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The myth of the magical city of Atlantis was passed down through the generations for thousands of years, maybe more. Since at least the time of the ancient Greeks, adventurers searched for and failed to find the splendorous city. Many explorers, anthropologists and archaeologists spent a large portion of their lives searching for something of legend. They died without ever finding it.
It was said legend is born from the truth even if the legend is much more exaggerated and grandiose than the reality of the situation. My guess was a primitive civilization encountered another civilization with more advanced technology that seemed like magic to them. Someone who fishes with a spear may find drag nets to be something very highly technologically advanced. The people who never saw metal in their life may see a Roman Legionnaire as a god with a golden aura. Even a language with a written alphabet may seem like a magical way of transporting a message from one place to another.
Who knows what people really think when they see technology that so greatly surpasses their own?
Even now, I wondered what remote and primitive societies thought when they saw an airplane moving across the blue sky. Did they view it as some sort of gigantic bird god flying from one location to another?
My thought was they tried to equate it with something with which they were familiar. It was human nature to want to understand things, and when something was outside of their understanding, people compared it to the closest thing they knew.
I at least did not believe a place such as Atlantis was possible until several weeks ago. A team of divers discovered a road compiled of stones some weighing approximately ten times more than the stones used in the construction of the pyramids. Some weighed a few tons while others weighed in the hundreds of tons. Despite the variety of sizes, the stones fit together seamlessly.
As an anthropologist, I specialized in obscure civilizations. Only a day after an amazing discovery was made, several government officials approached me in my lab. They told me they found something big, but they did not tell me what this discovery was. I was told I had two days to prepare, then I would be transported to the discovery’s location. I was not to speak to anyone about this, including my closest friends and family.
The agents told me I would be well compensated for my time and effort as I asked several times what the nature of the discovery was. These government officials refused to tell me, although they assured me I would not regret taking on this job. Even if I declined – by the way they spoke to me –I believed they would force me to go anyway.
They put me on a flight to Italy. From there, we flew by means of a helicopter to an unknown location. I was then put in a windowless van, which took six hours to reach the next location. Again they put me on a helicopter and carried me to an island. From there these people finally transported me to the discovery site by ship. Obviously these government agents did not want me to know where I was.
A trainer gave me two days crash course lessons and scuba diving. Instead of an oxygen tank, I was given a square apparatus called a rebreather. Rather than allowing my breath to bubble up to the surface, this device scrubbed the air and put it back into circulation. This would allow me to stay underwater for much longer than any scuba tank.
When the trainer explained the rebreather to me, I knew I was about to spend a lot of time submerged. One day later I was in the water. Anxiety filled me about spending this much time in the deep, but I was far more excited about what I was going to see. This may put me in the history books if these government people would allow it. Depending on what I found, they may wish to keep it top-secret.
I could not help but be absolutely fascinated by the road leading from the small island deep into the choppy waters. Despite the years, the stones retained a polished surface. The type of rock was not one with which I was familiar, but I was no geologist. I did not know what type of stone it was, but erosion should have scoured this amazingly smooth surface by now.
We used an underwater diver propulsion vehicle to speed our progress. One government agent rode with me; another agent road along with someone with whom I was not yet acquainted. I wondered if he had any more of an idea of the nature of our destination than I did. They chose me because of my knowledge of ancient civilizations. I wondered what this man specialty was.
We traveled so deep, the light from the sun scarcely provided us with a view. At this point the agents turned on the lights at the front of the DPVs. We rode along for hours. All this long we passed over some areas where the road resurfaced from the rolling sand which kept it hidden for who knows how long.
Although we did not need oxygen for some time, the fuel in our transport had to be refilled. We arrived at a gas station of sorts, obviously installed by the government agents or prior recruits. Rather than waiting for our own DPVs, we dropped off the two we had and picked up two more. I wondered how much further there was to go as I had no idea of how many fuel stops we might make.
Another hour to an hour and a half elapsed, and we reached an underwater headquarters of sorts. The agents brought me and the other gentleman to the entrance chamber. After sealing us in, they were back in the vehicles and disappeared into the darkness of the sea. It must’ve been an hour before the water level in the hatch began to lower, and that took another hour to complete.
After the water drained, a voice called into the entrance hatch and instructed us to remove our diving gear. The special diving suits were quite difficult to get on and off by oneself, so the other gentleman and I assisted each other with the process. Our instructor taught us how to take off our own suit, but he also taught us how to properly remove someone else’s gear. I really did not understand the reasoning for the latter part until now.
