You decide to take a closer look at the cottage. A dense layer of foliage, mostly weeds and vides, nearly obscures the decrepit dwelling. The sun casts dancing patches of golden light upon the shadowy forest floor.
A few of the old windows are shattered, and the remaining shards of glass around the rotting window frames remind you of jagged shark teeth. A wide tree with twisting moss-covered limbs grows from the lefthand side of the house. You're surprised that the roof hadn't caved in by now. It's fairly safe to say that nobody has lived in this heap of garbage for a really really long time.
You've always been interested in history. That's probably why you're so interested in this cottage in the first place. Yet even with all the stuff you remember about historical architecture and all the old buildings you've seen over the years, you find yourself unable to guess what era the house had been built in. The only word that comes to mind is "ancient".
You take a cursory look around the nearby wilderness, but don't find any other signs of habitation.
"Whoever lived here must have wanted desperately to be left alone", you think to yourself.
As you approach, a chilled wind picks up out of nowhere, drawing thick clouds over the sun like a blanket. You shiver and regret leaving your coat at home.
As the area around you darkens, you notice something very ominous indeed. A bunch of runic symbols etched into the old wooden beams wrap around the small building. They surrounded the windows, the base, and what was left of the old doorframe (the door was nowhere to be found). The spooky part was that they were glowing a faint blueish color.
"Had those been glowing this whole time?", you wonder. You dismiss any absurd conclusions your mind jumped to. "Of course. They must have been. It's not like the house knows I'm here. It was probably just too bright outside to see earlier." Perhaps the source of the glow was some weird paint used by the previous owner. Maybe it was from some sort of glowing bacteria or something. You think you saw something like that once in a nature documentary.
You peek through one of the window-holes hoping to find something equally mysterious inside, but there's nothing there. Nothing interesting at least. Roots from the big tree outside snake around the weed-infested floor, though it would probably be considered the "ground" at this point. A pile of rubble from an old collapsed chimney sits in the corner, and some crumpled beer cans are strewn about from some drunken college party that probably happened many decades before you arrived here.
You sigh and frown in slight disappointment.
After one last quick glance around, you turn and start to walk away. Those dark clouds covering the sky looked troublesome, and you remember again that you left your coat at home. Even though you hadn't found anything cool inside, you know some fellow-historian friends who would love to hear all about this strange place and the weird glowing stuff on the walls.
You take a few steps when the sudden sound of a door with rusty hinges creaking open startles you half to death.
Frozen in fear, you stand completely still for what feels like minutes (but in reality was probably only about five seconds). When nothing else happens, you take a cautious breath and turn around to reveal the source of the noise.
You see...