Some things are better left undiscovered!
Part V
Charlie silently
followed her as she stepped across the threshold, and as she did a faint blue
glow illuminated the center of the room. She stopped and stepped back, suddenly
unsure if she should continue, and the blue light faded to darkness. Stepping
forward again, she was rewarded with the return of that blue glow that seemed
to emanate from the center of the room.
Following the beam of
her flashlight, they both ventured deeper into the chamber, coming to a stone
bench on their right. She played the beam of the flashlight over the
dust-covered surface of the bench, noting how it curved to the left as it
vanished into the shadows. There was another bench thee feet in front of the
first, it too curving into the emptiness that pressed in on all sides. With
growing confidence she pushed on, coming to a third bench in front of the
second one.
As they ventured
deeper into the chamber, she slowly became aware that the blue glow was coming
from an object to her immediate front. She stopped, took a deep breath, and
switched off her flashlight.
“Turn off your
light,” she said.
“Are you nuts?”
“Just do it.”
Charlie complied and
as her eyes adjusted to the darkness the blue glow grew stronger until she
could make out the shape of a large blue globe hanging suspended an unknown distance
before her. More details came into focus and she began picking out tiny spots
of light high above her head all around her. The image reminded her of a
planetarium during a showing and she suddenly realized that what she was gazing
upon was the home world of whatever had built this structure.
“Can you see it?”
“See what?”
“Close your eyes for
a minute and let them adjust to the dark.” Sandra closed her own eyes and when
she reopened them that alien solar system was once again laid out before her
with that faint blue sun in the center.
“What the hell,”
Charlie said.
“I think that’s why
they came here.”
“Who?”
“Those who built this
structure. Their sun was dying.”
“What is it?”
“A star system, their
home.”
“Aliens?”
“Of course, who did
you think I was talking about?”
“How can you be so
sure?”
“I’m not absolutely
certain. Not one hundred percent. But the explanation fits.”
“Then where are they
now?”
Sandra shrugged. “I
don’t know.”
They had moved
forward to a raised dais a foot higher than the rest of the floor. Stepping up
together, they approached the blue sphere, beneath which rested a small white
box. Charlie reached the item first, marveling at the craftsmanship that had
gone into constructing this small object. It looked like fine marble cut into very
thin sheets, somewhat transparent, its contents were a faint smudge against the
white.
“What is it?” Charlie
said.
“I don’t know.”
Sandra touched the surface of the box and when she did her mind was suddenly
filled with ancient images of an alien place that was all but a memory.
She saw a vast valley
beneath a blue sun. From the floor of the valley rose an immense tower. The
spires of Beizel in the valley of tears. The name came to her from the black
depths of a consciousness that stretched into the antediluvian void of their
past. She could feel them around her, the followers who had trekked to this
desolate plain, and the faithful who had come to seek redemption. Their
thoughts washed over and around her, a single voice in a seething populace
whose movements were so perfectly timed they took on the appearance of the
surface of the ocean as gentle swells raced from one end to the other in a
continuous cycle.
They had come seeking
salvation and found it in the singularity of one thought that washed through
them with a solitary voice. The individual parts of the whole had come together
to form a distinct thought, and that was survival of the species. Their sun was
dying, the time for the planet, for their reign, had come to a close. But one
chance remained, the survival of the species lay with the chosen who would
reach out into the great beyond; to ensure the survival of the species they
would venture into the farthest reaches of the cosmos in their search for a new
planet to call their own.
Sandra stepped back
from the box, her fingers numbed by the contact, struggling to catch her breath
as the true meaning of what she had briefly seen began to sink in.
They did not belong
here.
In the shadows around
her their memories moved with a sinuous ease through the deeper night.
“Are you all right?”
Charlie said, resting his hand on her shoulder as he stepped forward to look at
the box resting on the raised dais.
“Don’t touch it,” she
warned him. But he ignored her, reaching out to grasp the box in one hand as he
softly whispered, “So beautiful.”
Before she could stop
him, he had flipped open the delicate hasp and was raising the lid to gaze upon
what the box contained. Sandra became aware of movement in the shadows all
around her as that ozone aroma intensified. Her hair felt like it was standing
on end in response to the suddenly charged atmosphere. Tentacles of darkness slithered across the dais towards them.
To be continued
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