Broken

Chapter 2

She tilted her head, looking at it again.

It didn’t belong here, simply put.

The midday sun was beating down upon her, but she ignored it.

It looked, at first glance, like a large rock. A massive boulder, deposited there in millennia past.

But…it was wrong.

Something about it’s shape. The colour oft eh rock.

It didn’t fit in with the rest of the rocks and boulders and dirt that scattered the plateau.

She sat down on a nearby rock and stared at it for a long while.

It could have been dragged here, in ages past. Humanity knew so little about the planet it lived on, after all.

She had seen this with her own two eyes, had felt it beneath her hands.

But, even beyond that…it seemed human.

She got up and approached it, warily now.

It was silent. Not an animal made a sound.

She paced round it. Looking.

It seemed normal enough.

But it wasn’t.

It couldn’t be.

She ran her hands over the stone.

Something wasn’t right.

Near the base of the boulder, she saw it.

A straight line.

This…was impossible, naturally speaking.

This wasn’t natural, then.

She’d examined the line, the seam in the rock- almost as if two objects had been joined together.

But apart from the faint line, there was nothing.

It was a flawless join.

She pushed.

It didn’t budge.

She hesitated a moment, and then pushed with her real strength.

It trembled, slightly.

So…it could move.

She sat back, under the shade of a boulder. A different boulder. Chewing, absently.

Her hair had fallen loose of the ragged ponytail she’d tied it in. She redid it, staring at the boulder all the while.

Someone had been here, in ages past, and put it there.

It was the only reasonable explanation.

No…it wasn’t.

This was a mile up. How could anyone, even in this modern age, haul something like this onto this plateau. And even if they could, why? There were no markings. There was no one living here. Never had been.

Logic had nothing to do with it. It was a hunch.

If only she could think about this logically, like her sisters could…

No. NO. Don’t think like that.

She was a grown woman. She’d beaten things tougher than a boulder before.

Her fist slammed into the boulder, again.

Cracks spider webbed out from where her fists slammed into.

She pulled pieces away from where the seam had been.

It was hollow.

She climbed inside.

She stumbled in the darkness, fumbling for the torch she’d dropped, after falling down a tunnel that had gone on for far too long.

It came to life, and she panned it around.

A tunnel stretched out before her. Arching downwards, she could see.

She followed it, trying to shake off the sensations she felt. Something felt wrong.

Her foot crunched onto something. She lifted her foot, clad in hiking boots, and saw a huge, fat beetle smashed across it.

“Eurgh.”

She tried to scrape if off on a rock, and then took another step.

There was another crunch.

She stepped backwards, her feet crunching down again.

The torch panned downwards.

“Oh, fuck me…” She breathed…

The floor was swarming with beetles. Huge, obscene, blind. Easily several inches long. Albino white, blind, they started to converge on her. Scent rising from their crushed brethren.

“Get. Get off.”

She brushed them aside, as they started climbing up her legs.

One dropped into her hair, and she viciously threw it aside.

They just climbed on her. They didn’t do anything else. They were just there.

She brushed them off her legs, but they clung to her arms instead.

Every one she crushed attracted a dozen more.

This was impossible. They couldn’t be here. What could they eat? What could they be living on, trapped underneath tonnes of rock?

There was nothing down here.

Nothing but her.

“Get. Get off. Off. Get. Off. Off. Get. Get. Get. Off. Get off. Get off. Get off, get off, get off, get off…”

She started swatting them, harder, faster. She dropped her torch in her frantic motions.

The beetles swarmed over the light, there were so many of them. For a while, pinpoints of light surged up between gaps in-between the beetles, but soon that, too, was extinguished.

They were everywhere. Crawling under her clothes. Over her skin.

Everywhere.

She screamed soundlessly, and rock cracked under the change of temperature.

She fumbled for the torch.

It was freezing cold to the touch.

It didn’t work.

The glass had shattered. The bulb had broken as well.

She took a breath.

She didn’t want to do this, but…

She let herself see.

All the spectrums of light, and she could see, however poorly.

She walked on, down the tunnel, angling downward.

There was a source of light, there.

She was walking downwards, but she knew enough about changes in altitude. Had known about them since she was a child.

She was headed upwards. But every other sense said she was moving downwards.

Something wasn’t right.

Ahead, she could hear water.

It sounded like a small fountain.

This…was impossible. Everything was. There was no way water could be pumped up through this kind of rock…

She’d nearly become a geologist, once. She’d taken a semester of the course, but had failed to turn in most of her essays.

She pushed that thought aside.

The tunnel opened up. Became a chamber.

A door loomed ahead. Huge, stone. Covered in symbols.

She hurried over, looked at them.

She thought they looked vaguely ancient Egyptian, but she didn’t know that language.

Damnit.

The chamber was large. Larger than it should be.

Aside from the door, there were small glass spheres, that glowed. She had no way of understanding how they worked.

She had no way of understanding how the fountain worked, how it produced clear, drinkable water.

She had no idea how to open the door.

She had no idea how to get out.

She flung her fists at the door.

She felt bone crack, and backed away, cursing.

She washed the blood from her knuckles in the fountain. Within moments, the water was clear yet again.

She should have stopped after the first dozen punches.

She shouldn’t have continued punching.

She dozed fitfully, her head leant against the edge of the fountain.

Her eyes snapped open, and she stretched, awkwardly, looking around.

Her hair had come loose, tumbling halfway down her back.

The last time her family had seen her, it wasn’t that long.

She didn’t want to think about them, and instead looked at the symbols on the wall.

They were…hypnotic, almost.

The way they were arranged…it seemed to mean something…

She had a plentiful supply of water.

She had food in her pack.

This was what she had been looking for, really.

Two days in, and she’d half filled the notebook she’d bought to jot down travel times.

She thought she could see a pattern emerging.

The pieces of paper were taken out, and lain carefully.

It was less about the symbols, than in the pattern they made.

She was certain of it.

She let her hair grow longer, tangled.

She stopped washing within a week.

Her notes started to cover the floor of the chamber. Scratched into any available surface.

Soon.

She’d find it out soon.

She’d get in.

Using her mind.

The one thing none of the others had done.

She’d prove her existence, her worth.

At last. At last she’d be able to know, in her own mind, the truth of her own existence.

That there was purpose to it. That there was strength to it.

Soon enough, she would find out if she even existed.