Atlantis Excavated [ᴏᴘᴇɴ ɴᴏᴠᴇʟʟᴀ ᴄᴏɴᴛᴇsᴛ 2020]

• ᴅɪsᴄᴏᴠᴇʀɪᴇs •

'There are so many mysteries left to discover in the world.'

«ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ᴛᴡᴏ»

•••

He woke up with a start. Drenched in his own sweat and tears, Arch scrambled out of his bed in a hurry. Hand firmly clutched over his mouth as bile rose from the pit of his stomach and traveled all the way through his throat, he puked it in his toilet in a violent hack.

His body racked with harsh heaves as it tried to dispel the awful, bitter liquid that erupted from it's gut. This went on for a couple of minutes more until there was nothing left to vomit and he collapsed on his bathroom floor. He felt awful and looked it too.

It has been a while since he had one of his ferocious dreams which always left him feeling fatigued and paranoid. He didn't know if whether that was a good or bad thing that his feelings were always justified.

He slowly dragged his painful body off the cold floor, flushed the toilet and made his way to the shower, where he turned on the faucet and set the temperature of the water to be slightly less bearable then groaned when it hit his rigid back.

The knots on his neck and tangling the length of his spine gradually released and he sighed in relief from the feeling. These dreams always left him tense and he hated it.

They started when he was sixteen, right before he made his first documented discovery. It had been a tomb that held the lost Prince of Hågárdē, who happened to be hiding a pathological disease that created a plague in the small country of Miscarn.

He learned the hard way that he had to heed their warning whenever they appeared. He has had four in total including the one he just had.

After scrubbing his body clean, he left the confines of his bathroom with a white towel wrapped around his torso and another on his head.

He pulled on a pair of black boxers and dark blue jeans he found crammed in his suitcase and a white graphic shirt of The walking dead that fit snuggly on his biceps and chest. Running his hand through his damp hair, he deemed himself presentable for the public eye.

Grabbing his wallet, keys, and phone from his bedside table, he exited his apartment and went out the building, heading for his car while checking his phone.

The warm Johannesburg air and the sounds of the bustling Braamfontein filled his ears. Chatter and the sounds of hooters were the most prominent as he breathed in the life of the city.

He wasn't surprised when he saw a text from his mother asking how he was and one from Thomas his cousin/best friend/co-worker telling him he was in a bit of a pickle.

At age twenty-four, Arch was still a mother's boy and he wasn't ashamed of it. Ever since that faithful day he answered his calling, his mother has been worrying about him extra and asking about his health almost every minute of the day. He didn't mind. He understood where she was coming from.

After that incident, he was sure his cousins were going to run far away from him but was proven wrong when they continued playing with him to a point where they became his best friends and later on co-workers.

He still remembered what Thomas said to him when he woke up at the hospital, a huge grin plastered on his face when they finally told him the events that happened: