by Dan Henk
The ground around the pyramid seems oddly luminous, the smog losing none of its substance as I draw closer. Mammoth double staircases ascend, rising up in tandem toward the peak. Ensconced within the shadows between is a gaping hole. Its ragged edges don’t look natural. It was probably an improvised portal created by looters. Scanning the premises, I run my fingers along the ground in search of wood. A fallen branch, some sticks and leaves, anything to make a torch. Most of the scraps I unearth are rotten or moist, buried in the hazy soup and crumbling as I uproot them. I’ll have better luck outside.
Wandering back out, I feel lighter, like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders. Strange, I didn’t feel anything going in. I was so intent on the pyramid, I might not have noticed. It’s probably just superstition, some fleeting trace of my old body.
The mist isn’t so thick at the edge of the hill, and the overhanging trees host plenty of flammable debris. Making a small pile of twigs and leaves, I start a fire. I let it burn for a few minutes, building up in intensity, then sink the edge of a branch into the embers. Giving the wood a minute to catch, I pull out my makeshift torch and head back.
I keep my senses more focused this time, trained on any foreign sensation. As I walk through the stone walls, I feel a definite pressure, a slowly accumulating weight on my shoulders. Reaching the pyramid, I venture into the inky blackness with torch outstretched. Its helps that I have virtual night vision. Stooping slightly as I enter, a nest of cobwebs paws at my face, the gossamer strands constricting into a silky net. Something crawls on my arm, and I shake it violently. A giant, yellow and black spider flies off, breaking the plunge with a twist of its feet and scampering away.
I venture farther in, a damp humidity clinging to my skin. The yellow torchlight flickers off the rough-hewn stone walls, illuminating very little. The passage narrows, the stacked rock curving inward until it dead ends in a collapsed pile of boulders and sand. Jamming the end of my torch into a small crevice on the wall, I fall to my knees and begin scooping away rock. I feel like a mole on autopilot, streams of rock and dirt flying backwards in synchronized motion. A break in the blockade, and cool air wafts through a small hole. Delving my hand into the aperture, I grip the other side and pull, a large cluster of rock and sand flying free. Clawing violently, I widen the hole into a small portal. Edging out and standing upright, I pull the torch out of the wall and hold it up. Beyond the frame of rock a stunted corridor extends into the shadow, its ultimate destination lost in the blackness. My favorite: small spaces with no light. Even my new apparent invincibility doesn’t negate my claustrophobia.
Ducking low, I venture into the tunnel. Crawling on my hands and knees, the torch extended in front of me, I inch forward. This reminds me of exploring sewage pipes as a kid, rolling forward with my belly on my skateboard, barely able to turn. Only I’m not in my backyard, I’m in some ancient ruin in a foreign country, buried under tons of rock, and with only a makeshift torch. The fit is tighter with my adult size, my shoulders and back constantly brushing against the ceiling, and the feeling of confinement is overpowering. I can’t even turn around and would have to wriggle backwards. I don’t even want to think about a collapse. I don’t know if I could tunnel out of here under that much weight, and few things are as terrifying as being stuck for an eternity in the dark.
The walls and ceilings are composed of yellow brick—strange in that I didn’t think the Mayans had developed brick—and the ground is hard-packed dirt. So hard packed, in fact, that my movement seems to kick up almost no dust. I have a bad feeling about this.
I crawl for what might be an hour, or might be ten minutes, when the path ahead of me disappears, dropping down into a deep hole. The passage continues beyond it, but the hole is too wide to cross. Something must lie below, as a cool draft wafts out. I snake to the edge and peer down, holding my torch as high as the low ceiling will allow. Nothing... just the void as far as I can see. My twisting about creates a slight echo. It’s practically inaudible, but my keen hearing picks it up. The space must be huge. Then I notice something strange. The dirt floor I’m on extends only an inch or so down the pit before the sides become buttressed by rock. Manmade rock, cut like large bricks, and not unlike the stones that compose this tunnel. The edges aren’t uniform. This is probably a breach and my floor tops an underground chamber. I reach over to my left, dig my fingers in between bricks, and pry out a chunk of stone. I turn and drop it into the hole. A low whistling is followed by a loud clatter. The chamber probably isn’t that deep, but I don’t want to simply drop down into the unknown. It’s a pain in the ass, but I should inch out backwards and find a thick vine or something to act as a rope.
