Chương 18: Chapter 17: Discovery

With one last look at the small cliff, I shook my head, then looked below me, addressing Emily.

"Nothing here." I stood, then jumped about twenty-five feet, landing next to Emily with a loud thud. She, in turn, jumped back with a gasp.

"Gah! C-Can you not land so close to me?!"

"Sorry, sorry…" Dusting myself off, I rose to my full height once again, looking at her.

"So, where's the next spot?"

"You're sure you didn't see anything up there?" Emily asked.

"No signs or anything?" She sounded a bit exasperated. Really, I couldn't blame her. This location was the fourth spot we'd tried, and with each attempt, she'd mark off the location on her map. By now, it was late in the afternoon, and the sun was starting to slowly lower toward the horizon.

"Nothing. Just rocks, bushes, and some sticks. Let's get to the next spot, please." I said, slinging my backpack onto my shoulders. I didn't want to waste any time talking. We had to keep moving, otherwise we'd run out of sunlight.

"No signs of anything that's recently changed? It's been about two decades, but even then, there'd be some signs of…I dunno, rock moved or…a broken tree, or–""–no, nothing. I checked. What's the next spot?" I asked again, crossing my arms and looking up at her, tapping my foot. I wished she'd have a little more faith in me. Emily didn't bother looking at the map.

"There's only one more place, but it is a bit farther than the other places we've checked. It's outside the radius we thought you could have landed…" She gave a quick hum, "... then again, you could have moved quickly, I don't know. It's possibly you were dropped off and there's no landing site at all. It's possible–""–where is it?" Moving to her side, I got a proper view of the map still in her hand. Emily sighed, crouching to my level and pointing at a location.

She'd drawn several circles around certain locations: a huge circle surrounded the area she and John expected the ship to land, four smaller circles we'd explored, and one circle where John was first sitting. An arrow pointed in the direction from which I'd approached him. It only left one single circle, outside of the large perimeter, but still vaguely in the same direction as the arrow. Adjusting my backpack, I turned toward the same direction. Before I could move, Emily put her hand on my shoulder.

"Tess, can you hold up for just a second?" Emily was still eye level with me.

"I really wanted to…" I started, but after seeing her expression, I relented.

"... okay. What's up?"

"Tess, I've been thinking a lot about what you said… and I wanted to say thank you, for what you told me earlier. You were right. I shouldn't talk to you like I did, and I do need to listen more. I needed to hear it and I'm proud of you for speaking up. You're not the little kid you used to be. We hid a lot of secrets from you for your own protection, but things are different now. You're an adult and you deserve to have answers, and if there's anything you want to know, feel free to ask me. I'm here for you."

I smiled, stepping forward and giving her a big hug. She didn't hesitate, squeezing me snugly in return. We held each other for a short while. It felt as if this was a place we could both restart, forgive what we'd done to each other and start making new, better progress.

"Thank you…" I said softly, gently letting her go before I separated a bit, placing a hand on her shoulder.

"Now, let's go find this ship." She smiled back at me.

"Okay, let's go." It wasn't as frustrating during this trek to deal with Emily's slower pace. Instead of that creeping anxiety in my chest, instead I felt a more comfortable warmth inside of me. Having Emily there… I was glad she was there with me. What frustrated me now, approaching the last circle on the map, was knowing this spot would be the last chance to find anything. If we couldn't come across something, there wasn't much hope left. I shook my head. No, I was going to find it. It had to be there.

It just had to. After getting through a small patch of trees, the final location was obvious: a large, stony cliff which harshly jutted out of the land. It was smaller than the main mountain, but it still ominously towered around anything nearby the area all the same. Even reaching the base of the cliffside took a few minutes for the two of us. No wonder John and Emily found this location too difficult to fully explore. The cliffs were massive.

Luckily, I could spot small cracks in various spots, along with some evidence of rock climbers from long ago in the form of anchors dotting the cliffsides. Dropping my bag, I took a quick survey of the cliffside in full. One particular crack seemed to be the easiest to traverse.

"I should be able to get to the top from here." I told Emily, pointing at the line in the stone.

