind filled with theory and questions as they walked down this new passage. He’d glance down other passages and entrances as he passed them by, witnessing a food court in one of them. Others were ceremonial rooms, but there was one room that drew his attention. He noticed an ominous red glow coming from it and, with a quick glance to his surroundings, he confirmed his isolation, barely making a mental note that his tour-guide had disappeared.
The room the researcher entered was quiet at first, his senses were heightened, eyes snapped to the side as he heard something bubbling. There in front of him was a row of pods with…bodies, some resembled a human but others…looked like larvae? He took a tentative step closer towards one of the pods. The figure within was transitioning slowly from the larval stages on his right, to the humanoid stage to his left. This would be a perfect time to take notes, he thought as he reached into his coat for his notepad.
“I don’t recall allowing you to stray away from me.”
He heard a familiar voice, the silky and guiding voice replaced by a jagged, deeper one that wrapped his body in fear, cold and unnerving. “I’m sorry,” He didn’t even turn to look at her before giving away his apologies.
“I can understand your enthusiasm to learn but all in due time, and with the proper induction into our numbers.” In a moment her voice returned to that soft-spoken and gentle tone, much warmer than the previous one she had. “However, with this action, I’m afraid this lesson is over. Let's return to the surface.” She stepped to the side, gesturing with her arm for him to leave first.
“I—” Sighing, he left the room, glancing back once more to see the pods. That last look lit a flame within him as he witnessed the final stage awakening from its stasis in this fleeting moment.
The walk back was a blur to him, most of it was spent writing down notes on his notepad, failing to realize that he made it to his tent, only for his survey team to bring him back to reality with a shake to the shoulder.
“Sorry — wait, when did I get here?” the researcher swerved his head, processing his environment. Acknowledging the survey team that would come to secure the tent's perimeter.
“You looked like you got hypnotized, sir!” They chuckled, their voice came out of the walkie-talkie that rested on his breast, sounding like a transatlantic radio host.
“I assume you got good intel?” Another member of the team came up from behind him, a beast of a woman who slung a rifle over her shoulder. “ ‘cause we did.” She fished for something in her pocket and tossed a USB towards the researcher, who clumsily caught it - dropped it, then caught it again.
The three of them exchanged pleasantries soon after that exchange and returned to their posts. The researcher had entered his tent, an organized, sterile tent with nothing more than small stacks of paperwork and a laptop sitting atop of a foldable table. He sighed, replaying the dialogue during the interview and the events that took place during the lesson, in his mind. It filled him with joy that he could essentially call shotgun on all the earliest research opportunities this church had given him, but there was a faint hint of dread sitting in the back of his mind. Flashes of the pods came to mind when he felt that emotion, but curiosity did well to dull the invasive thoughts that would come.
He dropped onto a blue swivel chair and rolled towards his computer, inserting the USB shortly after entering his login information. With a few clicks, he arrived at the files stored within the device. It was a collection of videotapes which he found odd, knowing that electronic devices couldn’t work inside Theia. But regardless of that supposed fact, he clicked on the video.
“So you know this’ll work here?” There was a slight humming in the background that disappeared the longer the recording went. It was shaky, but he could understand what was happening.
“It works, just trust me, und zis one.” There was a slim, balding man who wore a coat similar to his, but there was a badge on him that showed off his sect allegiances. He had a massive cleaver held in one hand, and he stretched his free arm out in front of him.
“What the??” the researcher muttered as he leaned closer to the screen.
In one fell swoop, the old man cleanly chopped off his arm. “GRRRAHHHHH!!!” He screamed. A few members of the survey team entered the camera’s view, but the injured man dropped the cleaver and raised his other hand. “No, don’t ruin zis for me! Just give me a moment…!” The others just stood there, stunned before retreating behind the camera again. For a few minutes, the video continued just like that, an old man groaning and struggling to maintain his grip on his life until, suddenly, a squelch and a quick burst of blood poured out of his mouth. His arm grew back whole, slowly starting with the bones, then the muscles, the nerves and finally the skin. He stood there switching his attention from his perfectly healed arm to the camera with the joy only a new mother could match.
“Holy shit…” Whoever held the camera suddenly rushed over to the strange old man, zooming in and focusing on where he had been cut only to find out there was no evidence of the cut being there to begin with. In the background there were stifled noises of laughter and awe-struck curses.
“I learned this by studying — joining these people for a short time, ja?” The video ended abruptly afterward.
“I didn’t know they could do that…limbs lost can be replaced with some effort and without major surgical procedures?” He muttered to himself, clicking off of the file and laying down his thoughts on a single document. This compounded his interest, his brows scrunching as he typed away. The thought of being able to treat any kind of fatal wound so trivially. It would fix a lot of things in the world — it would do a lot of good in general.
He took out the apple from earlier in the day and placed it next to the laptop, reporting on the events that transpired after the interview, glancing from time to time at it as he wrote down more thoughts. It didn’t take long for that apple to be a day-to-day item, it came along with him like a lucky charm, sitting hidden away inside his coat.
Each week he’d be the student of the woman without a name…he could recall the time she’d given her name, but it felt like a distant memory. He had never had such brain-fog at this level before, but the researcher paid no mind. There was always new information to take in any way, a name wouldn’t be that important in comparison to what could help out the world or his own peers.
