Mother Earth // Bellamy Blake

Bardo • 139

"I have to tell you," Gabriel panted as he removed some flooring in his tent. "I'm very excited about this. I've been studying those symbols since we found the stone. We built the camp here because of it."

I kept looking between Gabriel and Octavia. She seemed confused about what was going on, but she never seemed unwilling to continue. Gabriel lifted the hidden hatch, leading to a ladder down a large dirt hole. He basically jumped down while the rest of us followed down the steps. When we all got to the same level, Gabriel flicked on a dim light.

"What the hell is that?" Reese questioned as we all stared in silence at the orb before us. It was strangely mesmerizing, the large golden orb illuminated a humming sound in my ears. There were symbols neatly scattered all over it, similar to the ones that were tattooed to Octavia. On top of that, it was freaking floating.

"It's thousands of years old," Gabriel gave us the history. "We have no idea who made it or what generates the magnetic field that holds it up, but we're pretty sure it's what sucks in all the radio signals."

"Some of the symbols on her back are red. It's a code," Echo stated as we all moved to get a closer look at this thing.

"Very good," Gabriel praised. "We're about to find out what it's for. May I see the drawing, please."

Gabriel reached his hand out to Octavia and she slowly retrieved the paper. Her eyes were locked on this thing, I didn't blame her for it either. I've never seen anything like this in my life.

Gabriel unfolded the drawing and took in a huff of air, "moment of truth."

"Dude, are you sure we should do this?" Reese tried for more confirmation, but Gabriel already started to touch some of the symbols. There was a soft whooshing noise that flowed through my head every time Gabriel placed his fingers on the sphere.

"He's got a point," Bellamy chimed in. "What happens if you're right?"

"I filled a hundred notebooks with possible answers to that question, " Gabriel's giddy smile looked to Bellamy as he continued to search for the right symbols. "The last symbol in the series is called 'an octonion.' Advanced mathematics way above my head, but I don't think it's a coincidence you share a name."

I watched with careful eyes as Gabriel stepped back to let Octavia move forward. He looked to her as he said, "please, it should be you."

Octavia walked up to the 'O' character on the swirled tip of the orb. I could hear Reese groan out an 'oh, God' quietly behind me. Our whole way to the tent consisted of us trying to explain what the anomaly was to Reese. It was a group effort and I still don't think he has an understanding of what it is. Neither did any of us in all honesty. When Octavia put her hand on it, the whooshing sounded, but nothing else happened.

I looked over to Bellamy to see that he had the same confused face as I did. Gabriel started stressing at this point, "no, no, no. It can't be right. I must've done something wrong."

"Quiet," Bellamy ordered and the hole fell silent. The ground was shaking, it was what I imagined a sort of Earthquake would feel like. All of a sudden, outside grew extremely windy. It was hard to hear anything else but the wind. The weirdest part of it all was that this glowing green light shone through the cracks of the hatch.

"I knew it," Gabriel mumbled with a smirk on his face. He took off to the ladder and climbed his way up really fast.

"Knew what?" Reese yelled after him, but got no reply. "Don't tell me we're following him up there."

It was too late not to follow him, Octavia was already climbing out after Gabriel. All of us got back up that ladder. The tent was swaying from the winds and there was a green hue covering everything in my vision. Bellamy moved to stand right next to me as we watched Gabriel look out the tent flap.