The voice instructed both of us to remove our wet clothing. Before my companion and I quite reached the point of being totally in the nude, a small panel in the wall slid open. Whoever it was at the other end of the intercom instructed us to put the wet clothing inside. When that panel closed another slid open, and we discovered we were being provided with new, dry clothing,
As we dressed ourselves in our new gear, the voice told us it would be three hours before they could remove us from the chamber. A mixture of helium and oxygen filled the chamber with an almost imperceptible hissing. I was sure it had something to do with the pressure, but I could not say for certain. All I knew was the longer we sat there, the squeakier our voices became. Being no biologist, I did not understand why we went through this.
As previously instructed, neither one of us spoke to the other about what was going on or even what our fields of experience were. Whatever was taking place here must’ve been something major. All this cloak and dagger stuff was a bit too much for any normal sort of expedition. Instead, we tried to find some mundane topics to discuss as we waited for the pressure in the hatch to equalize with the air pressure inside the underwater structure.
Finally, the inner hatch opened. Several government agents awaited us on the other side. Judging by the different diving suits they wore, I believed they were from different agencies, possibly even different governments. All of this hush-hush was starting to worry me. What did they find at the end of the road, and why did they need me? I asked them where they were taking me, but all I received were stern glares. It was obvious they knew where it was but would not answer me.
We passed through multiple hatches leading different directions. This place looked a lot smaller from the outside, but with it so dark this deep it was impossible to view it all. We finally reached the chamber of our destination. When we walked into the spherical compartment, I found more agents and specialists from one field or another waiting inside. My current companion and I were instructed to sit down and say nothing.
I could not say how much time actually past, not one of us was allowed a watch or other time piece, but eventually someone who appeared to be in command entered the compartment. He immediately began to brief us on the mission of which we were now all a part. As the others, I did not believe what I heard. Surely what this man said had to be absurd. Everything I knew and studied told me this information was very anthropologically impossible. Yet here I was.
The government agents escorted each of us afterward to an individual sleeping compartment. Even though we all now knew the reason for our conscription, we still were not allowed to discuss it. Within twenty-four hours, we would load into specially designed submarines to get to the very depths of the sea.
Ten hours until departure time, we were all taken to compartments where we were instructed on donning special suits. These odd diving suits, which to me looked like space suits, were designed to allow us to survive at incredible depths. The world record for the deepest dive was only 1,000 feet and we learned in our briefing we would be more than 17,000 feet below the surface. It was close to impossible to believe there was any conceivable way for us to survive that deeply underwater.
Where did that road lead? How did it get so deep underwater? Why did they have six scholars with unrelated areas of expertise going down there? What were we going to find?
No sooner was our crash course in our special diving suits over, they loaded us into a small submarine which proceeded to bring us into even deeper depths of the sea. As we traveled, the government agent escorts finally allowed us to discuss our various fields of expertise. I wondered how long we were going to have to remain complete strangers to one another.
I told them I was an anthropologist specializing in obscured cultures. One man was a chemist and another one was in architectural engineer specializing in massive buildings. We had a geologist. She specialized in crystal growth and technological uses for those crystals. We had a cryptographer so skilled, she was called in for government and civilian projects. The final member was by far the strangest to take this mission.
This lady, who far exceeded anyone else’s level of education, was a xeno-biologist. She studied theoretical ways life might possibly live in all different makeups of planet types as well as in the sea, but it did not make sense to me why we would have her instead of a marine biologist.
The deeper we sank, the more helium was added to our air and the amount of nitrogen dropped. Our voices did not become squeaky as before. The steady rise in pressure kept our voices at a nearly constant tone. That was why, and it was explained in our briefing, it was going to take weeks before we could return to the surface. Normal rapid decompression could cause death. Rapid decompression in our current state would literally cause us to explode as the helium our system return to gaseous form.
Eight hours into our underwater dissent, we began to see a faint light ahead of us. It was barely perceptible, but it was there. At first, we thought it might be simply a jellyfish or some similar creature. As we proceeded, our thoughts of it being a jellyfish were debunked. Instead, the light became ever so slightly brighter. This indicated the light was either moving or it was in some distance away.
Our anticipation, excitement and fear grew the closer we approached our destination. Nothing said in the briefing prepared me for the scope of the newly rediscovered sunken city. It was nothing like I expected. I thought of remnants of structures and buildings buried deep in the sand. What I saw approaching from the distance was more than astounding. It almost appeared as though the buildings were only created yesterday.
