I shifted into its fringes, treating it as an archeological find, as I rested from our journey there, and long day, and I curiously watched Marple searching, and wondered what he expected to find there anyway.
At the front an object came into my sight and I saw that a massive black boulder had fallen down behind the tunnel entrance, across the front, where the tunnel would have continued, and I wondered if it had stopped us reaching our real destination, as I and Oswald could not see anything there, and all there was there was the cavity, and yet Marple continued searching it, and looking at his treasure map.
He approached massive the black boulder blocking the entrance, and felt its smoothness with his fingertips, through thick webs and dirt, and looked up startled, and removed his hands, and started examining it, and placed his hands over its surface and traced its perfect shape, measuring it, and he stepped back, and saw something in the dirt below, and started brushing the dirt away from it.
To our surprise he gradually revealed an open-mouthed skeleton with a rusted knife embedded in its chest.
We went over to it and examined it, and discussed what age it could be, and Marple tried to get information about the person, and he searched the remains of the clothing of the man, but nothing was there except pieces of rope where he had been tied.
To me it looked like where devil worship or witchcraft could have taken place.
“Someone gave a human sacrifice here to something!” Marple stated, considering what had happened.
I moved back checking it all in more detail, and I saw its hideous agonized face more, covered in dirt – where the person had hideously died with his mouth open in pain, and had remained that way for centuries.
Marple continued brushing away thick dirt from it and about it, while some crumbling bits of gray rot fell off the skeleton.
I grasped its hideous outline, and I stepped back wondering what the place was, and why it was there, and why everything I expected now kept turning out differently.
We checked everything we could in the cavity and found little, and a large boulder against a side wall, which looked mysterious, and out of place.
Eventually we started resting, and I rested near the skeleton, after making some close examinations of it, and I realized that if the large black boulder in front of it had fallen down and blocked the tunnel ahead that something could be behind it, and I started wondering what the hell could be there, and why they had been making human sacrifices.
Epilogue
The Thing from Beyond Reality
Gigantic eruptions blasted out everywhere, woke us from our sleep, in unadulterated horror, with such force that with my eyes shut I thought I was in some form of early state of death.
When I opened my eyes I saw nothing but blinding light, and energy exploding out everywhere, threatening to do damage to the physical universe, and for some reason I imagined space and time going out for light years, going across vast reaches of space, and I wondered what the hell it was!
Echoes of our last conversations and occurrences, before we had gone to sleep, went through my mind as I tried to grasp what happened, and as I did my eyes altered to the unadulterated dazzling light, and I wondered where the hell the cave and cavity had gone, and I felt the ground beneath me with my feet, and I considered what could have happened, and looked about for my companion explorers, and saw their vague shapes further out.
The vast powers surrounding us were staggering and I wondered how we could escape alive, as surely we were still underground somewhere, and I started searching everywhere I could see, and saw that the cave and cavity had vanished, and all about me I realized I was surrounded by strange energy formations, energy formation, and I watched its energy in vast complex formations doing strange things, and some regions altering to other formations, as though reforming, and I watched Marple and Oswald examining it.
Away in the distance I incredibly saw a cavity wall, and I saw it going around us, which I measured it at around four miles away, going across our front, and the roof a few hundred feet above.
I realized if I was going to die that I was best being on my own, and having the others away at a distance, and I wondered if I would get what we were up against, and what we were actually investigating, and what had just happened.
After a long time I realized it had a definite state, and had been in another state, and it was close to completion, and I was surprised to see we were actually at its edge, with Marple and Oswald at two different positions at my side, and I tried to realize what it now was.
It had formed a perfect energy formation of some sort, clearly of transcendent origins, and pulsated in the center of it and the cavity, and I examined the rim of the cavity all round me and saw that it held, and never looked as though it would collapse.
I sensed something would happen and I saw it happen and an immense whirlpool of energy lines magically shifting around it, and I studied it for a long time fascinated and realized that it had no proper presence in this universe and was some form of force formation, perhaps going through many dimensions, and I saw signs of a vortex within it, and its energy patterns!
I suddenly realized the black boulder that had been blocking the cavity had been its edge, and subconscious region, in the dormant formation it had taken, and it had not actually been solid, and made of matter, and it had mixed rock atoms within it and over its edge to hide itself, and that it as the black boulder had actually stretched out for nearly four miles, under central London, and the cavity had been built in front of it, which I looked about behind me and saw, in the cavity wall there, and for some reason I realized I had actually activated it.
I was left staggered and recalled going to sleep beside it, and recalled touching it once and feeling a strange energy from it, and pulling away my hand, and I realized my touching it had done something and activated it.
