It came out of nowhere. One minute the skies were an impeccable blue, the kind you only see painted on a wall in perfect conditions, and in the span of a propeller's turn, someone took charcoal and started smudging angry shapes, ready to challenge even the best of flyers.

"Mister Ainsworth!?" he whimpered in a shaky voice, partly due to the plane’s vibration and partly from the apprehension of even making such a suggestion. "Maybe we should head back now? I'm not particularly thrilled with the change in atmospheric conditions. I believe our once-friendly skies are turning on us!"

"Nonsense, Huxley!" Ainsworth yelled back in a slightly amused tone. "We still have plenty of time before we need to head back! Those pesky clouds will be no bother for ol' faithful here!" He confidently tapped the now slightly rusty hood of his plane.

Huxley grinned to himself, camera in hand shaking as if his body was trying to warm itself up from a deep freeze. However, this was the result of the plane shaking quite visibly, likely from atmospheric turbulence.

Ainsworth, being a seasoned explorer and adventurer, was quite used to having luck as a fickle companion, and he could keep his high spirits even in the worst of times. Not the same could be said for his new assistant, who just wanted a story to bring home—preferably after finishing the survey mission in one piece.

"Huxley, my man, do you see that?" Ainsworth hastily waved his hand towards a dark spot in the sea of lush green built by an army of trees.

A jagged mound pierced through the otherwise uninterrupted flora, obscure yet gleaming at its rocky edges, volcanic perhaps, but the glassy finish seemed almost man-made. Huxley pointed his camera toward the curious stone, trying his best to get a proper focus despite the constant trembling. As the shutter closed, a bolt of lightning struck the top of the mound, sending sparks flying in all directions like an iridescent show of fireworks.

"Heavens!" Ainsworth screamed, seeming equally excited and scared by the occurrence. "We might be in a bit of a pickle, young Huxley!"

"I know!" Huxley screamed, before his brain registered the second half of Ainsworth's remark. "How do yo-" The aircraft started violently shaking before the inquiry could be finished. The plane’s gauges dropped, and the aircraft’s propeller came to a sudden halt. A single gasp escaped Huxley's lips.

A silence like no other wrapped the passengers, as if the eye of the storm had suddenly swallowed them. The world around them seemed to come to a halt. A surge of static caused the hairs on both men to stand up, a metallic taste filled their mouths, and the smell of wet dirt invaded their noses.

The aircraft sank beneath the canopy of green, but no sound escaped the forest—much like a fallen tree that no one witnessed.

...

"I'm telling you, we're lost!" groaned Elliot in a defeated voice, this being about the seventh time he’d said it.

"I'm certain I have it this time... I think," Michael said, the second part muttered under his breath, trying to keep it to himself yet hoping everyone behind him heard. He tracked his fingers across a makeshift map provided by a local tribesman.

A collective "ugh!" escaped the group following him. Comprised of explorers, thrill-seekers, creatives, and scientists, this random crew had come to the dense and remote forest of the Amazon, chasing the tracks of a place that had never been recorded but had inspired many word-of-mouth tales about its peculiarities. Hidden somewhere in the vastness of the jungle was a place where the laws of this world bent.

"It's getting dark," Nina said, visibly drained of energy. "I have blisters the size of continents. Don't film that!" she haphazardly instructed her cameraman, who kept the camera focused on her.

"We can cut that in post," he replied half-heartedly.

"I still don't understand why you want people to take you seriously, or why they didn’t before," said Elliot, his voice tired but calm.

"Because I want to, Elliot! Can I not JUST want that?" Her words rushed out like bullets from a machine gun, seemingly irritated by the question. Nina, an up-and-coming actress, didn’t want to be pigeonholed as a one-note professional. She had decided to follow her longtime friend, the geologist, and make a documentary about this journey. Rarely attempted in her circles, this endeavor would allow her to do what she always wanted: direct big-budget films.

"I'm sorry. I'm tired, hungry, and lost! Yes, Michael, we are lost. Let’s stop and make camp and figure this out tomorrow," Nina concluded.

Michael stopped and turned, pausing before nodding in agreement. He was the one who had funded this expedition. Coming from a wealthy background, and not content with just resting on his family’s questionable resources, he had financed countless scientific endeavors. This was the first one where he directly participated and, somewhat, led.

The camp went up fairly fast, thanks to the more seasoned travelers on the team. Fires were lit, and the whole group settled in for the night.

"Guys! Wake up! Now!" yelled Elliot as he stood there, looking up at what seemed to be a mountain that had risen up from nowhere.

Everyone gathered from their tents and hammocks, their jaws dropping, eyes fixated on the structure that, by all evidence, wasn’t there the night before.

"How... how is this possible?" Michael stammered, his voice weak. "This wasn’t here, was it?" He questioned his own eyes and sanity.

"It must have been. I mean, what other explanation is there?" Nina replied incredulously. "It was dark, we were tired, we just didn’t see it." She looked around at the rest of the crew, still staring up in disbelief.