I understood now the significance of the geologist. It appeared every building in the city was made from unnaturally faceted crystal. Never in my life did I think such large quartz and other crystals could even be possible. The conditions that would allow crystal growth of such immense proportions would take billions of years. Earth was in no condition to create such massive gemstones as it was. Something increased the speed of their growth exponentially to grow them this large.
I expected to see only one, perhaps two sources for the light, but the entire city emitted a soft blue hue. It was still hard for me to believe this to be real despite the fact I was looking right at it.
What in the history of our planet ever indicated something like this could even be? What people created this city? Why such a massive crystalline metropolis was created under water was the greatest question in my head at the time.
Water appeared to fill much of the city, but some of it contained pockets of air. The vehicle slowed to a near stop. Our drivers cut the forward engines and we began our descent into this unusual world beneath us. One of the agents finally spoke.
The female agent on board with us pointed out a large platform like area where we were to land. She told us to make sure the specialized suits were on correctly as that was where we were to exit the submarine. That was when the terror set in.
Why should I really trust the government with assurance of the ability of our suits?
At this step is seemed we would be crushed into a ball as soon as we exited the vehicle. Although I feared for my life, I could not wait to explore the wonders this place may hold. This may very well be the greatest discovery in human history. This discovery might even rewrite human history.
We were ushered into a compartment along with one of the agents where they had us attach thick, heavy hoses to connections on our suits. Water began filling the compartment, and I began to feel the squeeze of the pressure before the chamber filled completely. I began thrashing when a clear pinkish fluid filled my bulky suit. The others seem to take it a little better, although they struggled to fight their instinct not to inhale the fluid, to get past the sensation of drowning.
I fought for over a minute to hold in the last gaseous breath I took in. When I could no longer hold it, I thrashed even more. I tried to remove my helmet, but the government agent grabbed my arms to keep me from doing so. Eventually, I had no choice but to suck the pinkish fluid into my lungs. As I acclimated, I calmed down and stopped my struggling once I pulled the fluid completely into my lungs.
I really expected it to hurt, to burn my lungs as liquid replaced air. As I recalled, one of the others told me it was essentially breathing embryonic fluid, for which my lungs were already accustomed. After finally inhaling the biological fluid into my lungs, I noticed the pressure I felt seemed to decrease some.
No one could speak because the fluid in their suits did not allow our vocal cords to function. The agent typed into a keyboard on her forearm. All of us had one of these on the arm of our off hand so we could communicate in more detail than we could with hand signals.
A moment after the agent punched in some letters, I could hear a computer generated voice ask “Is everyone okay?”
She made sure everyone gave a thumbs up or somehow otherwise indicated they were having no problems before she began the procedure of opening this compartment to the crushing weight of the ocean depths.
Having to essentially let myself drown was absolutely the worst part of this ordeal so far. Our suits could not be filled with air or we would pop like a soap bubble in the sun. Regardless, that was one experience I never wanted to have to relive.
The hatch opened, and I felt a small increase in pressure as the water outside finished equalizing with the pressure of the compartment. The increase in pressure was noticable, but not enough to make the tension much more than we already experienced. As we began exiting the outer hatch, I thought to myself we were the first people to see the city in thousands, possibly millions of years.
Our guide, a different government agent, escorted us through a corridor filled with water. I looked at my surroundings with amazement like a child meeting Santa at the North Pole. I could not believe the large crystals of varying colors were fused together to form every surface I could see. The tunnel eventually began to slope upward until we were finally out of the water. Small motors in our suits kicked in. Had they not, we would not have been able to remain standing.
The tunnel opened into a massive room filled with air. Moving almost as if in slow motion due to the bulk of his suit, the chemist used some tools of his to analyze the atmosphere and informed us the gasses filling the room were toxic and unbreathable. I could see an orangish haze in the room, but I thought that was simply an effect of the fluid in my helmet.
The room was rectangular, but all the walls were slightly askewed. The crystal walls appeared to be perfectly parallel, but none of the corners were constructed at right angles. I was able to perceive light radiating from the incredible mineral walls. The light showed with such subtlty from every surface, but the accumulated effect had the whole room brightly lit. It was not too bright here in this room. As a matter of fact, the lighting seemed absolutely perfect. I did not have to strain my eyes to see clearly across the room, but I also did not have to shield my eyes at all.