A discomforting creak is followed by a deepening grumble, and the floor beneath me collapses. I try to spin in midair, but the fall is too short, and I crash shoulder first into the ground. As I start to raise my head I’m bombarded by an avalanche of falling brick. Were I human, my skull would have been crushed.
Dusting aside the debris, I scan the premises. There’s dim illumination. I look down and notice a failing glow emanating from my fallen torch. Gently picking it up, I fan it softly with my hand. The currents bite in, and the flame grows. In the amplified light, I can see that I’m in a small chamber. A low ceiling stretches out in a mass of molded blocks overhead. The room is spherical, and rising in the center is a squat platform. The dark gash of a doorway is on the left. To my right are small, decorated countertops, jutting out from the wall in foot-and-a-half intervals.
Each counter is maybe three feet up from the floor, grounded by a round base, the shadows of the overhanging top obscuring most of the crude art encircling the foundation.
The remains of something organic lie amid a pile of ashes on each tabletop. A small, indented, box-like container protrudes on the right side, attached to the wall but missing the counter by an inch. Each table has a small statue, adorned with a crude face, perched a few inches above. My guess would be that the containers held water, and the plates held food. Probably offerings to some god. The small statues look strange, man-like, but not exactly human. I’ve read of evidence of visits by the Phoenicians or Chinese in ancient times, long before the arrival of the Spanish. Only the statue doesn’t look Asian either.
A chill goes down my spine as I realize they resemble some of the alien specimens we recovered. The carving is rough, the art baroque, but the implications are there. The idea that alien races visited the Earth in prehistoric times is nothing new, even if it’s on the edge of what is considered real science. Of course, it’s also the domain of a great number of crackpots and frauds. Then again, current circumstances make the possibility far more likely, and I know firsthand how hard the government works to cover up its secrets. I’ve personally witnessed more than one good man brought low by lies and deceit. The “ancient astronauts” theory would explain some mysteries, like the Easter Island statues. Or the fact that the Great Pyramid of Egypt was built first, although the craftsmanship far exceeds the doppelgangers that followed.
I raise the torch and approach the wall. In the flickering light I can make out what appear to be hieroglyphics. The wall is covered, floor to ceiling, as far as the dim illumination will reveal, in crude carvings. There are some marks that look like the Mayan hieroglyphics I’ve seen in books, some crude illustrations that look like mini cartoons, and some weird, almost cuneiform lines. The illustrations reveal figures that I assume are meant to represent the natives, and figures that more closely resemble the statue.
I walk back to the central platform. A large, circular stand about a foot tall, it’s constructed of skillfully chiseled stones. Each block perfectly mates with the next in a smooth continuum. The veneer, although crisscrossed by a pattern of rectangular blocks, is uniformly smooth and level. The only thing marring the level plane is a three-foot-wide circular stump of stone crested by a jagged top. It looks like something much longer existed there at one time, but was torn off. Dust and a smattering of pebbles encircle the ra
gged pier, but nothing else.
The only exit is the doorway. Wooden beams fringe its blackened portal, a cool draft emanating from the depths. I wander forward. Crossing the threshold and stooping under the frame, I set off.
Every few feet I flick a chunk out of the rock walls with my fingers, leaving a trail I can backtrack. The hall is barren, a diminutive passageway immured by stone blocks. Everything is deathly quiet. There are no insects, no scurrying rodents, nothing.
I pass a few small chambers, all of them identical to the first I encountered, only in better shape. Small oval enclaves, the walls heavily marked with the same bizarre pictographs. A raised central platform harbors a waist-high pedestal that vaguely resembles an altar.
