The Partham Chronicles

Part 27 - Between Real and Truth

Serendipitous or jinxed, Vysna's circumstances bounced between these two words quite often nowadays.

The new site was exciting, many new discoveries could be made but damn her fate, it had to be unpredictable.
This time the site where they were excavating was like a prayer hall or a gathering hall. Four walls on each side, with minimal sculptures and artefacts. They had excavated a fair amount of the site when an earther from the team had discovered a small antechamber inside one of the walls.
The entire team was excited and had begun the tedious task of carefully removing dirt from the surface, to keep the antechamber intact in the hope that it would lead to something more.

And to their good luck, they had found an underground room with many articles still in pristine condition.
One of those articles was a disc which Vysna had found with the help of Shravya, an earther on her team. She immediately contacted Reeba with the article and informed her about it. Little did she know that the object would be a bad omen.

" Are you sure you kept it in the box?" Sarika asked as she searched under the pile of papers on the table.
" I had kept it here, I did not keep it elsewhere. I even told Shravya about it," Vysna said, as she looked around the tent.

Usually, all excavated artefacts would be immediately sent to the office, with security personnel in a van. Any further study on the article would be done in the office under an expert team of Partham archaeologists.

This was the first time Reeba had assigned Vysna the task of segregation of the articles and making sure that all of the articles were sent carefully to the office.

Vysna had to list the articles along with their descriptions and keep them safe in a locker box in the tent. Vysna had done exactly what she was told but one of the objects was missing. She and Sarika had been frantically searching the tent when Reeba entered.

" Why is the van still here? It was supposed to leave 10 minutes ago," Reeba said standing at the entrance.

Vysna and Sarika looked at each other, neither of them wanting to tell what had occurred.

" I just asked a question. What? Cat got your tongue?" She asked, frustrated.

" Uh... one of the objects is missing, " Vysna finally stammered.

" What? How? Didn't you check the list? "

" I did and I marked it too. But now we can't find it anywhere," she said.

" Seriously... what went missing?" Reeba started to go through the list of items.

" The disc that Shravya found in the underground room. We collected it and placed it here," she said, pointing at the box which was to be taken to the office. " Shravya dictated the names and the number of items we had found and I ticked them off the list one by one. Then Sarika and I put all the items in the box. After that, I came to inform Jason to call for the van. Then I told Sarika to check that the locker was closed and then went to Jason for an update, " she finished.

" I double checked the locker and then went to Jason to ask for updates about the van's arrival." Sarika said," He said that it would arrive in fifteen minutes. " She looked at Vysna. "Both of us were waiting with Jason. "

Reeba looked livid. " Never in my five years of work have I seen such carelessness," she said looking at Vysna. " One task, you were assigned just one task and you managed to disappoint. "

She walked to the box, typed in the code and propped it open. She went through all of the objects on the list. " Why is the disc ticked here?" She brandished the list.

" Because when I checked it was there-"

" You think that you are better than us, don't you? Reeba's voice cracked through the tent." At the first temple site, you went against my orders and jeopardised the foundation of the monoliths. Flooding the entire area. The second time, you caused an earthquake, and three of my team members were injured when they fell into a ditch. You do whatever you feel like, not caring about the rules or the hierarchy. " The temperature of the room started to rise. Vysna could feel the pulses of heat radiating through Reeba. " You are such an inconsiderate and conceited person. You think that you can flaunt your surname and get away with whatever you want and do as you please. But not on my watch," she pointed a finger at her, " I will make sure that you never get a chance to work on any other site ever again. "