The chemist who was analyzing the atmosphere waved his hand wildly then stopped and stared at his device as if under some hypnotic trance. Before anyone could reach him, he began to unfasten his helmet from the rest of his suit. I tried to scream out to him to stop, but no sound eminated from my lips. The agent escorting us ran to the man as fast as possible as the chemist struggled with his helmet, but by the time the agent reached him the fluid was already spilling out from the seam. I thought perhaps his oxygen unit malfunctioned and he was beginning to drown inside his suit, but outside his vesture was certain death.
It was too late to get the man’s helmet back on as he had no more of the breathable liquid to fill his suit. He began to hack and gag as the fluid flushed from his lungs, but afterward he stood there panting with his hands resting on his knees. He could not explain what happened, but the room regulated itself to be ideal for our physiology. The air pressure and atmosphere both were at surface levels. It made no sense, the pressure should have killed the man, but he was breathing just fine as he now stood in front of us with no protective gear.
Appearing as bewildered as the rest of us, the chemist said “I don’t know what happened. I can’t explain it, but the air in here modified itself to be suitable to us.”
It was as if the room somehow analyzed our physiology and generated exactly what we needed to survive. After seeing the chemist standing there experiencing no issues at all, I followed his example and remove my own helmet. The pink liquid flushed from my suit and I began coughing up the fluid in my lungs. Expelling the liquid from my lungs was every bit as unpleasant as inhaling it in the first place. Eventually everyone else removed their helmets as well.
In the left corner furthest from our entrance sat a large array of crystals of verying colors, each one fitting perfectly with the others. Each individual crystal was faceted at the top with a slight slant. Some of the long slender crystaline rods stood higher than others; there if fact appeared to be four individual levels at which all the crystals rested. When the geologist, the government agent and I approached the apparatus even closer, we could see a single symbol etched on the slanted top surface of each gemstone shaft.
This was really the only feature in the room. There did not appear to be any exits in this room except for the one we used to enter and the walls were opaque enough to prevent us from seeing what was on the other side.
Our geologist, chemist and cryptographer spent the next five or six hours analyzing the alien apparatus. Eventually they came to a consensus that this mechanism of sorts was what adjusted the air pressure and the makeup of the atmosphere to be compatible with our bodies. To test this hypothesis, the geologist removed one of the flares from his side and struck it alight with a snap of the cap. He waved it in front of the array and something beyond amazing happened.
As smoke spewed forth from the sizzling flare, the long crystal rods began to move. Some raised, some lowered and some stayed where they were. When the apparatus did this, the smoke bellowing from the red flame simply began to vanish. This room, or this machine cleaned the air for us and kept it pure. At this time we did not know if only this chamber acclimated to our needs, or if it was the entire city. Now there was no doubt this amazing puzzle of faceted crystal rods adapted the atmosphere for us, removed the toxins in the air, and it made us all wonder what other things this amazing machine was capable of doing.
As the three of our team members analyzed the crystaline machine, the rest of us began to debate the origin and nature of the beings who created such a spectacularly advanced city. As much as we wanted to think they were humans, the very location of this city made that impossible. It was my assumption, and that of several others, that the atmosphere that was in the room when we arrived was the natural atmosphere of whoever constructed this massive place.
Our briefing told us very little about where we were, what part of the sea we were in, or even what see we were in. They seem to go to great lengths to keep us from knowing any of this. That was obvious by the complicated route the government transported me to this location.
I thought perhaps this city once sat at the floor of what eventually became the Mediterranean Sea. I had difficulty trying to fathom an advanced civilization existing at that time. The flooding of that sea occurred somewhere in the neighborhood of 5.3 million years ago. Modern humans were not believed to exist until approximately 300,000 years ago or less, so the timing of the flood was much too early for humans to occupy any now submerged city.
Someone examining the crystal apparatus touched one of the crystal rods which made it rise a few inches. Immediately several other mineral shafts changed position as well. We all stood there in silence, afraid that we might be facing another atmospheric changed. Our government escort pointed at an opening that was beginning to grow in the same wall of the room as our entrance. The opaque crystal became transparent and began to retreat away as if made of some sort of fluid.
As we approached the opening so that we were able to peer around the corner, I could see this smaller room went back for a hundred feet or so before it ended in a back wall. What I saw inside this room excited me immensely, as I believed we were looking at something no human eyes ever saw.
A multitude of various items seem to be suspended inside the wall of this smaller room. By the way the items appeared to be placed, it seemed like they were in drawers. I checked the walls carefully and found no seams to support that theory.
As the others worked on trying to figure out what else the apparatus might operate, I turned my focus to this newly discovered room. By studying the items encased in the transparent wall, I hoped to uncover something about the civilization capable of creating such a splenderous city.
