This is what I'm working on while I'm having a brain fart in my other story "Our Twisted Future". Don't worry, just read the first chapter or you'll be lost. It'll get better in chapter two.
The sun rose steadily into the blue-green sky, burning down on the hot desert sands. Small buildings dotted the landscape. The white paint was peeling off of their sides and the windows were cloaked with a fine layer of dust. Everything seemed quiet except for the gentle hum of engines. No one dared to venture outside the buildings until the clouds gathering over the mountains in the north sheltered them from the scorching sun.
Three tom kats were sitting in the largest building out of the four. They all seemed rather sluggish and preferred to keep their movements to a minimum. A light gray tom sat on stool perched at a table and scoured over the blueprints laid in front of him.
"John, give it a rest will ya? If anything's down there they'll find it," the dark brown tom advised from where he sat directly underneath the only air conditioner in the building.
"It's been two months, Will. We should've found it already," John grumbled, his tail tip twitching irritably.
"What is 'it', exactly?" asked the youngest of the three, a creamy colored tom with a bobbed tail.
"It's called μετάλλευμα της ενέργειας," John muttered as he took a sip of lukewarm water from his water bottle.
"Which is…?" the young tom drawled out, hoping for a more specific answer.
"Greek for 'Mineral of Energy'," Will answered before going on to give his opinion. "I think it's BS that everything ever discovered is in either Greek or Latin or some unpronounceable language before it's in English."
"Why does it have a Greek name if it was only discovered about two months ago?" the young tom asked, his whiskers quivering.
"Why don't you ask the guy who knows everything about it and still hasn't seen an ounce of it," Will jerked his thumb at the middle-aged tom that had gone silent.
"Because everyone thinks something interesting should be named in an ancient language, Ryan," John replied and went silent once again.
"Good enough reason for me," Ryan shrugged his shoulders and reopened his magazine.
The stale silence was interrupted by the crackling voice coming over a cheap radio standing on the table. John reached for it and pressed down the button on the side.
"Could you please repeat that?" he asked and took his finger off.
"I believe you should come take a look at what we found, sir," the voice crackled before going silent.
"Did you find it?" John suddenly jumped to life, the sparkle returning to his green eyes.
"I'm not quite sure what we found…..the stone sure are shiny….." the voice became clearer by the second. "Boy, I don't think these radios have ever sounded this good. But there's something else you need to see too."
"I think you've found it James, we'll be right down." John attached the radio to his belt and snatched up his yellow hard hat before disappearing into the sweltering heat outside.
Will and Ryan followed on his tail and the three arrived at the only lift in a matter of seconds. The lift was rustic looking due to the constant sandstorms even though it was barely older than two months. Will was the only one out of the three allowed to operate it and one of the only kats on site that knew how to handle the machine when it got stuck midway down.
"Going down," Will called as he shoved a lever down.
The machinery shuddered and groaned before lowering down the small platform into the shaft. Dirt and sand sprinkled down on the three as the platform moved ever so slowly down towards the most recent tunnel where the miners were located.
John seemed too lost in his own thoughts to notice when a small rock bounced off of his hard hat and just about clocked Ryan if he hadn't moved out of the way so quickly. The youngest tom had an excited twinkle in his gray eyes but at the same time the fur along his neck stood on end. He had never been down in the tunnels before.
"What does this mineral look like?" Ryan turned to John. When he got no answer he turned towards Will.
"I have no idea, kid. The miners will be the first to have seen it," Will shrugged his shoulders and leaned on one of the support beams of the platform.
"Then how did anyone know it was down here?" Ryan asked as he flicked on his headlamp when the dark become uncomfortable.
"Some fancy detecting machine used for detecting energy such as created by animals, water, and whatever else picked a massive amount of energy radiating from this area." Will replied as he shone his light on the young tom's face. His creamy fur was matted down with sweat and his eyes were just slits. "Hey, calm down. Nothing bad ever happened down here. Not one cave in or missing miner. No mutated scorpions either, just scratches and bruises."