I realized that I had seen it as the rock formation and a vague line in the last scan the scientists had taken in the cavity above, and that they had described it as something else.
I realized something in me had activated it, and revived it, and I sensed its communications with it, and I gasped at the vast complexity of it, and that it was exchanging information, and suddenly I realized it was in communication with the thing we had discovered under the building at Battlefield Road, which was in the basement in the museum, and I realized it had been part of it, and the lost section of it, which it had used for exploration, and it had been unable to leave the universe without it, and it had split itself into two, and the other half was far smaller than it in this universe, and it had put part of itself in me with the aim of locating it, and I realized that both parts of it had been trapped there, unable to do anything, and had been too far apart to detect each other in the state they had been in.
I also realized it had created a subconscious part of it, when it had gone dormant, and that it had created it to protect it and awaken it if it detected its other half, and it had been it that created the Santa and other formations, in its weakened state, from being activating and deactivating over vast amounts of time, and I realized it had been activated by McMurdo in the cavity at the underground railway line, and had been in its weakened state after being there for so long, and had been almost crazy, and had been protecting it, and was stopping people discovering it, and scaring them away.
In the past it attempted to discover what it needed and let people build tunnels, and it had created tunnels and cavities, and many had later been hidden or destroyed.
I realized that it had found a way to leave the universe to where it had come from, but it had never been able to go through with its plan, and I was left staggered at the sheer power and forces of it, and magnitude, and I realized it had even created humans to achieve its goal, from other species, and it had genetically altered them to advance.
It had originally been unable to even define what existed in this universe, and its first attempts at making and altering species were left in the cavity McMurdo un
covered, in suspended states, and many had been found on other worlds, in the depths of the universe, and it had determined humans would progress far enough to give it what it wanted, to complete its mission, and its subconscious state had helped humans progress.
It had detected humans creating plutonium atomic bombs and had realized they had enough power for it to leave the universe!
I recalled two of the scientists secretively talking about the atomic bombs, and the sheer power of them, and I recalled the army officer mention there had been a break in at their secret military bases, and that something had been taken, and I was sure they might have traced something to there, as its Santa entity had been detected being transmitted under the buildings, and it had later been traced to the cavity region.
I was left staggered by everything and at its real history, and that it had been trying to survive in this universe, and wanted to someday escape from its confines, and I was sure I sensed it react as it prepared itself to leave, as though it had thought of leaving, and escaping from its imprisonment and eventual destruction, and I thought of where it came from and I realized that I still never had a clue what was there and where it was.
Everything around me seemed to explode with energy and alter, reviving it, putting life back into it, and it pulsated furiously with more energy than it ever had since it arrived, and appeared on this desolate world, with its strange existence.
It was something out of a mind-bending dream, altering its formations, as it completed its mission, and I felt energy from it blast through my body, and everything transformed, and it vanished, leaving emptiness, blackness, and Marple and Oswald turned on their lights, and we stood mystified in the massive empty cavity.
I eventually looked for our exit and checked the tunnel, where we had been, where the small cavity we slept in had been, and saw something shine near it.
When I was about to enter the tunnel, with Marple and Oswald behind me, as we went silently back up to the surface, I spotted something strange hidden in the darkness there, and after careful and close examinations I realized it was large black wooden chests, heaped in a pile on top of one another, and I rushed over and crouched down in front of it, and held one, which was partly open, where I had seen the shine appear.
Again something shined in its dark interior, and I spotted Marple and Oswald approaching, and their torches shine from it, and I saw them looking startled, coming to a halt, and looking about their front, more astonished than I had seen them, with them trying to control themselves, and I knew this was the real treasure, and it belonged to us this time!
The treasure room had been buried away behind part of the cavity wall all along, and I recalled seeing a large boulder over where the entrance must have been, at the bottom of the wall.
Most of it once belonged to ancient kings, who bestowed the treasures to it, and I knew it when I threw open the chest lid, and found colossal royal crowns and jewelry, and where I had seen the shine there was an ancient gold Roman cup, embedded with large diamonds, and I watched the torches directly shine on it, and its gold radiance explode out, with bright white sparkles.
Part III
Novel 3
The Lost Treasure Map 5
V Bertolaccini
Prologue
The Martian Discovery
Loud explosions and blinding flashes from the crash haunted Anders as he watched the remains of his rocket vehicle burn out and vanish into the dark desolate Martian night.
The vehicle had come down to the surface of Mars too fast and the two astronauts had hardly been able to land manually in the darkness, and they had just escaped as the vehicle had started exploding, and sat at different places against piles of rocks, watching its fuel burn away furiously, and he wondered how long their oxygen would last.
