10 days before, Arthur Adams had moved his scarred, calloused hand over the weathered, stone chest that lay half sunken into the Mesopotamian sand. His eyes were transfixed on the markings covering the lid and sides of the gargantuan monolith; laden with symbols he had never seen or heard of in his 20 years of archeological experience. He had excavated hundreds of digs in nearly 50 countries, uncovering remnants of civilizations long thought lost to the winds of passing millennia. Revealing beliefs and rituals that, to modern standards, were wholly barbaric and unfathomable, but never to him; no, Arthur Adams was archeology. Arthur Adams was the face of the anthropological community. If he had anything to do with a new discovery, it was accepted as his success and this stood to be his greatest achievement. The marking were not Sumerian, they were certainly not Babylonian, and carbon dating would prove beyond contention that it could not have been buried by the Persians. No local could identify the strange connotations embedded in the ancient rock. Adams, peering over the aged box, beamed with triumph as he was handed his pry bar. He would be the first in untold centuries to view the contents of this buried relic. This was his immortality. Adams thrust the bar into the seal of the ancient arc, pumping it up and down, wedging more space between itself and the lid. Gritting teeth and cracking sinew, he forced the mammoth lid up and to the side into the waiting rigging of his diggers and assistants. A dead wind shot out from the dark contents. The smell of a thousand deaths left its darkened cell and felt long lost warmth in the Sumerian Desert. Arthur Adams gazed into the abyss, and the abyss gazed back at Arthur Adams.

10 days later, Patrick Ramirez’s cell phone vibrated across the top of his end table. Its screen flashing on and off, registering the caller ID to read: “Do Not Answer” across its face. The young man rolled over in his bed, throwing a half empty fast food cup in the general direction of the annoyance, but its presence was a fact, and he had to accept that his dream involving the lovely blonde would have to wait. With the TV broadcasting a story about the increasing number of local murders, Ramirez fumbled his somnambulistic hand about the general area, knocking down a lamp and 46 cents in change onto the floor below him. Opening his eyes ever so slightly to read the name of the intruder he would surely beat to death upon meeting, he keyed the phone on.