Me and Buddy stumble into the rocky ruins, hunting for whatever it was our client was in hysterics about.

Something of immense value yada yada. Just another job to me and Buddy, but apparently the absolute motherload for our employer.

Anyway.

We navigate into the halls of some sort of important and very dated looking temple, its worn down textures and splitting marble a telltale sign of it’s apparent age.

Mother Nature made herself pretty comfortable here too. Had to kill a few hostile occupants of the insect and reptilian variety to get in here.

We’re walking past a load of old rickety chests and tightly locked golden coffins as Buddy stops suddenly enough to make me spill my instant coffee onto the floor.

“Wha- what’s the big idea-“

Well, I’ll be.

Straight out of something you’d see in some type of children’s fairytale. A levitating stringed looking instrument with a strangely long neck, shimmering nylon strung tightly across the bow and two symmetrically carved holes in its base was slowly rotating in the crevice to our left, humming with a sort of low rumble that made my insides relatively uncomfortable.

“I’d uh, I’d assume that’s it there.”

Buddy turns to me, an expectant look on their otherwise usually blank face.

“Uh, no. We definitely aren’t touching it directly.” I was hearing a whispering voice that sounded like it was ringing in unison with the seemingly neutral ambience in the room, and it was making me increasingly unnerved.

I get that it’s special, but maybe it’s locked away down here for a reason. You had to have a very very specific set of instructions to get in here, and I’m not particularly interested in being possessed by some random of ancient artifact.

Buddy’s anxious body language also appears to be growing disconcertingly restless.

“Fine. Use the glitter gloves, put it in the kevlar bag as fast as possible without damaging it, and let’s get the hell out of here.”

Buddy frowns.

“This is your speciality, not mine. I get us in and out, you handle the technicalities.”

Buddy shoves on the gloves, grabs the instrument with more aggressive emphasis than I would have preferred and places it in the bag.

“Great. Now we leave.”

And then we return to hand over whatever this subtly chattering instrument is.

I let out a long sigh.

Honestly, some days I question whether I’m cut out for this line of work. One of these days I’m gonna get yanked into an alternate dimension or something.