Discovery

"Jesus enunciated the Golden Rule, which says to do one to others before they do one to you. He also explained, "Man doth not live by sweat alone." -Unknown Child In Church

            A dark skinned man dressed in a thick layer of dirt and sweat mercilessly scarred the wall of rock impeding the excavation’s path further into the tunnel. His arms ached with the tire of years of digging. His mind was growing skeptical after a third year of fruitless hard work. His clothes were heavy in a long day’s perspiration.

            We haven’t found anything yet,. He thought. What makes him think we will find anything now? He wants us to dig in such an extensive area, but he does not tell us how deep or how long or even what we look for. I have a family at home waiting for me.

            He didn’t know what they were searching for, and therefore refused to accept that there was truly anything there. He only accompanied the well tailored American because he thought it could earn him a pretty penny. He wasn’t wrong, but the labor nearly took away the reward’s worth. Truthfully, he didn’t want to find it. In fact, when he heard that the game that the man had traveled so far to hunt was simply said to be “nothing in particular”, he prayed. He prayed for God to have mercy on the man whose mind was obviously poisoned by time, but he still accepted. He needed a job, and this one sounded easy.

            “I think I see water,” said a thickly accented voice from nearby. “We must have hit the aquifer. I will have to report this.” it was one of the other diggers by the name of Akim. He had been forming a tributary tunnel off of the one he had made. He was a hard worker, but foolish for it. Did he really believe anything was down here?

            The man watched as Akim hurried up the inclined path to the entrance. He dragged countless amounts of rubble with him. After a short pause, he got back to work.

            It was very tedious business. Move some stone, strike the wall, Move some stone, strike the wall. It never seemed to end and it was more tiring with each swing of the pick. He cursed under his breath about how they couldn’t use heavy machinery. “What we search for is centuries old. It will most likely have become fragile over time. We must handle this sensitively,” they had said.

            His axe landed with a metallic ring that deafened his ears. His hands were numb and blistered regardless of his gloves.

            The next assault on the rocks splattered mud onto his face. He must have come to where Akim had stopped, but something was strange. It wasn’t the aquifer. The water didn’t flow. It stood still.

            Slightly curious but otherwise unperturbed, he continued his digging. His hands quaked menacingly as they were thrust away from the rocks he hit. His swing had been sent back.

Taking off his gloves, he burrowed through the asphalt to try and find the reason for this reaction. The loose dirt felt soft and comforting on his shaking hands. His fingers rested against something harder than the rest of his surroundings, more compact. He uncovered more of the dirt on top of it and discovered a rectangular block in his grasp. He pulled gently to remove it, but it wouldn’t budge. Pulling harder, he felt it slowly release its grip on the earth.

Before he had completed wrenching the object into full visibility, he heard footsteps approaching. Akim was back.

“Akim!” the man called.

Akim followed the echoes of the man’s voice to the end of his tunnel.

“This is fairly narrow,” he said. “You should try to form you tunnels taller.”

“I dig on my knees. It has turned into a habit, but that is not why I called you here.” The man let go of the brick with one hand, but kept the other firmly on its side and twisted his body to show Akim. He shined the light from his helmet where his hand was placed. “Feel the dirt here,” he said.

Akim did as instructed and wedged his hand through the loose dirt and clay until he contacted what the man held. “What is it?” He asked.

“I am not sure,” The man replied. “Help me pull it out.”

Akim and the man took every arm they possessed and pried the stone from its home. The man observed the rock in his hand. It was different from the rest of the stones. It had a different color. It had an unusual shape. It was smooth. One specific feature seemed to be prominent over the rest. There was an odd but somehow familiar symbol in the center. It was covered by far too much dirt to be accurately described, but from what of it could be seen (and the rest only assumed), there were three individual circles connected by three slightly curved lines.

The two didn’t have much time to admire their discovery very thoroughly. The ground shivered and pebbles dropped in numbers from above them. The ground wanted that stone. The man, desperate to save his own life, shoved Akim to the side and rushed out of the pathway within the tunnel.

There would have been enough time for both to escape safely, but they had to crouch to get out. The man exited into the wing of the hole that Akim had redone to meet Ron’s standards. He tried to offer his hand to Akim, but he was too far. A boulder the size of a small child dropped from the roof and crashed with a resounding symphony of reverberations shouting through the tunnels right on top of the man’s arm. He screamed in pain as his bones shattered like glass under the massive weight bearing down on them.

The vibrations of the collapse spread to the entrance and rocks slowly concealed it. The man was going to be trapped there. Thinking quickly, he took the spade from its bounds on his back and thrust it with all his speed and might at the base of his arm. Screaming again, he nearly vomited at the sight of his now disconnected limb. He left a trail of liquid crimson on the hard ground as he ran to the sunlight, but it was too late. It was blocked by the cave in.

He shined his headlight in all directions. It hurled onto the end of a scarlet arm reaching in and a lifeless palm reaching out of a boulder. He hesitated for a moment, and then tried to run, but there was no way out of the enclosure they had made.

Just as he had given up hope, it was restored slightly when he saw the tunnel Akim had made. He had reached the same thing his did. His tunnel had collapsed as well, but not on the inside.

From what the man gathered, the stone had been part of a wall, the same wall that Akim had reached. When the walls collapsed on his end, it also collapsed on Akim’s, but it did so inwards. Whatever was behind the brick wall was now accessible.

