The Pull
There were twelve of us assigned to dig at this site, spread out across different areas, each with a partner.
The location was west of Normandy, where the forests thin into open field and rock. You could still see Mount Florence from here, its shadow stretched long across the dirt by late afternoon, a quiet reminder of how old this place really was.
I got paired with Ethan, a man who looked about forty-five but felt much older. He never smiled. Not once. His face was stuck in this permanent frown, like life had given him one too many disappointments and he’d stopped hoping for better.
I kept telling him I saw something strange near the southern ridge, a shallow drop-off where the excavation grid ended. There was a curve in the land the others didn’t bother with. A faint glint. A strange pressure in the air.
“Nice eyes, kid,” he said, barely glancing up. “Pretty rocks. Let’s move on.”
So, when he left to get water, I followed the pull.
I traced the slope downward, toward the edge of the excavation grid. It wasn’t far, just a minor ledge the team had ignored. I’d seen something shine here earlier. Now, crouched beside it, I realized what it was: a shard of glass, half-buried in dust. Nothing important. Just trash.
But when I stood to leave, something else caught my attention.
A few steps to the left, part of the rock wall curved unnaturally, like it had once been whole and split under pressure. And where the stone fractured, I felt it, air. Cold. Still. And very wrong.
I stepped closer and brushed my fingers over the stone. My breath bounced back in my ears. No echo. No depth. Just a pressure shift, like something was sealed inside.
A thin gap ran through the wall’s lower edge, wide enough for a small body to slip through sideways. Just tall enough to crawl. Most would miss it. Ethan definitely had.
I hesitated.
Then I slid in.
The stone closed in around me, rough and biting. I scraped my arm on the way through. Dust filled my lungs. I nearly turned back, until I emerged into a space that should not have existed.
The chamber was cold. Undisturbed. Shafts of filtered light spilled down through fractured ceiling rock, catching dust motes suspended in stillness.
And on the far side, embedded in a wall of compressed shale and mineral bloom, something metallic waited. Only a fragment was visible, smooth, unnatural, shaped with quiet intent. It didn’t match the stone. It didn’t belong here. And yet… it had been waiting longer than anything else around it.
I reached for it. It didn’t move.
I grabbed my hand shovel and began to dig, slow, quiet, hands trembling. The wall around it shifted with every motion, but I didn’t stop.
This wasn’t a rock. It was a message. A warning. A question.
Then came the sound.
A hollow boom from above. Dust. Pebbles. The dull groan of earth remembering gravity.
I looked up, and the sky began to fall.
