The building site had been reduced to a field of chaos and devastation: twisted steel beams reached for the sky, as if skeletal fingers were tearing into the heavens; heaps of rubble spilled across cracked concrete. What was once structured was now unrecognizable, torn asunder by forces too violent to comprehend-a wasteland. It almost seemed like the echoes of some forgotten explosion hung heavy, oppressed, in the air.
She gripped the makeshift digging tool tightly, the jagged edge gnawing into her palm as she dug into the intractable dirt. Every move was purposeful, breathing ragged with effort. Dirt fell in uneven heaps, while something hard hit the tool just beneath the surface-bones-pale fragments of humanity heaved from their shallow graves, carried up one piece at a time. The shaking in her arms built with every stroke.
Time went on a blur, the sun right in the middle of the sky, burning down through fractured silhouettes of abandoned buildings. Relentless rays streamed between the gaps in the structures, turning the air into a shimmering haze. There was dust everywhere, thick-a golden fog stirred with every step she took. The heat clawed at her skin; her hair plastered to her forehead, bathed in sweat. Her vision blurred, but her resolution kept her moving.
She sank to her knees and, spread before her, lay the grotesque assembly of thirty skeletons, laid out with perfection. The bones were bright with unnatural cleanness, as if time had spared them intentionally. Even more jarring was the impression that they seemed almost deliberate-more art than remains. Then she stared at them, finally feeling her exhaustion; she leaned against the earth without knowing it, and the world began to spin into darkness.
She had slept; night had fallen. The sky was an empty black, bearing no stars, no moon to break the darkness. The ruins around her were shrouded in shadow, and the air was colder now, caressing her skin with an unhealthy chill. Blinking away the haze of sleep, she turned to her arrangement of skeletons—and froze.
A faint glow emanated from the bones.
The remains pulsed softly in purple light spreading across its surface, almost in a living breath. Intensities varied; some of the skeletons radiated full-bodied luminescence, while others flickered in fractured patterns, sometimes just of a rib cage here, a femur there. Flickering to some unseen rhythm, the eerie glow danced and sent ghostly hues illuminating surrounding rubble.
The thought sent her running toward a step closer-the light across, casting her shadow long and thin behind her. For all its unnaturalness, the glow seemed-serene. Flesh and horror bared away, the bones took on a certain elegance, curiously like artifacts contrived by an attentive hand. But what she saw disturbed her. There was something contrived in this scene, something she had yet to grasp.
She tore her gaze away; the kernel of an idea had formed in the back of her mind. Turning, she began to retrace her steps toward the hill she had previously visited. The mound of remains loomed ahead, its silhouette grotesque against the faint light of the ruins. She approached it cautiously, her eyes scanning the pile for anything out of place.
And then, she found it.
Her fingers hit cold metal buried beneath layers of debris. A switch. Before she could think better of it, her hand pressed down. A low groan echoed through the air, a sound that seemed to vibrate in her chest. The earth shifted; the ground trembled under her feet. She spun around, her gaze circling for a source. It didn't take long to find.
The ground had opened near the glowing skeletons, and a hatch yawned wide open toward spiraling stairs that vanished into darkness.
She hesitated at the threshold-the air that wafted up carried a metallic scent and dampness. The silence below was deafening, a hollowness tugging at her. She took a deep breath and plunged in, swallowed by the dark.
Every step was tentative; the echoes of her footfalls rang against unseen walls. The blackness was oppressive, wrapping around her like a smothering cloak. She strained her eyes, desperate for any hint of light. And then, just when her resolve was wavering, a faint glow materialized ahead.
Down a hall opened into a chamber opposite from any decay above: highly waxed, almost reflecting in the soft light given from crystalline fittings inserted in the ceiling; and all-smooth, untimed walls with etched-in intricate patterns on them that almost seemed to be pulsing as one reached their sides. She found at entrance the following plaque cut in stone:
The words sucked her breath as she read. So neat, the place in its cleanliness against the jagged contrast of chaos above: the dust had been left unrifled, preserved for a purpose -one which, however remotely, she could guess at.
She ventured deeper into the chamber, her gaze wandering across every inch in that curious blend of wonder and suspicion.
Her gaze stuck to the glittering walls as she pressed deeper; her footsteps fell silently upon the pristine floor. Whatever was to come, she knew that everything would be different after that.