by Shannon Bradford

Created on: June 15, 2009

Excitement hung in the air like thick smog. Erickson choked on it, blinking hard and questioning his luck.

His heart leapt into his throat and he watched, eyes riveted on the excavation site as though he'd be killed if he dared move his gaze. The workers moved torturously slow as they packed up for the day, oblivious to his stuttering anticipation. He licked his parched lips, gulping his heart back down into his chest.

"I can't believe it," Erickson's colleague, Drew, whispered. "Nobody thought this would show up here...it's miles away from the main settlement."

Erickson couldn't respond; he jerked his head in a nod and took a few steps closer to the pit.

As the workers packed up their tools, Erickson took shaky steps down the ladder into the excavation pit. Before him lay a slab of stone, nearly ten feet wide by ten feet high. Its surface reflected the toil of time; cracked, fragmented, and faded. He knelt down beside it, eyes skimming the surface, fingers brushing the mysterious fragment of history.

"It looks like a typical piece of ancient artwork," Drew said, walking the perimeter, looking it up and down. "A damn good one, I might add."

"Yes. But the question is..."

They looked at each other, the question burning in the air between them.

"What is it doing here?" Drew sighed. "Who even knows."

Erickson smoothed his hand over the frieze, questions clouding his mind. "This piece is obviously a product of the Alatari culture. But this is almost two hundred miles away from their main settlement. No other existing settlements are known. So why is this here?"

Drew paused at the bottom of the slab, tilting his head back and forth as he pondered the artwork. "Look at the image, Erickson. It's one of the ancients."

Erickson stood and absorbed the image. There was a faceless figure of a man, standing off to the side of the image. His arm was pointing away from him, beckoning to the distance.

"What's he pointing at?" Erickson asked, squinting.

"It looks like the sky."

Erickson knelt down, peering closer at the sky. "But it's completely black."

"Every night isn't a starry one."

Uneasiness gnawed at him; something wasn't right. Erickson's entire career was devoted to this ancient civilization, and he considered himself to be the foremost authority

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