Palimpsest. Tabula Rasa. Carte blanche. Erase. Re-write. Y/N?
You sneeze, dust motes billow and glint. You take another couple of steps into the ancient Bingo hall, and, despite deliberately shuffling, you feel your weight snap a protruding bone. To be fair, it was as vitreous as a cracked tea-cup, and some bloody fool just had to go and die right there by the doorway anyhow.
You were never one to stand on ceremony.
Femurs are a different matter entirely..
They had uploaded some old episodes of that doomed reality TeeVee show into your cortex. You'd quite enjoyed them. That was why you'd agreed to come and explore the Island. A collector. Quite good at it as well. Rich beyond most peoples wildest dreams. Wouldn't it be something to find the DNA of one of those crazy bastards encased in some amber, and have your team of DNA-techs clone a couple of them to add some spice to the grounds of your estate?
Hem.
Nothing doing there, so far. Just some volcanic ash, petrified, a half-melted cat launcher. A wallet containing some req. tokens.
The common grounds were interesting. Those little piles of coal or whatever it is, dotted about.
This Bingo hall was an intriguing find. Almost intact. Somehow. You press on past the bone-trap and further inside, hell, there are even curtains at either side of the stage - faded, holy now. But still recognisably heavy and velvet. You duck under a collapsed arch way, and up some rickety wooden stairs. At the top of these, a wooden balcony, newer than the rest of the hall, and some offices, glass and wood construction.
You push, hard at the door of the first of these. The combined weight of dust, filth and your body take the door off it's hinges and you land. HARD. On the floor. Another pile of bones beneath your door dust-surfing-body-board.
You pick yourself up gingerly. You look around the office.
On the desk there is, below the press of ages (or dust), a book.
Palimpsest. Tabula Rasa. Carte blanche. Erase. Re-write. Y/N?
There's a little frisson of fear, for some reason. What sort of ghosts may this book contain? You wipe your hand across the cover, cleaning away a smear of muck.
It feels odd to the touch. As though you're running your fingertips across the hand of your cold, dead lover.
A further frisson. The book is bound in skin.
Should you open this? Oh bugger it, of course you should. You reach out and open the flesh-bound book