Chapter 1

Do you know the story of Icarus? The Greek legend of where he and his father attempted to escape from Crete by means of wings that his father constructed from feathers and wax. Icarus's father warns him, asking that he fly neither too low nor too high, so the sea's dampness would not clog his wings or the sun's heat melt them. Icarus ignored his father's instructions not to fly too close to the sun, where upon the wax in his wings melted and he fell into the sea.

That is kind of like my story, even though it is nowhere near over yet, I got to arrogant and curious for my own good and now I'm the one falling.

Flashback

A short and muscular girl no older then sixteen with long dirty blonde hair, brown eyes, and a tan complexion was standing at the top of a circular opening in the earth. She was grinning manically while strapping herself into free climbing equipment. She dusted her hands with chalk and knocked her studded shoes off each other.

"Oh… this is going to be so fun, it would better to go solo though." She muttered to herself as she shot a glare to the tall, willowy, brunette younger girl beside her. Said girl huffed darkly.

"Don't make me push you off sister dearest." She muttered while she also tied herself up to a support anchor.

The older one laughed loudly and held up a section of heavy duty rope that tied them up together. "We'd be going together you know." They both laughed together and turned to one another. "A necessary sacrifice." They both said at the same time.

They smiled at each other. "Ma said that the locals' siting of these ruins and remains were on the eastern side, so that should be right underneath us." The older one said as she went over something in a notebook.

"Taylor why can't we ever go on normal summer breaks, like to the beach instead of exploring possible ancient remains in the Cradle of Life? I hate the African heat, man what a drag…" The younger sister complained depressed like.

"Well Steph there are multiple reasons, our parents are archeologists and I love this stuff. So being the youngest, which means in the family food chain, you get no say." Taylor said false-mockingly.

"Oh don't lie you ass, you love chemistry and biology much more then this ancient garbage." Steph sniped back as she dusted her hands with chalk.

"Oh shush let's get going so we can at least get back before noon. It's not that bad of a drop, maybe take an hour…" Taylor said dismissively as she set up a counter weight. Steph practically sweat dropped at this.

"Yo you need to go first because if you fall I'll be able to hold you up at least." Steph slowly set herself over the edge of the fissure. "Yeah, yeah oh strong one." She mumbled but didn't argue because it was true.

Taylor descended after her, crawling down like a monkey. It was a long and tedious climb down this awkward hole. And it did take about an hour, much to Taylor's smugness.

They caught site of the strange stone structure that the locals said that were nearby the suspicious bones. Sitting there underground in a cave looked like a stone house-like cube. It was perfectly square with no chisel marks or any indication it was made by even advanced humans let alone primitive. It had a doorway and strange windows.

Taylor lit up an additional lantern to add to her head light and inspected it closer. It wasn't that big just enough to fit half the cavern they entered, it fit one person and then some.

Stephanie shuffled awkwardly behind her and grabbed her sister's hand. "I don't think this is natural at all, I feel like we shouldn't be here Tay."

Taylor squeezed her hand and let go. "This is amazing! This house thing looks like it wasn't even crafted by human tools! So if you're uncomfortable you should stay here and wait because I'm going in"

"No way are you leaving me here alone you jerk, plus I kind of want to see inside." They nodded at one another and slowly approached the door. Inside looked strange, it looked like a… home? There were journals on a stone table with candles, a stone bookshelf with more stuff, and in the middle was a stone pedestal with something on it.

Taylor moved to look at the pedestal. Stephanie grabbed her and jerked her back sharply. "What the hell is this circle thing on the ground? It looks like a satanic ritual..."

There was a strange circle with things that looked like planetary symbols or something and the main circle crossed other circles, triangles, and an octagon. Taylor took out a notebook and drew it as best as she could and wrote down the strange words.

Stephanie looked appalled. "Did you write down that satanic stuff in your book? Do you want to go to hell? Because that's how you get cursed there."

Taylor gave her a dry look. "We are in the middle of Africa and heavens know how deep underground in a creepy shack and you're worried about the devil. This is creepy but not satanic. I don't know what this is." She looked back at the ground.

"Local climbers said there was strange stuff down here but man this is some next level shit right here." Taylor continued as she inspected around the circle more closely.

"We know it's not that ancient because the journals and stuff but this is really deep underground and discovered recently. Also how the hell did someone carve this freaking devil shack?" Stephanie exclaimed exasperated.

"This shack was defiantly not carved not with how smooth the stone is. I don't understand why the hell this is here but man I want to see the body those guys said they saw." Taylor crossed the room, going around the ritual thing and picked up one of the journals. She opened and skimmed through the pages quickly.

Steph watched her sisters face get more and more freaked out. "What the hell are you reading?" she asked afraid.

"This guy was a freaking nut job, He's going on about alchemy and some gate of truth and being stuck on the wrong side of it and something called human transmutation. Which, get a load of this, is said to bring people back to life. Also something about the philosopher's stone." She frowned hard. "These are all dated around the late 1800s. What the hell is this place?" She put the journal and all its few brethren from the desk into her bag and walked over to the bookshelf.

"Wait the philosopher's stone, like turn stuff to gold, elixir of life, Harry Potter kind?" Steph asked freaked out. Taylor shrugged and made a crazy gesture.