After regrouping, the team began surveying the surroundings, soon finding an entrance into the mountain. Elliot marveled at the structure and the composition of the rock.

"I've never seen anything like it. I mean, nothing that would be found in this way, almost like an inside-out geode," he said, gently touching the surface as they entered the cave. He stopped for a second, feeling the rock vibrate under his touch, a sensation traveling through his body down to his toes. Startled, he pulled his hand away, hesitantly placing it back.

"That was odd."

"What was?" asked Nina, mentally setting frames for her documentary, not truly interested in an answer.

"There!" she directed her cameraman and the other two silent crew members, shuffling away from Elliot with swiftness.

The rest of the crew frantically took photos, inspecting the curious plant life, and slowly made their way around the entrance while Michael mumbled to himself, "This is it, the discovery of a lifetime, what I came here for."

"I found it, Richard."

Michael, Elliot, and part of the crew began setting up camp at the entrance while a few of the more excited members of the party eagerly ventured inside. With the camp basically up and running, Elliot started collecting small samples with his pick when loud sounds echoed from within the cave, where the others had gone.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

"What’s going on?" Michael asked, as he and Elliot headed down the jagged stair-like entrance.

"Look at this!" exclaimed one of the biologists, holding up a jacket with what appeared to be military markings. "Someone was here before us; it must have been a long time ago."

As Michael leaned in for a closer look, Elliot stopped him.

"Wait, do you smell that?" he said, holding Michael's arm, visibly startled by the sudden sensation, as he wasn’t used to such manhandling.

"What?" Michael responded, increasingly annoyed.

Before Elliot could answer, one of the crew members inside the cave lit a cigarette. With the spark of the flame, his face suddenly ignited. At first, he tried to fight the flames off, but soon, laughter burst out of him as though it was all a silly prank. In moments, his entire body was engulfed, and he collapsed to the ground, still laughing hysterically. The others nearby, seemingly amused, were soon swept into fits of laughter, as if gripped by madness.

A horrified Michael, Elliot, and some of the remaining team members rushed in, grabbing the delirious crew members and pulling them out. Up the jagged stairs they went, and gradually, the saved crew members returned to a calmer state. Unable to get close enough to extinguish the flames, they abandoned the burning body and let it burn itself out.

"What the hell was that?" Michael asked, his voice filled with trepidation as they sat in stunned silence.

"The smell—some sort of gas emanating from inside the cave," Elliot said. "But nothing like I’ve ever read about before. It had a sweet kind of smell, highly flammable and clearly mind-altering."

Elliot looked around, a sinking feeling burrowing into his bones.

"Where’s Nina?" he asked, his eyes scanning the faces of the group.

"Nina!!" they all started calling her name around the cave’s entrance, receiving no response.

They soon noticed the cameraman was also missing, though the camera itself remained, its red light blinking. A distant giggle echoed from within the cave.

"When did they go in?" Michael asked, perplexed that none of them had noticed the sudden disappearance of the two crew members.

Elliot rushed toward the supplies, remembering that Nina had brought a gas mask, being always overprepared for all manner of unlikely scenarios. He finally found the item, quickly strapped it on, and, unsure of how the thing worked, dashed toward the cave’s entrance.

The rest of the crew were apprehensive about him going in alone, but he rushed past them into the darkness, the pitch black quickly swallowing his figure.

After passing the jagged steps and running inside, Elliot found a small plateau of stone, after which the cave slowly sloped upward. Different types of rock lined the passageway, parts of it covered in silt, almost as if it had been excavated. He rushed ahead, his body leaning forward to counterbalance the incline, following the echoes of what he assumed were Nina’s delirious cries, likely affected by the bizarre gas emanating from the cave.

His feet stumbled together, sending his body crashing to the floor. He took a breath, quickly pushing himself back to his knees, when a sudden movement caught his eye—a small albino scorpion had leapt onto his face, trying to sting him through the gas mask. Panicked, Elliot swatted the creature off with frantic energy, his adrenaline surging sky-high. He quickly stomped on the arachnid, crushing it underfoot.

"Nina!!!" he yelled, though his voice was muffled by the mask. He continued moving forward, finally arriving at another level of the cave where light filtered through an opening from somewhere above, casting a blue tinge over what appeared to be an abandoned altar. Slabs of glass-like stone glistened in the shafts of light as Elliot cautiously stepped around them.

The stones seemed to vibrate, subtly shifting as he moved his gaze across them, almost as if they were responding to his presence.

Suddenly, he felt something behind him, like the gravity pull of another body coming into close proximity.

"Nina, thank God! You're okay!" he exclaimed, turning to see her dancing in a childlike manner, with the grace of a ballerina. He tried to grab hold of her, but she playfully twirled away, mumbling incoherently, lost in her own world.

"Where's your cameraman?" he asked, trying to find the other missing person. "Camera guy?!?" he realized, embarrassingly, that he didn't actually know his name. As he held onto Nina, leading her in a sort of awkward dance-spin, his mind raced.

