Beneath My Feet

1 | discovery

   "Thanks for coming Troye, I'm Andy. It's just over here." a brunette-haired male, about my age, greets me and points out a taped-off section of land. From up on this hill, I am able to study what I have been called out here to scan.

   In a large, square shaped piece of land there are multiple minute indents freckled around five larger bumps patterned like the fifth side of a die. The earth is completely devoid of any vegetation, no movement from even a desert-lizard. I tred down to the boundary, leaving the team of archaeologists at the top.

   "Have you taken samples of the earth here?" I ask the crew.

   A woman speaks up, "Just a small amount of the surface but our machines could not identify the soil components." A few of them hum in agreement. Next, a man pipes up, "The ground seems very... odd in our results." More agreement from the team.

   Hmm... I bend over the rope + pinch some of the dirt in my fingers, feeling the texture; a soft-grain.

   Never before have I seen this sort of earth. There have been the odd few; some that stuck to my hands like glue + some that had magnetic qualities. But this is truly strange... it appears to glitter and gleam! (jeez this is cringey)

   Ok, now this has captured my full curiosity. I pull my legs over the tape and stand in the middle of the patch with my feet spread. Before closing my eyes, I peer up to the crew of archaeologists who observe me with curious eyes and craned necks.

   Now I concentrate. I picture only this piece of land in my mind and scan through the surface and into the underground soil.

   And what I 'see' startles me. This is tremendously devastated lest anyone uncover it. No way, I must be 'seeing' it incorrectly..

   I pick my way over to one of the small bumps and stand atop it. I repeat the same test,

   with an identical result. This repeats for the other three hills.

   (cringe warning) No-one shall perish, no monstrosity will overcome earth as long as the team heed my warning. 

   The group of archaeologists are murmuring between themselves, gesturing to each other with quick hand motions. They hush when I clear my throat in their presence.

   "What did you find Troye?" A dark haired lady enquires. I think thoroughly before answering.

   "Well, never in all my years of scanning all kinds of lands, have I ever seen this kind of thing..." I glance over my shoulder to the site.

   "What is it?" A man with a snappy attitude and black hair commands. I try not to glare at him.

   Instead, I muster up my most authoritative voice and declare, "You will not excavate this site."

   Shock and curiosity radiate off of the crew of archaeologists. The man with the bad attitude huffs and speaks up, "Why shouldn't we?"

   "Excavating this site would uproot a disaster that makes the Bubonic Plague look like a simple, common cold. Under the surface is a devastating virus, like nuclear material." I frown, trying to come up with a way to stop any chance of a leak. "Keep this section taped off, I'll have to scan the area in a massive radius and I'll inform you how much more should be taped off. Make sure that this land is unaccessible and unusable, whatever needs to be done to prevent this place being uncovered, do it but do not dig here, alright?"

   The 7 adults stand in front of me and I almost see the cogs working in their minds as they nod.

   I pray that got through their thick skulls.