ECHOES IN THE DARKNESS:
OPERATION LUNAR
(NOTE: I do not own the characters in this story.)
The time had finally come to step into the darkness. With only the light from the three lit candles, we shifted rocks and boulders aside, making the gap in the stone rubble wall bigger. It was now big enough to let two grown men step through easily. We dusted off our sore, tired hands and retrieved the lamps sitting on the dusty floor.
The expedition leader, Lieutenant Noin poked me lightly on the shoulder.
'You first, Maxwell'
I nodded slightly and took a deep breath. The size of the entrance wasn't large enough for fresh air to enter, so stale, dry air lingered about. I stepped forward and waved my lantern about. The soft glow of light lit up the floor enough for me to guide my way. The rest of the room was still so large by the look of it that only the very faintest sliver of light shone on the walls. It wasn't nearly enough to make out any kind of detailing on them.
Stopping and turning back I noticed Noin and the remainder of the team perched in the entrance. Without a moments hesitation she reluctantly said out loud,
'Can you see anything?'
I sighed, not understanding what she asked.
'What did you say!?' I accidentally snapped, and the entire chamber echoed with my voice.
The group of young men flinched slightly and I looked up to see dust falling slowly from the ceiling above me.
I brushed myself off and held the candle upward to examine the roof. It wasn't visible with this light either.
"This tomb must be huge" I thought to myself.
Lieutenant Noin stepped over the stone barrier and made her way over to me, followed closely by her expedition director, Quatre.
'You should learn to keep your bloody voice down, Maxwell. These chambers are hundreds of years old' She explained, squinting to see through the light, 'You never know, it might collapse at any time, and we don't what that to happen. Otherwise Operation Lunar is screwed, got it?'
I nodded carefully again and Quatre creeped over to one of the walls, the still faint light guiding him. Lieutenant Noin headed to the other side of the room. Through the darkness they seemed to walk quite a distance from me, reinforcing my point that this was a very big room. Quatre and Noin waved their lanterns over the dusty, white stone walls, revealing some kind of illustrations which were hard to see from where I was.
I strode willingly across the floor towards it instead and sighed with amazement when I saw the carvings. There were pictures of what looked an awful lot like a sun and moon symbol. Underneath this were dozens of people bowing before them as if they were god like.
'It's like these are the people of the moon, and the sun. This must be it' Quatre pointed out rather captain obviously.
'Really…I could have never guessed, Quatre…' I replied sarcastically, and he pouted.
I looked over the wall once more and found some ancient writing like intertwined cursive, scrawled in a black colour.
'Noin!' I said quietly, stepping lightly over to her in a hurry, 'Come on! Check out this weird writing!'
The Lieutenant's eyes widened and she hurried over quickly. She looked it over, a feeling of wild amazement on her face.
'Amazing, Maxwell! Good job!' She cried silently, touching the writing ever so carefully with her finger.
Her eyes moved slowly across the writing on the wall, and she followed it along, reaching the deeper, darker end of the tomb. It continued around onto a back wall and finished, intertwining with a large statue of a sun and moon, like the carvings on the wall. I glanced over my shoulder to the rest of the group, who were huddled in the entrance, the tiny glowing of the lantern being the only thing proving that they were still there. Knowing Heero, Wufei and Trowa's behaviour, I had expected them to have shot off by now.
I turned back and found Noin attempting to climb the statue. Tiny pellets of rubble fell from the eroded edges as she tripped over something in the middle. I came on over and once more as always waved the lantern over it. It was a shallow marble bowl, filled to the brim with some sort of liquid. I leant down to smell it.
'What is it?' Lieutenant Noin asked politely.
'I dunno, but by the looks of it, it's some sort of liquid squeezed from a plant. Could be poisonous, wait let me see…'
I pulled the glass shell from the lantern and motioned for my leader to stand back. The minute the small flame touched the liquid, it flared up with a giant gust of flames. I jumped backwards in fright, and watched closely as a single rope dangling from the ceiling caught the flame and carried it upward. Accidentally, the glass shell from the lantern slipped out of my hand and smashed to the floor, but still I didn't take my eyes off the flames, which were now burning out a hole in the ceiling which was made out of thick animal skins.
As we stood in awe the flames receded, and the bright light of the sun outside shone through, blinding myself and the rest of my team.
I rubbed my eyes and glanced around as the chamber finally came into clear view. Lieutenant Noin stumbled down from the statue, now squinting from the light. The three of us paced around each other, admiring the hard work that these people had put into the room. The rest of the group who were outside, came waddling in with a dumb-struck look on their faces. Heero mumbled something inappropriate and rubbed his head.
'This place is bloody huge!' He continued.
I turned to him and smiled. The room was at least one hundred and fifty meters wide by five hundred meters deep. It was so big that there and then I knew I was right all along. Operation Lunar proved that people really did live on the moon and sun. That's why they worship them. For the space and living they provided them.