Author: N. Friedline, Word Count: 666
Featured in The Spooky Archaeological Tales: Live Stream – Halloween 2021
I walked along a wooded path, the trees twisted and gnarled by the western wind. It was deep in the continent where no ocean would ever reach and only a few scattered settlements remained. Things grew old here.
The path began to narrow, just as the villages warned. The once vibrant forest was now silent and lifeless as the path lead down to a wide stony cave. Strange offerings lay stacked on the putrid rocks, untouched by whatever god dwelled within.
Cold, misty air flowed from the mouth of the cavern into the ancient wood. Stumbling forward into the earth my outstretched hand slid along the rock wall, slick with melting ice under my touch. My palm began to sting in the biting cold and I had to pull away.
It was then my feet found the perfectly flattened bedrock that lead into the abyss. I had found what I was searching for!
Several more steps along the finely polished floor and I had reached the edge of what my eyes could see. The only sound was of my echoing footsteps as the walls receded away. The cavern seemed infinitely vast before me. I took a faithful step, and the darkness swallowed even the faint light behind me.
The cave drew me ever deeper until finally the first glimpse of a jagged alter emerged from the shadows. Dim skylights appeared from cracks in the cave ceiling and reflected on the obsidian stone like veins of lightning in a midnight sky.
At the wide base of the altarpiece, I picked up a simple string of clay beads still attached to a twisted skeleton. Rattling bones tumbled into the dark as I dawned the necklace with a large insignia amulet. I had seen this symbol days before in the small village temple where I first learned of this hallowed place.
It felt now that I was being watched from the shadows. Weather this was my own paranoia or some silent entity I could not know. I scrambled towards the center of the alter over fragmented clay pots and remains of ancient bones in tattered scraps of woven cloth.
High atop the alter sat an artifact, it seemed to catch the faintest light. The sharp edges of the rock dug into my hands as I scraped my body to the peak.
I stood upon the summit and reached for the relic now at my feet. This glazed jar embossed with an anthropomorphic symbol, the same as the one on my amulet, and filled with a misty black fluid beckoned me. I raised the heavy stone vessel to my lips and drank deeply. The ice cold liquid chilled me. I could feel it flowing down my throat and my stomach tighten. An aching frost began to spread through my body and overtake all other sensations.
It felt as though a thousand eyes were upon me now and I collapse into a frozen heap on the alter.
My mind spun beyond control and I awoke in the depths of a bottomless sea. Creatures darted through the water and tore at my flesh with frozen teeth and claws of ice. I screamed, but the pressure of the deep waters choked all sound. The waters vibrated with the swirling of thousands of these terrible creatures. My blood began to spill into the water and the creatures became furious and swarmed me with new hunger.
The amulet around my neck began to glow with an intense light and heat. The creatures illuminated in terrible forms of eyeless maw and fang. I gripped the now white hot amulet and it scorched my skin. It instantly sent me back the darkness of the cave and my frozen body atop the alter. The carved figure of the horrible sea creatures burned in my hand.
I rolled off the top the alter, spilling the liquid within the relic. Out of the bubbling pool reached a claw of ice.
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