The Sands Of Time

The sounds of shovels and pickaxe, burrowing into the sand are heard over the winds blowing through the site. Yells of elation erupt with the sounds of footsteps approaching, “Sir. We have found something. Come quick.” A dirty old man says as he entered the tent and holds open the flap. “What is it?” I say as I stand up toppling my chair over. “Come quick.”

It takes exactly two minutes to get to the site to see some of the men standing around a rocky hole in the ground. The sun beats down mercilessly upon the back of my neck, I reach up to wipe sweat from my brow as a man helps me down into the excavated hole in the ground.

I enter the hole in the ground and I am met with a blast of cool moist air, “interesting.” I say to no one in particular as I run my hands along the rocky edge of stone. The man that leads me down turns his head slightly and looks at me, beckoning me to stay close.

After several minutes we enter into a large room with a large bell supported by two large arms. There was something very unsettling about the room but at the time I could not not pinpoint what it was. The architecture was very familiar yet different. After looking around the room we found a trap door leading down, “bring the torch over here.” I say to the man, he looks at me with confusion written all over his face and shrugs. He didn’t have a torch. I looked around and noticed that there was light all around the room, coming in through the rock covered windows as if sun light was streaming through them.

Perplexed I walk over to one of the windows and reach out to touch it. My hand passes through it like water as if nothing was there. I with drew my hand like I was bit by something and look over to my guide, only he wasn’t there, no one was there, it was just me.

Frantically I look around for him and find no one, unsettling indeed. I look back to where I entered and see no hole or entrance from where I came. I look back at the trap door. Nowhere left to go but down.

I slowly walk over to the door inset into the floor and bend down to lift the heavy weight hinged door. With a creak it opens and I am greeted by the site of a ladder leading down with a soft glow of light at the bottom.

I descend into the soft glow and step off of the ladder onto a finely polished tiled floor, with a squeak my boots make purchase and a hallway greets me there are LED lights on the ceiling and steel doors are on each side of the hallway leading away from the ladder. I walk the length of hallway being as quiet as I can. I get to the end of the hallway to an intersection and turn right I follow the hallway to a steel door, there is no handle to the door just a number pad next to it.

I reach up to touch the pad and look at it closer, the numbers are different than anything I have ever seen, were they even numbers? As I touch the pad the door swishes open and a man stands there looking at me, bewilderment written on his face. He says something to me in a language I have never heard before it sounds like a question. I reply with a squeak and take a step back.

I don’t necessarily remember what happened after that, because as I backed up I was hit with a jolt of electrical current and blacked out. I came to in a room with a bed that I was on, a medical monitor next to me and a woman standing next to the bed with a chart in her hand. She reaches out and runs her fingers across my forehead, “your vitals are stabilized, you may sit up if you so desire.” She says in perfect English. “Where am I?”

“You are in Cebara. In a monastery on the edge of the dark forest. We are currently trying to investigate your origin in our community.”

“Cebara? Dark forest? What are you talking about?” I say confused as I sit up and look at her.

“This is an ancestral dig.”