Exposed

I felt like life vacated my body blown away by the wind. The thing I sought for months on end finally stood before me. My foot stumbled a little struggling to stay up. This wasn’t the sort of reaction I expected to have when I found it. Was it just relief and everything that was holding me together like a scaffold just crumbled away. Nothing remained to support me.

But before I got too lost in the emotions, I managed to mutter a single word. “Origin.” And that was enough for the rest of my strength to leave me. I gasped out feeling the shallowness of my breathing escaping. It was real. Real!

Collapsed to the ground, I stared blanked and in awe that something lost for centuries and thought a myth could be in front of me. How many devotees sought this and wished to look upon it. Would anyone else even be able to see it before everything ended? Everything was ending!

I looked around me coming back to reality. Rothe apparently joined me. His usually firm stonewalled features were completely destroyed. Mixtures of excitement and achievement transitioned through his face. I wanted to know everything that he thought and felt. It almost bordered on joy. I could understand.

“Sergeant Rothe, we’re returning to camp, sir.” Up at the top of our trench stood Koure. I hadn’t seen him since we left today alone. But he leaned in when he saw the two of us knelt before an excavated hole. “Sir? Is everything good?”

My mouth opened, but nothing came out. Had my eagerness sucked away my voice? I clawed my fingers at the dirt to get myself up, desperate to reach for him. Damn, I can’t believe I’m being so dramatic. I just need to speak!

But my panicked actions drew in Koure at least. He hopped down into our pit and hurried to my side. With aid, he pulled me to my feet. “Eshikra? What happened? What’s wrong with you two?”

I nodded, fighting with my strength. It finally flowed back into me. This couldn’t be where I ended the day. No, I needed to know now! Gasping on air, I finally got the words out. “We found it! Origin, it’s here!” I pointed over to the exposed lettering and familiar triangle that even Koure knew. Almost immediately, I felt his hand squeeze up on me, nearly breaking me.

He released me the moment I yelped in pain. “Sorry! I-I, don’t believe it. It’s actually real. The stories weren’t a lie.”

“No, they weren’t. It was all true.” We both turned to see Rothe recover from his shock. The practiced stern features returned as he forced his discipline back into his core. “Send Benthe with a message for Commander Heist. He will want to see this.”

“Yes, sir! Right away!” Promptly, the man scrambled out of the trench to disappear from sight. An energy in his step that had been missing for weeks. I’d imagine the entire camp would be aglow with warmth after this news.

I walked back to the dirt that covered over the lettering. Brushing away more of the earth, the letters became more exposed “ministra”. My fingers traced over it feeling each carving into the stone. It had the same shapes, but a cruder cut as if they couldn’t replicate it perfectly. “Ministra is here.”

“You’re hungry to know.” I tilted back towards Rothe a little confused. He handed back my shovel. “It’ll be a while before the Commander arrives. It would be best that we make it presentable.”

His words confused me initially. But as I took the shovel, I nodded as I understood. Heist would want to see Origin, but so did I. I might have been with them for the last month and more, but I didn’t want to wait. We just needed a good enough excuse. If I just happened to see the inside before he came, we were making it ready so he didn’t have to wait.

I started in on the aged sand and dirt finding that my strength had not just returned, but I felt refreshed. It was as though I began the day from a full rest. I could go all night. Though I knew my body would hate me afterward.

The area Rothe discovered was a wall. I could only guess that this had to be the front of a large plaza like that would be found in Berthon. What it had to be like back in the days of Ganiza with followers passing through the sacred halls everyday able to breathe in the light and life of Ministra whenever they wished. Not having to make do with a facsimile.

Tracing the wall, we found holes that might have been windows. Though it seems some might have just been time eating away at it. But eventually we came to the entrance. “It’s smaller than I would have thought.” We couldn’t even fit side by side together in the threshold.

“Yes, even in my hometown of Villena it was wide enough for three to easily pass. But Entif was a village before it was a city.”

“Did they never expand Origin with the populace?”

“Humble beginnings.”

“The texts did say that the Ganiza were believed to have closely adhered to the original teachings of Ministra.” With my curiosity increased, I started to dig through the entrance. I feared we’d have to empty the whole chamber, but after half an hour an end finally arrived. The ancient chamber of Ganiza finally revealed itself to eyes for the first time in an age.

Time sapped it entirely of color, the old stone matched the outside with a little more care to smooth out the wall’s surface. Hints of some murals that used to decorate the interior appeared in places, but it was almost entirely carved away by the years. Whatever it had been I couldn’t even make a guess.

But more importantly, at the center of the chamber stood the object of legend that we sought. Once more our breaths were stolen away from us. “Origin. The Pillar… I can’t…” It was perfect. Stunning to witness the majestic form towering over us. It actually felt larger than the ones that copied it. And completely different as well. I wouldn’t have imagined. Ours were all carved from stone, granite, I think, often from a boulder nearby to the temple. It was done to honor Ministra who created everything to know that She watched over our home as a part of us.

My fingers stretched on their own to just touch it, compelled against my will. “It’s cold. And soft?” It was unlike anything that I had seen before. I looked back to Rothe, who seemed to remain behind out of duty or fear, I wasn’t sure. But I silently invited him for his opinion. It was almost pure white like snow, even after all of this time. As though time couldn’t touch it, because it was divinity itself.

Each edge and surface had a precision that I’ve never seen before. No craftsmen could achieve something of this perfection. It truly was a work of a deity. Our recreations couldn’t compare. But as I walked around to the back something was wrong. Black marks tainted the perfection. Something or someone had struck it. Damaged that which She created by Her hand. Something impossible.

“…ministra…” I repeated, finally the words exactly as they were writ upon the wall outside. They were different, even if the same. Why? And cracks carved through it making it nearly incomplete. I kept tracing along the surface where the sacrilege occurred. Until something caught my finger.

In my shock of finding Origin, I hadn’t noticed the obvious holes torn into the back of the Pillar. It cleaved through whole sections erasing the pieces of Her Last Gift. But it wasn’t solid like stone or metal. Rather it was hollow.

Darkness absorbed nearly everything, but I tugged on something my finger found inside. A clear stained glass like structure that flexed and stretched under my strength. Nothing was inside it, but it was just like the Pillar, soft and impossibly smooth. “What is this? What did She gift us?”

“Eshikra…” I turned to find Rothe even deeper inside the chamber. The back wall wasn’t stone like the rest. This hadn’t been built by the Ganiza. I thought from how the texts described it, that Ministra built the Pillar and Ganiza built the first temple around it. Yet this wall was like the Pillar. It had a pale blue and yellow over it in a hexagonal pattern, but it looked nothing like the rest of the architecture. Did She build a home among us?

And like the Pillar something damaged the structure, but far harshly and in a different manner. It looked violent and destructive, raw and vengeful. It bent out towards us as though something from inside clawed out.

Within, a series of multi-colored lights chased each other through long clear structures up and down the darkened interior. But Rothe pulled me by the hand towards something that stole his eyes. More divine script, “Project Castellon Research and Development Study Administrative Ward”.

This is Ministra’s home? What was She studying?