Weeks passed like days, and soon he had immersed himself well into the beliefs of the Nälkä. Then at the dead of night he received an email. He would be extracted from the area, along with his team tomorrow. His months of research would come to light and be recognized by those above. That news swelled his spirit enough to take his final lesson with a smile on his face.
“Come now, I hope you aren’t already throwing in the towel.” The priest with no name kneeled on the ground next to him, wrapping her delicate fingers around his wrist as he writhed in pain. A small bloody protrusion of bone was slowly being pulled back inside through his palm.
“Ghhhgk!” Whatever word he tried to utter only came out as pained groans through a smile born through grinding his teeth. “Hahaha! You make this look so much easier!”
“It comes with practice but at the very least put more effort into this.” The wound was sewn shut with a piece of her flesh, standing up and stepping back. “Rise, and try again, dear.”
The researcher got up slowly, sweat dripping from his brow and blood trickling from his nose. He didn’t realise how exhausting and brutal a simple construction of a bone dagger could be, but — glancing at the woman before him, staring at him expectantly — he could not afford to fail this lesson. He clapped his hands together and focused, visualizing himself extracting the bone from one hand, pulling his hands away from each other. He could smell the blood already pouring from his palm once more. The squelching of bone and meat acting only as distractions while he felt his breath fleeing from his body. Then, with a satisfying pop, he stumbled forward, surprised by the force of shunting his own bones out of his body. Light poured through the cracks as he opened his eyes. Shock numbed his reaction to the injury as he saw his own bloody bones resting in front of him in the grass, shaped like a kitchen knife. “Congratulations.” was all he heard as his breathing became increasingly difficult, his eyes fluttering before succumbing to darkness.
Then he shot up from his bed inside his tent. It was dark, how long was he out? He swore it was just morning, but the sound of rustling snapped him out of his confusion. The faint sound of a chopper confirmed his suspicions. They were here to extract him.
He hopped out of his bed, glancing at his hand which was healed just as well as the arm he saw in the video a few months back. Pride took over for a moment as he put on his coat and exited the tent, looking around to find the extraction team.
Click! He jerked his head towards the source of the sound, seeing the barrel of a rifle for half a second before ducking. The sound of the gun firing snapped his attention away from his obliterated left ear. He glanced up, seeing an extraction agent switching from their rifle to their pistol.
The agent watched as his target turned and dug their foot into the ground before running off. It earned them a chuckle as he took aim and shot at his heel, hearing an extremely satisfying scream of pain from him.
Pain ran through the researcher’s body like a fast-acting poison. Perhaps there was poison in those bullets. He couldn’t confirm or deny as he ran through the forest, trees duplicated into three, circling around each other as his movements flowed a second later than he felt they should’ve. He could hear the team approaching, three or four of them judging from the footsteps which he was already doubting. He rested on the roots of a nearby tree, wondering why they were killing him? His mind raced through the possibilities, but they all landed on the words he heard from the priest.
“See? You’ll return home and your organization will suspect where your loyalties lie. You may be killed on the spot when you leave this place.”
That wasn’t something that he had just recalled. He heard it from somewhere and looked to his right where the woman stepped out from the shadows. “How did you know?” His eyes wide with shock. He then fished for the apple inside his coat and took it out. There was a noticeable bite mark in it. “I never - when —” He was at a loss for words, his face growing with more confusion as the footsteps of the extraction team faded into silence.
“You don’t need to worry about that, your safety is currently top prio-” She ducked behind the tree as bullets began to fly around the researcher, then he felt something hit him in the stomach. He only got a quick glance, processing it as quickly as it went off. A grenade struck him dead center, darkness consuming everything, but through some miracle he was alive. He fell in and out of consciousness, only getting snapshots of the gunfight that came as he saw his own survey team fight back. The bullets continued to fly for what seemed like hours until he awoke once more to the moon directly above him.
The first thing he noticed when he regained consciousness was the lack of a lower half. An arm was missing as well. “How?” Is all he could utter as he saw her radiant form appear above him, basking in the moonlight. Her features are hard to define besides a warm smile that could thaw the coldest hearts.
“You were blessed by the Ozirmok the moment you came here.” Her voice was…so soft, gentle, filled with some promise that he couldn’t recall making. She kneeled next to him and lifted his head to rest on her lap, stroking his cheek in a soothing rhythm.
He didn’t question the mention of the Ozirmok, instead melting to her touch. “I can be healed, right?” He felt as if he was in between the world of dreams and reality, asking such a question breathlessly.
“You will be reborn.” A tear streaked down her face, landing on the researcher's forehead. The two enjoyed a moment of silence as the survey team stood surrounding them.
Then he felt something twist beneath his cheek. His face was pulled in one direction, stretching, spiraling around a small bud of flesh no larger than a baseball, his body distorted beyond human comprehension. The sound of bones crunching and blood spurting out of every possible orifice and pore filling the now quiet forest. A final whisper left the rapidly transformed corpse: “Thank you, Aria.”
Her name being called only elicited a satisfied sigh from her as she lifted the now transformed researcher. Allowing his new body to bask in the moonlight. “Welcome to the Nälkä, my ‘Forgotten Researcher’.”