There were a variety of tools in one of the clusters of items. There was nothing with which I could equate them, as they looked like nothing I ever saw before this. There was what I thought might be jewelry in one of the storage areas, for lack of a better term. I could not know for sure unless I was able to get the items out and examine them more closely. The most exciting part might have been the material from which the items were created.
Guaging by the gleam I could see coming off the surface, I initially thought it to be a metal of some sort. I could not say for certan from here, but the best way to describe the metal was as flakes of gold and platinum suspended in what I thought to perhaps be a glass or clear quartz. I was very anxious to examine these items in detail, and I was absolutely sure there must be a way to get them out. I returned to the other room to check on the progress of unlocking the symbols on the apparatus.
All they could tell me at this point was that it was the most complex computer system any of them saw in their entire life. This was something of which I was already rather aware, and I found it slightly irritating they even responded with an answer like that. I blew it off and went back into the smaller room. I would do as much of my examination through the transparent rock as I could.
The back wall of the niche was not clear like most of the walls. Instead it looked like ice. The wall was not cold to the touch, so for now I assumed it was crystal just as everything else.
Although I could not see them, I knew the others tried to operate the apparatus that cleaned and properly pressurize the atmosphere. Whatever they did made this small room in which I stood become active. The hard mineral encasing the items withdrew from them like water draining. Every cache in the walls receded, exposing all of it. Of course that astounded me, but the back wall became transparent and revealed by far the greatest of our discoveries yet.
I cried out to the others and told them not to do anything else. They had to come see what I found. They must have heard the urgency in my voice because they arrived very quickly. When they reached the opening of the small grotto, every one of them froze in their tracks. When they saw what was in the back wall, they were rendered speechless.
Embedded in the wall we saw a body. Because of its condition, we were unable to tell if it was human. Whatever it was, it was obviously a humanoid of some kind. All of its appendages looked human. It even had fingernails at the tips of its fingers and toes, and its heads still had a full head of red hair. The feature I noticed almost immdiately was the thing in the clear crystal wall only had four fingers and four toes. For this alone I did not think this thing to be human, not a modern human.
I was facinated by this thing in front of me, and my attention was fully on examining it’s form. The body appeared dry and the skin leathery. Until I could examine it more closely, I could not say if that was its natural state or if it was the result of being sealed in this place for millions of years.
I was not paying any attention to him at first, but the geologist was calling my name, trying to get my attention. He found what he thought was lettering etched several inches inside the glassy crystal. After finally registering what the man said to me, I stepped over to look at his discovery. The cartogropher was on her way over to us as well.
They were very very faint, but there were in fact figures etched deep within the crystal corresponding to symbols on the crystal apparatus. Until we could find some way of translating what we were seeing, we were not sure if it was a combination or a warning. We made a paper drawing of each of the symbols so the cryptographer could compare them with their positions on the crystal mechanism in hopes of discovering their meaning.
As I continued to examine the creature inside the wall, I began to wonder if this was some sort of stasis chamber. It was my assumption the clothing and other items stored in the cubbies belonged to this being. It appeared this thing was intended to be revived, but whatever was supposed to come back to revive it never did. The creature still appeared very much life-like, but I was sure the thing I was looking at was dead.
Were there other bodies like this in other parts of this crystal city, or was this the only one?
The glowing crystalline city spread so wide, I was sure there must be others. I could not wait to explore the rest of this incredible metropolis. Who knows what wonders, what highly advanced technology was out there for us to discover. This find, this lost technology could change the world as we knew it, and I was right there on the inside.
I carefully examined each item from the storage units, taking great care to be gentle with them and logging where each item was found. Spreading all these things out as I did took up a lot of space in this smaller room, but everyone but the xenobiologist was still in the larger room trying to understand the apparatus. Despite having the items, most of them quite bizarre spread about, I was not really in anyone else’s way. The sheer number of things and the fact I was going over each item carefully it took me hours to even get through the objects from the first cubby.
With my excitement trying to discern something about the city and its original inhabitants, I did not notice the time clicking along until our second shipment of food and supplies. The two agents could not speak because of their suits, and they could not remove their suits until we got something in here to refill them with the breathable fluid. That equipment was scheduled to be brought in at a later time.
One of the two arriving agents typed into the keypad that was on all our suits, and the message came through our escorting agent’s radio.
“Why did you use no food or water” the simulated voice asked.