He felt painful bruises covering his entire body and checked his oxygen supply again, and checked for any escaping air in his spacesuit, while watching Robertson, the scientist, repair a hole in his with a small repair kit from his suit.
He realized that they had to find another way of landing on Mars, and that it was far too dangerous! Although it had been their fault in carrying out the unscheduled ludicrous landing, in search of wealth! They had gambled and had lost!
Robertson claimed incredible diamonds of immense value were on the surface, in the unexplored region of the south pole, and they had made a great mistake in landing in the dark, as it had been their only real opportunity to carry it out without being caught, and they would not know of them being out there as they had not used any communications to the space stations and Martian ground bases, and there were no satellites overhead!
Mars was not like what he had imagined it and it now felt like he was on a world in another solar system buried away in the deep depths of the universe as he stared out into the depths of space, in the dark night sky, and at what seemed to look like the furthest stars of the universe, and he watched them wondering what horrors existed there, realizing what they had encountered there, which had also made them crash!
There were billion of light years of stars out there and he gasped just thinking what could be on the nearest stars, and they had just had an encounter on Earth’s nearest world.
The world about him seemed a flat stretch of ground full of nothing but space dust and piles of rocks, with no real atmosphere, resembling areas on Earth’s moon in the dark, and some large asteroids had clearly hit areas nearby.
He wondered if their crash remained undetected and unregistered by them if their skeletons would be found lying there by future astronauts, and he considered if such an occurrence could really happen, over a long time, and if he could end up in a museum back on the Earth, or if his ghost would be trapped there forever on the desolate lonely planet!
The last burning region of the rocket was a sphere of light floating like a ghost in the darkness, and he realized that something had been there, right there on Mars, and he had telepathically felt its presence!
A silent roar vibrated through the ground and he expected a sudden explosion, and he thought of it as a tremor from some fault line, and a blur of light swirled in the blackness from an area of the space vehicle and he realized it was the last of the fuel dwindling away.
Memories of its strange sounds and lights sent sensations through his body and he realized how close to death he had been!
The world seemed unique but there were trillions like it through the unexplored galaxy.
He recollected a full vision of what could have attacked them and he felt his blood explode through his veins, and he realized how little oxygen he had as he was starting to feel like fainting!
A dull yellow and red radiance gleamed from the remains of the rocket and illuminated his shadow casting a crimson shadow like a hideous devilish figure, with peculiar features, and he thought of it as what had attacked the vehicle.
He glared unmoving at the silhouette in shock, studying it, almost hoping it would come alive and answer what it was.
The blackness was so deep and vivid as the light and flames vanished completely, and the thing there felt so real, and alive, he felt deep horror – and he thought of it as they had first discovered it up in space – and he was surprised that he started to see something in the blackness, and he realized that he just wanted to die, and its glowing shape floated towards him, and he watched Robertson react to it.
For an instant it altered formation and he wondered what the hell it was! Where the hell had it come from? What was it doing there in such a desolate place?
It lunged over Robertson first, like the grim reaper, taking his soul, and he watched him go lifeless, fall over, and collapse, and it moved to him, with its black shadow shape shifting over the ground, and he felt its vibrations go through the rock, and he sensed its powers, and he clung to jagged black rocks and its swirling mist shifted over him, and shifting outlines magically formed about him, and he realized how painful death would be from slow oxygen starvation, and he welcomed death, and as he did h
e realized it was Christmas and that the star he was gazing at was really the Earth.
I
The Martian Discovery
Chapter 1
The Antarctica Encounter
Something startled Commander Cronenberg and he struggled to grasp what and focused on the deformed sun, as it went below the Martian horizon at the side of the shuttle, and he gasped as he watched the golden landscape below grow dark!
They had to land! Soon! Surely they should not take the risk continuing to fly to their destination at night! The shuttles were new and recently completed and they were trying it out for the first time, and testing it for the first time over Mars!
Something staggered him about the mission and he sensed something was going to occur, and had seen it approaching, edging its way towards him, which he knew he could not avoid! He had to go through with it! He believed he could survive if he did everything he could and avoided any deadly mistakes!
It was Mars! It was the new dangers there! It was exploring where nobody had been, and the great deadly environment and hidden dangers! The region they were in was the least explored!
They were approaching the south pole, the legendary Martian Antarctica, and he now sensed there was something strange there! Something he had not encountered before! Something that could only exist in such a place, in such a place, and in the depths of space, which might not be able exist on the Earth, and it gave him chilling and peculiar sensations, but he could not grasp what!
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