Taylor then picked up the big textbook from the bookshelf and blew dust off it. It read 'Fundamentals of Alchemy'. She raised an eyebrow and opened it to the first page and started to read. Stephanie joined her as she picked up another book. Time flew by until Taylor finished studying her text book deeply. Stephanie was almost done so Taylor left her to finish the book.

Taylor grabbed all the books that she found interesting and could fit, into her bag and then the rest into an extra one that she brought for situations like this; not that this was even remotely normal. The book shelf was now empty.

"Hey Steph," Steph hummed in acknowledgement. "Stay here and don't walk into the circle or anything, it has something to do with this crazy guy's alchemy stuff. I think it is a transmutation circle or whatever the book said alchemy needed." Taylor finished looking suspiciously at the now identified transmutation circle.

Taylor walked out of the strange stone shack and inspected it again. She walked around the cavern more focused and found more crazy circles all over the place. Some looked scratched out vigorously and were all drawn in chalk unlike the one inside which she concluded was probably blood.

Taylor checked her watch, which blared a carbon green 2:37 pm at her. She sighed softly, they'd been down here for hours but still had time.

She turned a corner of the cave and came to a stop quickly. There slumped on the ground was a skeleton, who still had some cartilage on it. The male it used to be was wearing very out of date clothing corresponding with the dates in the journal. Why did this skeleton still have cartilage if it's been here since the 1800s?

"Hey Steph I found our crazy guy!" She yelled loudly back in the direction of the hut. The skeleton was also sitting in a crazy transmutation circle clearly made of blood…

Steph rounded the corner quickly but wouldn't cross into the circle. "Taylor get out of the devil transmutation blood circle!" She said harshly. Taylor stood up and did a little dance in the middle of it.

"Steph chill out this alchemy stuff isn't real this guy was crazy and delusional." She said simply. She turned back and inspected the body. She found a tarnished silver pocket watch with a weird animal thing on it, some old chalk, another journal, and that this guy's left hand was some strange metal prosthetic hand.

She picked up the hand and the rest of the arm went with it and fell off the body. Taylor jumped up and away quickly as she screeched lightly. Stephanie was laughing behind her so Taylor gave her a dirty look.

She went back to the hand and inspected it. "Steph this is some insane metal work no way this was available in the 1800s. This body isn't fully decomposed of cartilage either." Taylor took more notes down in her notebook and roughly sketched the weird metal hand from different angles.

She pulled out a small screwdriver from her bag and started to detach the metal from bone. Once the hand was detached from the arm Taylor took it as she left the body.

Steph practically died. "Taylor you just stole some dead guys hand, you grave robbed!" Taylor waved the hand, which was heavy, in Steph's face freaking her out. "Isn't that all archeology is though?"

Taylor inspected the circle the guy was in and concluded it was the same, except messily, as the one inside. "I think he either starved or dehydrated to death." She stated flatly as she read through the journal she found on the body. "Which makes no sense because you die of dehydration in about three days and it would of taken a long time to make that shack however he did it." Taylor stated confused.

"Well do you think it was alchemy?" Stephanie asked sheepishly as Taylor gave her a dry look. "Here me out, you said there was no way that the shack was man or tool made right? And what I read about alchemy you with the reconstruction and deconstruction stuff with that equivalent exchange thing, might be a theory." Steph concluded.

"So basically that guy got here and did this from alchemy? I'll take that as a theory but it is highly improbable." Taylor concluded.

"Well those books talk about countries and stuff that don't exist and they should have rotted by now if it has been down here in this dank cave since the 1800s, maybe something did happen with that truth gate. Ohhhh maybe he came from another world and died here!" Steph exclaimed.

Taylor pinched the bridge of her nose and walked by her sister towards the house completely ignoring her. "That's crazy, let's check out that thing we left on the pedestal." Taylor and Steph traveled back into the hut and towards the pedestal with what was now seen as a warped red stone.

Steph hesitated going into the circle but followed anyway. "What the hell is this some cruddy red marble?" Taylor inspected it but never touched it because, even though it didn't show, this place was creeping her out but she was too curious for her own good.

"Maybe it's the philosopher's stone?" Steph offered meekly. Taylor nodded at her agreeing, the old resident of this crazy shack probably thought it was too. Whether or not it truly is, Taylor had her doubts.

She to out her notebook again and sketched the red marble gem… thing. She added a side note describing colour, size, shape, imperfections, and etcetera.

She then picked it up lightly and all hell broke loose. The circle came to life in a red light and Steph started screaming. Taylor wanted to drop the stone and run but went with her instincts and clutched the stone harder as she grabbed Steph's and harshly too.

She knew they couldn't get away from this as a big eye opened from circle on the ground. They were in the middle of it both terrified as this giant eye looked at them from bellow. Then it closed and this great black gate erupted in front of them with strange designs that Taylor recognized as some form of periodic table except much more in depth and branching into things she didn't understand.

She was in a terrified but awed state of it but the doors opened and it quickly changed to just pure terror. She held her sister's hand tighter and watched as the blackness inside the gate became corporal hands and eyes. Stephanie was crying heavily as Taylor was frozen as the hands started to drag her to the gate. Where the hands attached to disturbed children of darkness. The last thing Taylor remembered was her sister's screaming mixing with her own as they met the same fate and the sheer mind numbing pain.

Then the gate shut and they disappeared.