Suddenly, a pair of hands grabbed his face, before his eyes could even register the shape. The pressure of the air hit his chest as a figure appeared from seemingly nowhere, invading his personal space.

"AAAA!" he screamed, so loudly that it fogged up the glass of the mask. His body trembled under the frantic inspection of the hands on his face. As the dampness cleared, he could see it was a woman—a woman, white as bone, draped in what seemed like a dress made of black, glittery sand that flowed like water across her body. Her hair was golden, floating as if underwater.

"What is this?" she asked, her milky eyes darting across his face, trying to make sense of the strange apparatus covering it. Her fingers traced the material, almost as though she was reading it like the sightless do.

"Who are you? Why are you here? How are you here?" Elliot asked, grabbing her arms and pulling them away from his face, holding them near her chest in a slightly jerking motion, bombarding her with questions.

She stopped looking at the ground, pausing as if to consider his questions, as if she herself was unsure of the answers.

"I... I don't know, not anymore," she replied in a deep yet soft voice. "I used to have a name, I think. But time has no meaning here, and a name is as irrelevant as keeping track of it."

Elliot suddenly realized Nina wasn’t beside him anymore. He had let go of her when the woman grabbed him. Frantically turning, he saw Nina’s figure standing frozen, as if in a vegetative state, but upright.

He leaped toward her, wrapping her arm around his shoulder, leading her toward the exit. Her legs moved weakly, shifting with his guidance. After taking a few steps, he turned back to face the strange woman, startled once again to see her suddenly appear in his sight, as if she had popped out of nowhere.

"You should come with us," Elliot urged, pushing past his fear of her. "I know the way out. Come!"

Not concerned whether the pale woman was following him or not, he moved with haste, intent on getting his friend to safety. As they neared the exit, he heard her voice again—not with his ears, but inside his mind, as if she were speaking within him.

"I could show you more, yes?" Her whispered words stopped Elliot in his tracks. He froze, surprised to hear her voice within himself. He took a sharp breath before replying.

"I promise we will come back, and you can show me then," he blurted out, unsure if he truly meant it. His words seemed more like an attempt to placate someone who was having an episode, likely caused by prolonged exposure to whatever strange gas was in the cave.

The crew cheered as Elliot and Nina emerged from the darkness, though they were puzzled by the absence of the cameraman.

"Is she okay?" Michael asked, seeing Nina conscious but unresponsive.

"She seems conscious but unresponsive," one of the team members confirmed.

Elliot removed his mask, his face slick with sweat. As he turned to start a sentence, he stopped, realizing no one was following him.

"She was right behind us," he said.

"Who was?" Michael asked. "You mean he was right behind you?" He was referring to the missing cameraman.

"No, there was a woman in there, probably been inside for a long time," Elliot replied, confused, as if questioning his own thoughts.

As they looked back toward the cave’s entrance, they froze. The entrance had been adorned with trinkets of all kinds—gold, gems, vases, and pots that looked ancient in design, yet somehow not of any time.

"How?" Michael asked in awe, staring at the treasure trove. The rest of the team, puzzled by the other two’s expressions, gathered, each one stopping in their tracks as they laid eyes on the riches.

A few of the crew rushed toward the entrance, driven by the allure of the treasures. Uninterested in the vases and sculptures, they began knocking over and breaking the ancient artifacts in their frenzy, kicking them aside to reach the precious metals and gems. Chains, necklaces, and bands of gleaming metal were draped around their necks and arms. Rings that sparkled as if made from golden glass filled their pockets and bags. They seemed possessed, like thirsty beasts who had wandered a desert and now stumbled upon an oasis.

"Stop! Stop it!" Elliot yelled, but no one listened. They were too engrossed in their scavenging, their eyes wide with greed.

Elliot stood still, staring into the darkness of the cave, everything around him growing unnervingly silent. A sweet scent filled his lungs, and there she was—standing just inside the cave’s entrance, her milky blue eyes locking onto his. He felt a sudden surge of emotions: anger, despair, as if all the world’s injustices were weighing down on him. Time seemed to stretch as flashes of past, present, and future whizzed before his eyes. And then—nothing. A deep, consuming darkness followed, and with it came an unexpected sense of peace.

The woman stepped forward and embraced him softly, tenderly, as one would comfort a child. His body began to grow cold, his skin slowly turning into something darker, almost like obsidian. His eyes dimmed, transforming into specks of shining diamonds. She placed him gently beside Nina and the others, collected over time and space, their bodies frozen in stone.

"Sorry, can you repeat the question?"

"So, did you find what your grandfather was looking for all those years ago?" asks the reported, astounded by the re-telling.

"No," Michael replied as he shifted in his chair. "I wish I had left the past where it belonged. It wasn’t worth the lives that were lost." Looking down fidgeting with a black ring on his finger.

"I can only hope they all found peace, wherever they are."