Our escort told them we were very busy with everything we had to analyze and we would eat in a few hours.
The other agent again typed into the keypad on his arm and the voice asked “How long do you think you’ve been down here?”
Glancing around to the rest of us for a moment, he shrugged his shoulders and replied into his radio “Eight hours or so.”
Our supply runner stunned us all when he responded with “You’ve been down here for two days.”
We probably would have laughed at this idea, but the look on his face told us he was not kidding around. None of us were tired or hungry. It did not take a scientist to put two and two together. Something about this place was sustaining us. There could be no other way we did not get sleepy, hungry or thirsty. The room not only allowed us to breethe, it appeared to be taking care of our bodies as well. Somehow in some way this place completely sustained us.
At that point, our chaperone insisted we stop and eat. None of us were hungry, but we knew we should get some food and water in us. Perhaps this place only numbed the hunger and did not satiate it. If that was the case, we would need to make sure we continued to eat and drink as normal. Although we did consume some food and water regularly, we found sleep to be impossible.
Eight days later, I had almost everything in the storage cubbies inventoried and catalogued when I heard the others calling my name. I rose and rushed into the main chamber where the chemist, cryptogropher and geologist told me they thought they understood how to properly operate the machine now.
We were scared, but also elated to know more of what the apparatus could do. The three assured us what they were about to do would have no effect on our atmosphere’s density and composition. They were going to open the chamber holding the body of that ancient being so we could examine it more closely since the etchings in the transparent wall were how they were able to unlock the crystal array.
Every time they touched one of the crystals, it moved either up or down. Other seemingly random mineral rods either moved up, down or remained in place. It was like working some sort of insanely complex puzzle. We were all staring intently on the amazing machine until the rods stopped moving. When the fitted crystal shafts stopped, everyone looked around the room to see if anything happened.
The cryptogropher told us there would be several more steps before they could achieve the desired combination sequence. Disappointed, The xenobiologist and I went back into the room with the body. At this point she was helping me make notes on the items I still had spread about the floor. It was another hour before someone called out to me informing me they were ready to activate the last sequence to releaase the body from the crystal encasing it.
Everyone but the cryptogropher joined us in the smaller chamber to help when the body was released. She activated the final sequence and right there before our eyes the crystal hoding the corpse flowed away like water into apparent nothingness. The leathery mummy inside remained standing until all the flowing crystal pulled away from its body.
At this time it began to fall forward like a tree. We carefully caught it and placed it on a stretcher. As I assisted the others into transferring the body to a stretcher, I noted the body was much heavier that expected. As dry as it appeared to be, I expected it to be much lighter than it was. Carrying it to a table set up in the main room, we gently rested the body on the flat surface.
The whole team was here for more than a week, and the supply runs brought us all manner of tools, gadgets and medical equipment. The xenobiologist was justifibly excited as this was what she wated her life for. We had everything we needed for her to perform an autopsy here. It took us a short while to get everything set up and adjusted properly, as the woman performing the autopsy was the only one with more than a miniscule amount of medical training.
The being was obviously not human, and I was eager to see what organs this creature had. I wondered how much it looked like us on the inside, if it was like us at all. When the xenobiologist began to make an incision in the leathery flesh, a small trickle of blood oozed out of the wound. God help me, blood dripped from this body that was very likely 5 million years old or more.
The terror of seeing the blood was replaced by a more intense horror when its eyes opened, and it glanced over our faces. The instant it opened its eyes, we could hear the crystal array become active, and we saw the rods begin to move without needing input. I was the closest to its hand, and the eons old creature reached out its discolored arm and grabbed me by the wrist. Suddenly my lungs began to burn as the smell of sulfur filled my nostrils.
I watched the dried flesh of the mummy returned to what I assumed was its regular skin tone as I felt the air pressure increase rapidly. The air filled with traces of chlorine, carbon dioxide and various sulfur compounds. We suffocated as the intense pressure crashed our bodies from all directions. The agony was indescribable. There were no words to describe the feeling of one’s bones all crushing into small pieces instantaneously.
The room automatically adjusted to create an atmosphere and pressure ideal for us, but the city did not belong to us. The city belonged to this thing, and the instant we revived it, the crystal apparatus readjusted to create the atnosphere this thing needed.
When it realized what was happening, it tried to help us. There was nothing it could do. The crushing pressure ruptured our eyes, crushed our bones and was squeezing our bodies into gelatinous masses.
The room sustained us during the entire time we inhabited it, but it was not built for us. It was built for that thing in the glass coffin.
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