Ryan nodded his head and edged closer to John, who was completely blank until there was a thud. Will shoved on the flimsy door and it sprung open into the poorly lit tunnel. The old tom was first followed closely by John then Ryan.
"James, we're in the main tunnel, where are you?" John spoke quietly into the radio.
"I can see your headlamps," the voice on the other end said as clear as day.
John clipped his radio to his belt again and quickened his pace. He was met by a group of five miners, all wearing yellow hard hats. One had a jackhammer in her hands, two had shovels, and the other two had pickaxes.
"Where is it?" John asked.
"Over there. Didn't want to touch, might get radiated or somethin'," James said and pointed towards a near wall, dirt falling from his already dark gray-brown fur.
"If this stuff was radioactive you'd already be dead by now, James," Will punched the tom in the shoulder as he walked past.
"You know darn well that I dropped out after eighth grade, how was I supposed to know?" James questioned as he followed the relatively still clean trio to the wall.
"Will you look at that?" John pulled a dirt covered stone from the solid rock face and brushed it off. He removed his helmet and held the headlamp up to the stone.
It shimmered a tranquil almost clear blue-green. There was no cleavage to it and absolutely no scratches. John pulled a chain necklace from around his neck. In the center of a gold frame a small diamond sat. He gently rubbed a sharp edge of the new stone against his diamond.
"Good Lord, it can scratch diamond," John whispered as he let his necklace fall back around his neck. When he looked up his smile soon diminished when he saw the look of unease on James's face. "What was that other thing you needed to show me?"
James signaled for the three to follow him as he climbed down a sturdy ladder onto a lower level of the tunnel. There was the smooth sound of water running over stones it had smoothed down.
"Is there an underground stream?" John furrowed his brows. He didn't remember anything about a stream on all of the maps he's spent hours going over.
"Yep," James slowed down to a halt then pointed towards an area close to the water. "Look at that."
And they looked with pure fascination in their eyes. There was more of the precious mineral strewn on the ground but what was next to and on top of the stones was what was interesting. White bones were curled around a group of the stones protectively.
"What is it?" John walked closer, only curios and showing no signs of fear. "Ryan, you studied ancient mammals, didn't you?"
"For eight years," the young tom replied quietly.
"Come here and tell us if this is what I think it is," John pointed to the rather large white bones as the young tom tiptoed over.
Ryan kneeled down by the bones, specifically the skull. He removed his dirt covered glasses and studied the shape, size, and deterioration of the bones. The skull was massive, from a large predator. The teeth were almost a dead give away to the mystery of the species of the bones.
"I'd say it was probably a Smilodon," Ryan stood up and rubbed his glasses on his moderately clean shirt. He glanced back at the others and received dumbfounded looks. "A saber-tooth cat."
"That is what I suspected," John said then smiled. "So not only have we found the world's currently only stash of Eve but also a skeleton that can be donated to the museum."
"What is 'Eve'?" James asked as he furrowed his brows.
"That's what we're going to call the mineral for now until it is properly named," John answered.
"What about that saber cat over there?" James gestured with a heavily gloved paw to the bones. "That thing didn't just appear there when the dirt and rock fell away. It'd be in pieces and scattered like the chunks of Eve. That thing died trying to protect those stones."
"Perhaps a saber wondered down here in the past and became trapped. It could've possibly lain down on the Eve as nest or could've just collapsed there from starvation." John reasoned.
"Two reasons wrong with those theories," a burly she-kat spoke for the first time. She leaned up against her jackhammer as she continued, "Firstly, what creature in its right mind would use pointy rocks as a nest?"
"They're minerals, different from rocks," John corrected lightly.
"Secondly," the she-kat plowed ahead, "if it just died there it'd either be in a more spread out position or when it dried up the ligaments in its back would've pulled its head towards its tail."
"She's right," Ryan peeped and backed down when John glared at him.
"It doesn't really matter right now," John waved his hand dismissively. "We'll let the museum deal with that part and right now we'll deal with the Eve."
It'll get more exciting and start making sense in chapter two! Promise. Thanks for reading and remember to R&R! Makes me want to write more! :)