After passing a few more chambers the passage ends, a steep staircase taking over as it plunges into the dark abyss below. I start to descend. I hear a whistling sound, and I’m pelted by something.
My head, chest, and legs are all hit in one lightning blast. Looking down, I see a scattered cluster of six-inch spikes, the wooden shafts capped with metal skewers. There are about ten, and they hit with such force that the tips are bent. Nice. I keep walking down the steps, the flickering blaze casting long shadows down the walls.
The staircase continues at a steep decline, far below any presumed foundation. Are there caves down here? Some hollowed out chamber in the Earth? The glow of my torch catches on something below. It looks like yet another passage, one than slopes farther down, no less.
As I draw closer my flame penetrates farther into the approaching tunnel. Walls of solid rock resemble a cave more than anything manmade. The sloping floor is a sparse trail of stone garnished by a trickle of sand. No weeds or watery cracks mar the sidewalls. It’s almost too uniform to be natural.
After about fifteen minutes, the passage dead ends at a wall. It’s obviously manmade, a flat barrier of fitted blocks, the seams so shallow they’re almost invisible. Curious. All this then nothing?
I gently press on a few stones. Nothing. I go in order, from highest to lowest, pressing every block. I start in on the walls bordering the barrier. After a few minutes, I hit a low corner and, with a grating noise, a central brick on the wall slides out and drops with a loud crash.
I stoop and peer inside the resulting niche. A square slab of metal bears a giant hoop, the top of the ring bound like an oversized hinge. I grab the circle and pull. A husky rasp, and the brick wall starts to slide sideways. Retracting into the wall with a stilted shuffle, it scrapes to a halt almost as soon as it starts. A slender crack lets in the cool air from beyond.
Pulling to the left with the metal loop, the gateway slides farther, the widening crevice exposing a yawning chasm beyond. I let go of the ring and try to slip through. As I wrest through, my foot crunches on something. Squeezing out the other side, I turn and squat down to examine the ground. A low stone embankment runs along the floor between wall and gate, a narrow depression navigating the center. It looks like a crude rail system. A faint draft buffets my back, and I spin around, raising the torch as I rise.
The chamber I’ve entered is huge. Stalactites stretch from floor to ceiling, rising up out of the rocky ground in molting layers. The pillars ascend out of grimy pools, their erratic arrangement and fluctuating size carving the dark corners into complicated mazes of tunnels. A narrow path of smooth bedrock winds in and out of the labyrinth of molten stone. This looks way more undomesticated, the slender trail extending in rugged passageways off to either side. I choose right at random and begin walking.
The cave narrows into a baroque tunnel sporting curved walls. The moist limestone sides bear traces of old murals, the faded symbols probably painted in berry juices. They use what looks like an ancient form of pictograph, and although I’m no expert, the designs no longer look distinctly Mayan.
The passage opens into another large chamber. Stalagmites stretch once again from floor to ceiling. The ceiling is much higher, with the cave-like features crowded along the edges. There are a few columns in the center, former stalactites that have been carved with geometric patterns. The sinuous pillars are marked with various triangles and circles, the tight variety of patterns denoting some kind of vocabulary I’ve never seen before. There are several pockets etched into the center of the stalactites. I walk up to the closest pillar, containing three pockets separated by one-foot intervals. They seem to be harboring something. I reach inside the uppermost one and pull out a small box about three inches square. It’s matte black, devoid of any markings, and made of some material that isn’t stone. It isn’t any metal I recognize either. I run my hand over the top. It’s perfectly smooth. The sides are expertly cut at sharp angles. I look in the other box-like openings of the central column, but whatever they might have contained is long gone.