"Okay. I'll be here. Radio me if you find anything." She replied, pulling out her water bottle and nearly finishing it. Climbing the cliff here would be easy. My claws could easily reach into any spot I needed and hold my weight. All I had to do was follow the places the previous climbers had used, especially when there were any anchors left by them. Sometimes I'd have to jump to grab them, but it only took me a few minutes to reach the top. The rock was probably about three hundred feet over the surrounding area.

I could see several potential spots for a hidden ship, so I started along the ridge, looking for some sign of scrapes across rocks… anything where a ship may have fallen or crashed into them. Nothing stood out to me. I started searching in the crevices near the top of the cliff, even sliding between them a bit to look into the dimly lit areas. All I discovered was rocks, sticks, and random debris from climbers here and there… nothing close to what I was trying to find.

Moving along the ridge took more time than I expected, but I didn't want to leave any place untouched. With each new crevasse I'd find, a new spark of hope would ignite within me, only to be extinguished when I found nothing. After hours of thorough searching, and certain I'd checked everywhere on the rocky outcropping, I had to concede. Nothing was here. With a sigh, I climbed all the way to the top once again, looking out around the entire area, fruitlessly hoping I would see some sort of sign.

Sheep Nose was ahead of me, the sunlight shining down on it gently while the golden orb in the sky began setting behind me. I felt as if I should be angry, but instead I was just disappointed. Surely there must have been something I'd missed, but everything was just rocks, trees, bushes, and a few small signs of some people out here once in a while. I didn't know what I was expecting from the search, but I was expecting something. Head held low, I carefully made my way back to where I'd left Emily.

She was sitting with her back to the rock wall, talking into the radio.

"... and pepperoni, on my half, if you could. Oh, lots of water. I'm almost out and it's been a long day out here." Oliver's voice responded a moment later.

"Cool, got it. Should be about forty minutes."

"Thanks!" Emily smiled, turning off the radio. I cleared my throat to get her attention. She turned to me.

"Tess! Hey, Oliver's going to…" Her sentence slowed, then stopped altogether. She must have been able to see how upset I was. Her arms opened to give me a hug. The reality of my failure seemed to stop me from moving. All I could think at that moment was about being anywhere else, doing anything else. I just wanted to get far away from here. Only when I was in Emily's arms did I finally realize she'd pulled me into a hug. I leaned into her shoulder, relaxing a bit. At least she made me feel slightly better.

"It's okay, we can come back." Emily whispered into my ear.

"Just because we didn't find it today doesn't mean we have to give up." It took me a minute to find a way to respond. After a few minutes of silence, I slowly opened my mouth, the words spilling free.

"What if we never find it? What if it…I don't know…what if it took off again? What if it's not even here?"

"I don't know…" She said quietly, "... but we can keep trying." Releasing me from the hug, Emily put a hand on my shoulder, using her free hand to lift my chin to have us make eye contact.

"We will keep trying." You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author. I nodded. She was right. I knew she was right. She grinned back at me.

"Good. So, let's start heading back. I'm starving and Oliver's bringing us pizza."

"Oh, uh…" I'd only eaten one of my sandwiches, and we'd packed two for each of us.

"Heh, I've been so focused on everything, so I didn't eat both of mine. I still have one left if you want it." Reaching into my bag, I fumbled through the contents for a moment before pulling it free and handing it to her. As I held it, my stomach started to return to life, also remembering how little I'd eaten today. I could smell the bread, the turkey and onions inside, and the distinct scent of mercury. Emily reached to take it, but I quickly pulled it away from her.

"Hold on, that's not right… we made these together. I didn't put any of that in there…" Pulling a slice of bread off the rest of the sandwich, I looked through it layer by layer, smelling it carefully. Turkey, onions, bread, tomatoes… and nothing else. While I put the sandwich together again, I felt my stomach rumble. My mouth watered. Maybe it was just a hallucination. I haven't eaten in a while.

Before I could hand the sandwich to Emily, a light breeze gently swept through the area, bringing the scent right back to my nostrils.

"Mercury! Emily!" I exclaimed, accidentally dropping the sandwich, hardly even noticing with my attention focused on the scent.

"Oh no!" Emily gasped, looking sadly at the now ruined sandwich. Now wasn't the time for me to explain. I grabbed Emily's hand, going back up the hill toward Sheep Nose. She dragged behind me for a moment, still looking back at the abandoned sandwich.

