Echoes of our movements were about us and in the deep silence of the thick underground cave, and I felt the coldness of the walls, and depth below the ground, and felt it penetrate my limbs; as I marched along into obscurity, with expectations of plunging into something deadly.
When the tunnel stopped going downwards and went in a straight line I thought we never had far to go until we reached our final destination.
Glimpses of Marple’s darkened marching figure in the dim light with shadows over the walls wavered rhythmically as he calculatedly investigated the tunnel, and when it fluctuated I expected something, and I occasionally heard noises from behind us and reacted, as I wondered what could cause it, and I followed Marple’s eyes once, because he reacted differently suddenly, and I gasped, and I heard him gasp, as it was the end of our adventure and exploration, and I was left disappointed as I really thought we were going to discover something.
The complete tunnel collapsed across our front, firmly preventing us continuing, and we could go no further on, and we had reached our final destination and had not found out what had been there, and I realized the mystery of the treasure could be left there forever without us knowing what was there.
The rubble blocking the tunnel was deeply embedded giant boulders that were too immense to move, and we stood saying nothing, and I watched Marple make some calculations.
By his reactions I sensed that he was not entirely disappointed, and I knew he might have a way to shift the rocks, and I was sure it was to bring in the archeologists with their equipment, and I closely examined the tunnel wondering how it was made as there were no chisel or any tool marks, and I wondered why they had gone to such lengths to create it, and where it had led to.
On the way back I kept sensing Marple had another plan, and way to get to where he wanted, and was not saying anything.
Chapter 20
The next day I returned to the cavity and saw something was on the brink of occurring, and saw the scientists working hard and away at their equipment and I swiftly moved there, and realized I had nearly missed something, and had luckily arrived when I had, and I watched the paranormal scientists and technicians rushing excitedly back and forward checking equipment all over the place, and tried questioning them but got little, and wondered what was going on, and I soon realized that they were about to activate their equipment to scan below the ground again, and braced myself, and watched Marple come down on the elevator.
I never knew what they were doing, as they had carried out all their scans, and they had not shown anything.
I tried to spot any differences there, and I jumped when I noticed some of the life forms the archeologists had uncovered, and had washed down with water and brushes, and stood with my mouth open trying grasp what the hell they were, and doing there, and why they were so preserved, in immaculate condition, and after examining them closely I saw nothing I recognized anywhere, and I was sure they could return to life if they did something to them.
I watched all the scientists eagerly standing around waiting for something, viewing things differently now, and I wondered what, and as I approached them I realized they might have been waiting for me, to continue, and to activate the equipment, and the experiment, and I wondered why.
When they activated it nobody reacted and barely noticed anything. My mind wandered through all the occurrences that had led up to its discovery.
Suddenly a vast unstable energy shockwave, from deep below, and somewhere else, like another dimension, emerged all about the place, with so much force it threatened to smash the cavity, and I recalled the earthquake and McMurdo’s warnings and I went back to wondering what it really was and what damage it could do, and I watched parts of the equipment explode into flames, and the scientists quickly turning it all off and putting it out.
When it was over I was glad to be alive, and that nobody had been killed, and the cavity and roof overhead had not come crashing down on top of us, and I was happy they could not use the equipment again.
Yet I noticed Orwell and Higgins and some other scientists were unconcerned, and I saw them at the equipment, searching through the recorded data, and a scientist had removed a sheet of paper, and they went around him, and I moved over to them.
From what they said I gathered that they believed something was stopping them from seeing what was really below and that their swift instantaneous scan of below had been so fast they had been able to get an unaltered view, and that they had used an instantaneous rough scan, before the equipment was damaged, and they showed us the sheet of paper with the rough scan, and in the blurred image I spotted strange images and forms of tunnels that had not been there before.
Chapter 21
On our way back to Reality Investigations’s headquarters Marple surprised me by telling me that the scan had been his idea and he had asked the paranormal scientists to do it, and had done it to search for the rest of the tunnel, and if they should uncover it, and he left it there, and I realized he had a certain happiness and I knew he had something.
Later while I walked home I saw a strange look to the streets, which at first I thought was my tiredness, but I then noticed the place looked far emptier than I had seen them about that time and I wondered if something had happened, or if it was some event, and tried to recall the date and anything happening.
It was incredible I felt like I was the last person to set foot on the Earth, and watched a thin fog engulf the area, and realized it was the famous London fog, and I watched it thicken around me, and I just thought of it as part of my hazy tired vision and felt like going to sleep early that night.
It was like seeing another time in the past, and I expected to see ancient people in their ancient clothing.
Fog rapidly engulfed me and thickened up until I had barely any sight of anything left.
It was shocking how easily I lost my way there, and realized I could be stuck there for hours.
I was sure that I was somewhere else at times, and I occasionally saw through gaps in the thick fog and saw distant regions of strange places. Yet I stuck to the same route and never altered direction, and I wondered if I could get out of it by going back and remaining there until it went away, but I realized it was now everywhere.
Out of nowhere I saw a powerful light’s emergence through thinner mist and watched its radiance pulsating like an entity, magically illuminating the fog around it everywhere, and I stopped and studied it, wondering what the hell it was, and watched strange shadow formations around it, which I could not see what they were from, from things I could not see, and I just took it that it was an optical illusion and tried to work out what they were from the shadow shapes, and watched their mind-bending shapes shifting and weaving, and probed their way around.
In the distance I heard sounds like some form of animal was there, causing them, buried away deep in the fog, and I wondered if it was a real animal reacting to the sudden blinding mist.
For a short time I moved away, blindly through the fog, and stopped when I heard humans and thought I saw them shifting through thin areas of mist, and was surprised to see them, but as dark ghostly figures, and stood wondering what they were doing, as they looked strange, and like ancient people.
For one moment they looked as if they spotted me, and observing me, wondering what I was doing, and I just ignored them and moved on, and later they reappeared and their sounds were angry, and that there were people having a confrontation with someone or something, and they grew silent.