Each little aperture has a thin layer of dust, including the one I took the small black box from, but there is no dust on the box. I wander over to another stalactite. It has one central hole, a little larger than the previous spaces, and holds a curiously carved image of some strange, bug-eyed creature. I pick it up and turn it in my hand. It’s human-like, but with a strange, animalistic face resembling a snake or gargoyle. The body appears to be that of a skinny dwarf with three fingers. I put it back in its crevice. Whatever it is, I feel the urge to leave it undisturbed. Looking past the pillar, I see a passage leading out of this surreal chamber. It’s similar to the last one, rough and cave-like, but with a flattened underbelly. Faded murals cover the walls. I stoop forward in an effort to decipher the story depicted therein.
The paintings seem to illustrate the natives interacting with strange beings. Entities that in all their primeval simplicity still look remarkably like the aliens we pulled out of wreckages back at Fort Bragg. A lot of this can be chalked up to various debunking theories, but the proof is starting to look pretty incontrovertible. Which begs the question, If there was at one time an ancient extraterrestrial presence, why did they leave?
I follow the tunnel as it curves around into yet another chamber. This one is small and round and looks like it was hollowed out of the rock. There are no bricks, no mortar. It’s exceptionally circular, with only a level floor of polished stone interrupting the sphere.
In the middle of the room is a black, stump-like table. It’s perfectly cylindrical and about three feet high, the top a smooth plane that shines like glass. I walk over and notice a small depression in the center. I’ll bet the box I’m carrying goes in there!
Holding it above the depression, I rotate the box slowly in my hand until the dimensions match up. The shape corresponds too neatly for mere coincidence. Gently I lower it in.
The walls of the chamber disappear, and I’m bathed in a bright light. My vision flips through a series of instant refinements, adjusting so quickly I’m not blinded, but the brilliance drowns out everything else. Automatically I slowly turn to my left. It feels like I’m responding to some dim instinct. I wander toward a nebulous blur. A waist-high barrier starts to materialize out of the white haze. The edges sharpen. The black, glossy protrusion resembles a lumpy counter extending about a foot from a coarse wall, the surface undulating and black, but smoothly finished like volcanic rock. The counter extends in a smooth flow with no visible seams. It looks like it was carved out of one immense rock. The surface is pockmarked by depressions of varying sizes. They’re all deeply recessed, with some of them glowing dimly. I can hear a faint piping sound, as if from a distant flute. Crouching down, I peer into one of the luminous holes. The black walls are carved with strange-looking hieroglyphs. It looks way too deep. The protruding counter is at most a foot deep, and the hole appears to descend much lower.
Several smaller holes surround the glowing aperture, the bottoms concealed by their impossible depth. I can’t begin to imagine the purpose served by this strange assembly. It all seems to point toward something highly advanced. I would guess this chamber has been sitting down here for a very long time.
I step back and circle around the enclos
ure. Sticking close to the wall, I notice the counter-like protrusion encircles the room, dotted at regular intervals by the holes of varying sizes. The glow doesn’t appear to come from an overhead light; it just filters down from some source I can’t see. I wonder what the implications of all this are. Obviously the Mayans had some sort of contact with whoever built this, but how extensive was it? Did the visitors have anything to do with this civilization, or were they merely onlookers? The carvings and illustrations seem to indicate the strangers were highly regarded. There is such an extensive chronology leading up to this civilization, and nothing else is nearly as advanced, that it points toward external intervention.
A low beeping sound catches my attention. Peering around, I trace it back to the stump-like protrusion in the middle of the room.
A disturbing thought flashes through my head... What if I unwittingly activated some sort of signal? What if it is making contact with whoever built this room? And even more unsettling, what if whoever built this room also built the body I currently inhabit? How happy are they going to be with some primitive walking around in their suit? A quick, worried glance around the glowing chamber, and I decide it’s time to leave. Immediately. I lost my torch when the room lit up, but I’ll bet I can make it back outside. I’ll just retrace my steps.
Quite a bit of stumbling around in the dark, and I make it back to the initial chamber. At least I think that’s where I am. It’s pitch black, but my internal guidance system has functioned brilliantly so far. I can sense the volume of the room I’ve entered, and something tells me I have to move up. Crouching into a squat, I vault upward.
