The world over heaven
And so, the two entered the beast's maw. Despite the light from outside, the palace was entirely dark inside. But once they stepped in, something unnatural happened. With their backs turned, the door vanished, as if there had never been one in the first place. As soon as they entered, they had sealed their fate and plunged themselves in a world of darkness.
The world was different, colder, and pungent with a sweet smell of roses and honey so pungent it was enough to make one puke. Just what was this place? This was no building, you couldn't call this place human. Candles lit up by themselves one by one, illuminating their path like stars and revealing the contents behind the silky shadows.
The first oddity of this palace was its interior, more precisely its size. From the outside, this was an ordinary building, a mundane six story flat. Inside, the world and space seemed to expand beyond the horizons of its confinement. It was like a massive castle, with halls so large they could house hundreds of people. There were staircases and ladders leading to different levels of this towering palace, but it was not made of brick or anything so ordinary.
One simply had to look around and touch to feel a soft, wax-like substance coating the inner walls of the world. No, it was more logical to say this wax was the world itself, like a giant hive one would have the misfortune of stepping into. Pink and purple seemed to intertwine and coil around into curious spirals and shapes, revealing hexagonal gaps willed with a pink, bright goo that seemed as soft as marmalade yet had the hardness of the hardest glass.
There were no windows, the ones from outside had to be an illusion, an elaborate delusion. Even with the dim candlelight, it was hard to make out the surroundings. For now, this lair seemed to be empty. If they were to find the source of this evil, they would have to search through and examine further, beyond the veneer of glass.
