#ammonoids

We have an old portable rock saw in the department. It must date back to the 1800s. They took it to the moonstone garden. There are footsteps, leading to the wide-mouthed dry well. 

We stand at the gate now. The other grad students all have an excuse. My field partner and I don’t. Behind me, the professors have made themselves scarce. They can’t be affiliated with this. 

Geology is no longer untouchable. We’ve broken the peace. 

Someone needs to negotiate it back. 

The gate opens with a gentle push. I don’t like how cool and smooth it is under my fingers; we walk in together. Geologists map in pairs. Field safety. The medical bag on my hip feels pathetic, considering. 

“Undergrads,” mutters my partner. 

Stupid. Stupid! We both take moonstones from the garden, place them under our tongues as a tacit superstition. Keeps us from speaking too much truth. Then, all that’s left is to vault over the crumbling well and down into the deep.

My boots hit ground surprisingly quickly, onto a gentle slope of what feels like asphalt. I should still be looking above the lip of the well, but it’s completely dark.  We’re both wearing department issue hard hats, although it takes a bit of time to get the carbide lamps to work; standard electrical headlamps never seem to work on campus. 

Once they flicker on, we see standard school tiling and plaster walls. Typical. 

“I was kind of hoping for catacombs,” says my partner, who is going to get both of us disappeared. Paleontologists. This is worse than the New Mexico incident. Her voice is flat in the confined space.

I just shake my head and move further in. We’re leaving a trail of iron nails as we go, twisting and turning; the halls seem to echo the pattern of walkways above. There’s even a roundabout for the fountain. 

There isn’t a soul around, of course. We’re seeing whatever they want us to see. 

More twists and turns, and my back begins to ache. It’s been hours. Or maybe minutes. My watch hasn’t been working, but the carbide will work for ages. The tile under my boots begins to turn to dirt, and where my fingers trail along the drywall, they start to catch on bedrock. 

“We’ve been hiking for hours,” says my partner. “Why aren’t I thirsty?”

“What?”

The rock is strange. It’s solid, but- the texture is wrong. It’s too warm. And- too wet, for the dryness of the soil. If the soil is below it, it should be more wet. Clump more. Why is the distribution of the clay so uneven? 

“We should have needed water by now,” she says. “That’s part of their- realm. Isn’t it? That you need refreshments more?”

A dim light turns on in the back of my mind. That… does sound familiar. “We’re carrying a lot of iron.”

I want it to be true. I want, so desperately, for it to be true. Want and know are two different things. 

We turn another corner. It’s brighter, here. More open. There’s a figure huddled in the corner- several figures. My partner runs towards them, but I’m distracted- the rock saw is lying on the ground, next to the wall. It’s just been used. 

The undergrads can wait. And if we’ve just broken the peace for this, well-

I reach out for the hunk of bedrock. I feel it pulse. My hand comes away wet with blood. 

This cannot be real. My mind hurts trying to understand it. I find myself reaching into the center of the core, but before I can, a hand in bright, painful light takes my wrist and pulls it away. Her eyes meet mine. They have no pupil.

I am prey. She is not a predator. She is simply Other. 

“Please don’t disappear me,” I say. My mouth is moving without permission, the moonstone heavy under my tongue. “It’s really hard to get decent grad workers out here. The other students would be pissed.”

Her lips turn upwards. It is not a smile. I watch her. I am about two seconds from vibrating out of my skin. 

“Get away from him,” says my partner. She’s holding her hammer and mine. As if two of them will do anything. 

The woman opens her mouth, but nothing she says is processing through me. All I hear is the rushing in my ears. I close my eyes eyes to blink, and when I open them, I’m sitting on the edge of the well. No hammer. No core. No backpack. 

The moonstone under my tongue is gone.

When I look at my hands, they’re still sticky with blood. And I can’t get rid of the feeling that there’s something else missing. 

If only I could remember…