"Emily! Forget about the sandwich!" I yelled back at her, still dragging her toward the direction my nose was leading me. We were led all the way to the side of Sheep Nose. We'd walked through this very area earlier today. The smell was getting stronger. Going along the edge of the cliff, the two of us kept moving.

"Why didn't I smell this earlier?" I asked out loud. To my surprise, Emily answered my rhetorical question.

"Maybe the wind was blowing in the wrong direction?" She offered, taking a short breath between each word.

"Maybe… maybe you weren't as hungry? Or, maybe after a day of getting warmer in the sun, it lowered the vapor pressure of the mercury, and then the air started cooling and it began saturating the air, so–""Here!" We'd reached a small clearing, about half the size of a soccer field. The scent was stronger than ever, but I couldn't figure out its exact location. Emily took a moment to catch her breath as I tossed my bag, scouring the area.

I looked through the trees, along the cliff's edge, knowing I was running out of sunlight. Finally, I gazed to the sky for a moment, head slowly tilting as I followed a stray path of light shining on a strange looking alcove at the cliff's base. It was made of smaller rocks piled together with a large log laying across the whole structure.

"Emily?" I called to her as I walked over, holding out my hand.

"Give me that sledgehammer."

The log was easy to shove out of the way. The rocks, however, took much more work. After a layer of dirt around the surface, we found small rocks, ones we could easily remove. For each one we tossed away, two larger ones seemed to take its place. Luckily, the sledgehammer was able to break the larger rocks apart, allowing me to grab them and push them out of our way. When the rocks were too difficult to move, I started smashing away at them with the hammer.

I put every last bit of force I could muster into my swings, cracking each rock in half with a few good hits. I was so determined, I barely noticed myself screaming with each swing. This had to be it. This place had to be the right one. Every time a rock gave way, however, another one would be right there to take its place.

"Tess! Please don't hurt yourself!" I faintly heard Emily yell behind me. I continued beating at the wall in front of me, throwing my entire weight into every hit.

"Tess, can you please just slow–" Ding. That noise wasn't a solid thud. It was a loud, hollow, metallic ring. My hearts were beating loudly in my ears. My entire body went tense. I leaned closer, setting the sledge hammer down and brushing my hand against the impact spot. Once I wiped away the dust, a plate of metal barely reflected back at me–covered in dirt, but shiny, and definitely unnatural. Glancing around for a moment, I looked at the surrounding rocks.

I wanted to know what shape this thing was, but from this view? It could have been anything. Sliding my hand behind myself and towards Emily, I quietly said a single word.

"Pick." I felt it enter my hand in an instant, my eyes still locked on the metal. I started prying away the rocks above the material. Soon, it became clear there was a much larger structure underneath the rock. The smooth metal was covered in dirt, but it could easily be brushed clean. After tossing another large rock, an opening appeared between the metal and the cliff. The ship was half-buried, and the other half was sitting inside a small cave which had been thoroughly covered.

I yanked a few more rocks out of my way, fighting the urge to climb right in the moment I could. I knew Emily wanted to see the inside of this structure too, so I made sure the gap was large enough for both of us to make it through. It was pitch black inside of the metal.

"Emily? Do you have a–" A light turned on quickly. She was one step ahead of me. I crawled into the cave, with Emily right behind me. The light slowly moved around, revealing the entirety of the small cave. It was only a few feet deep, but as I expected, the ship was only half buried by rocks. It was about the size of a car–smooth on all sides, but shaped more like a stealth plane. The wings must have been small, but they had been completely ripped off.

As we examined more, it was pretty obvious this thing had taken some heavy damage during the landing. During the crash. It looked far more like a crash than a landing. A dark, dried up pool of fluid was underneath one of the remnants of a wing. Probably the mercury I'd been smelling earlier, if I had to guess. The fluid had seeped into the ground after all these years, but a small portion of it had been left. Emily softly whispered to herself, voice echoing in the tiny cave.

"This… this is incredible…" Her hand gently ran along the smooth edge of the spacecraft. I hopped onto the ship, landing near the front, staring at what must have been the cockpit. The large, rounded piece of glass had large cracks running along it, but somehow, it was still intact. At the base of the glass, I could see a small gap just large enough to fit my fingers into it.