Knowing his minutes on this world were numbered, the man raced into the opening. Tripping over stones due to the upset in his body’s weight balance, he entered the hole in the wall.

What he saw made his eyes water. He had been holding his bleeding stub with his other arm, but he no longer felt the blood seep between his fingers. He couldn’t feel the pain anymore. His hand dropped from and his arm fell limply to his side. His mind was hollow of thought. His soreness and confusion left him to be replaced by wonder. Astonished and horrified, he dropped to his knees and prayed, but his words were empty. He had let Akim die only to save himself. He had not believed in the cause of the expedition. He had used his family as excuse on plenty of occasions but not cared for anything but himself and his own comfort, yet he prayed as if accepting a reward for work and dedication.

Lifting himself, he opened his eyes again to take in the fact that all of this was real. He was in spitting distance of a long hallway with ancient and unlit torches and pillars of great mass. At the end of these columns were two doors gathering dust below a colored glass circular window that was broken in two places and barely visible through the dark. The man walked over to one of the torches and took it from its holder. He took a match from his pocket and slid it quickly across the rough part of the matchbox. He brings the flame to the top of the torch and waits for the fire to grow.

As the flame feeds, the room illuminates. The man looked at the other end of the hallway where the intended entrance to this room would have been, but all that was left there now was rock and earth. God didn’t want this place to be found.

Approaching the doors, they grew far larger than necessary with every footstep. They appeared to be made of once quite expensive wood, but this quality was lost with age. The wood that was once a magnificent sight was now rotting and termite ridden. The man grabbed the handle to the door and pulled, but it didn’t open. Instead, it collapsed. The noise of the door crashing to the marble floor echoed in every corner of the chamber. The man felt as if he had disturbed God of his slumber. His strange instinct to remain quiet had been disobeyed. Slightly more on edge, the man stepped over the splintered remains of the door and trudged forward deeper into the underground building leaving the dilapidation behind him.

The inside resembled the church he had neglected to go to ignoring the world and calling it a waste of time. God wouldn’t care about one visit to his church, he had thought, but now he could see why so many had eagerly awaited the next holy day. Row after row of benches awaited a visitor to sit, but no one had come. A raised stage tore under the pressure of a fragile candle display still left on top of it. Staircases piled over each other lining the walls to the second floor. The air was filled with an overwhelming presence. He felt like he wasn’t the only one there, but in more of a humble way much like the sense of a small boy home from school to see his mother.

The man walked passed bench after bench trying to imagine the awe that those who had built such a place must have felt. To have the power to create something so amazing, it was beyond man.

Thinking that the higher he got, the closer he was to the surface, the man edged his way up the right staircase without allowing his eyes to leave the room until it was impossible to see it. There was another set of doors at the top of the staircase. These seemed less breakable, but the man opened them slowly and cautiously nevertheless. They creaked terribly on their rusty hinges.

The man carefully stepped into the room. It didn’t hold the same comfort as the other room. The air was heavy and demanding. The floors and walls were almost bare and seemed to be gazing at him accusingly. Worse yet, the place smelled distinctly of death, but something refused to let him exit. Something drew him further inside.

There was only one notable piece of furniture throughout the fairly numerous planks forming the floor. A bright golden chest lay atop a mahogany display table. The table had lost its splendor, but the chest appeared devoid of age. Where the rest of the world died or drowned in dust, this chest remained unharmed.

The man attempted to turn back, but his legs wouldn’t follow his command. They inched forward to the chest. The man’s mind dissolved into pure anguish. His pain momentarily returned with a scream, but then left again. He took another footstep and was struck with another attack of pain and anger. Another step, another bolt of pain buried itself in his arm and sore muscles.

After a short amount of time that felt like years to the man had elapsed, he stood before the chest. It reflected the rotting color of the wood around him. It bore the same symbol as the stone he had encountered with Akim.  Placing one hand on the chest, guilt surged through him to his selfish heart. His hand then fell to the lock which broke under the rust and pressure. Reluctantly, he peeled open the top of the chest. The room illuminated and once more, the pain scolded him, but both effects left quickly.

The man was terrified of what he would find, but he peered into the chest. Inside were only simple objects. Before him lay a wooden stick that was taller than he, two stone tablets with writing chiseled into them, a black book, and a bronze key.

The man took the book in his hand a flipped through the pages with his thumb. The book had no writing. Dropping the book to the floor, he took the stick. Not seeing anything useful about it, he threw it aside. It made strange noises as it skipped across the floor. The man wrapped his arm around one of the tablets and pulled, but they wouldn’t come up. He didn’t have the strength in him to lift them. In a final attempt to find use of his treasure, he took the key. He examined it and didn’t find anything particularly interesting about it.

No point in throwing this away, He thought. I might as well keep it.

The man placed the key in his pocket, but when he lifted his hand out, it was gone. His pocket was full, but his hand was detached. It bled for a moment, but the blood turned to sand that engulfed his arm. The sand then reached his elbow and began again at his leg. Without a foot, he was thrown off balance. He dropped to the floor and watched in agony as his legs were converted into grainy earth. The pain didn’t last long though. The change was progressing rapidly and soon he felt his ear wither and fall. He screamed a last time as his face melted to sand.

The room filled with abrupt silence. It was empty, disturbed, but empty. The cathedral could at last sleep again.

Author's Note

I reread it and it sounded kinda indiana jonesish, but I don't really care. The story goes way beyond where the directors of those movies went into religion.

Don't get mad if this has christian quotes and sayings or references. They make for a good story :)