Reaching toward it, I lifted the glass up with ease, the hinge on the back of the piece swinging to easily give me access to the inside of the ship. Breath frozen inside of me, my gaze quickly flew from one part of the ship to the next. All of it felt unreal, as if I was in a dream. A large seat was inside, with a few buttons surrounding the chair. Before I could take the light from Emily, a large series of flashing lights erupted from the inside of the cockpit.

Buttons, knobs, even the brim of the glass itself illuminated the entire area in a gentle, almost eerie glow. A soft hum arose from the ship while the lights came to life. Fans blew out air in a series of small vents. Despite sitting out here for eighteen years, the ship had activated as if no time had passed, no crash had happened. I'd never seen lights quite like these ones. Each color was a single wavelength with no bleed over into other colors.

I'd seen similar on screens, with red, green, and blue colors, but this color set was far more expansive. It stretched beyond the usual blues and reds I was used to seeing. An indicator light flashed and blinked, showing some sort of information I couldn't understand or decipher. A strange text was written on several buttons, some sort of language foreign to my eyes. Emily had crawled up the ship, kneeling next to me as she looked into the vehicle. She was just as speechless as I was.

Both of us just stared for a moment. Pulling her phone out of her pocket, Emily started taking several photos of everything we could see. Unable to wait any longer, I slid over the edge and climbed into the seat. It was a large chair for me, but I could stand in it with no issue. I looked to Emily, who snapped a photo of me standing there. I shrugged, shifting my attention to the floor of the ship.

Several loose objects were scattered around the base of the ship's foot: some empty bags, broken metal bars, plates seemingly from the ship's exterior, and… I reached low, picking up a red, plastic-like wheel. This thing was exactly like the one John gave me, other than not having the wedge carved into the side of it. I turned it around in my hands for a moment, but it seemed as unremarkable as the one I already had.

Handing it to Emily, I reclined in the chair, slowly and carefully looking over everything around me. All of it felt completely alien to me. I felt like I should recognize something here, or at least what was most important, but it was as if I was seeing it all for the first time… even if I hadn't. Emily started climbing toward the hinge as I continued looking, then searching for anything with potential to help us. I quickly found a side panel, sliding it forward to open it. Inside was a small box.

It had a screen on its top and buttons below the screens. I picked it up, turning it around. It had a small hole on its back–exactly the shape of the crystal, with two holes matching the top of the crystal as well. We found what we needed to read it.

"Emily, look!" I said, holding up the box, but she was distracted.

"Emily…"

"–we need to leave." She said, barely above a whisper.

"What?" I asked, confused.

"But…but we just–" Emily yanked on a small cable, pulling something off the top of the cockpit, holding it out for me to see. It was some sort of small device, with two wires protruding from one end. It was about the size of a roll of quarters.

"Look." She said, holding it up to me, voice getting quieter as she spoke.

"This isn't something of yours. It's ours." Emily turned it to the side, showing a battery warning label…written in English.

"What…what is it?" I asked.

"A tracking device. It activated when the glass opened. We should have caught this before, ugh…stupid, stupid!" She said in an aggravated tone, throwing the device across the room. It slammed into the rock before falling to the ground.

"What?!"

"This ship didn't just land here, Tess. It was buried, meaning it was meant to stay hidden. Whoever found this hid that tracker in here in case anyone found it, which means we need to leave." Emily was speaking quickly.

"Whatever you found, grab it and let's get out of here." I quickly scooped the box into my hands, scrambling out of the cockpit. Emily pulled her phone out of her pocket, taking a few quick pictures of the exterior of the ship, and we both scrambled back to the opening of the cave. As soon as Emily was close to the entrance, the radio chirped to life.

"... you there? Hello? Are you there?" Oliver's voice came through the speaker, "... anyone hearing this? Hello–" Grabbing the radio, Emily quickly responded.

"Oliver, hey, we're here. You wouldn't believe it! We found–""You need to leave!" He yelled through the other end.

"We're leaving now, we'll meet you–" Emily started, but Oliver stopped her.

"You need to go, now! I-I saw them, they were at your car! They were going through it…there's a black SUV and they found your car…I…they…they didn't see me, I-I just drove past. I'm a mile up the road from where I dropped you off, but something happened! I was trying to reach you, something spooked them about ten minutes ago. They started running up the mountain…you need to get out of there!"