“What are you doing,” she yelled. “You’re going to die!”

 

Richard ripped his helmet from his head, tore a tube from the side, and shoved it in his mouth, puckering to keep the oxygen from escaping. Betty’s hands grasped at his body, trying to keep him with her.

 

A dark cavern stretched ahead, hardly large enough to crawl through. Deep within was a structure unlike any other on this moon. It was manufactured; deliberate. Something, or someone, had placed it there. Richard needed to know why. It pulled him against all reason.

 

Deaf to Betty’s pleas, Richard clambered inside the rock’s opening. He ignored her arms reaching in behind him and grasping at his equipment, but he pulled himself in further.

 

The passage was too small for a grown man. Moving one limb at a time, Richard’s weight pressed against sharp rocks, cutting his flesh, exposing him to deadly radiation. He took short puffs from the oxygen tube. With no way of replenishing his supply, a full tank could last an hour, but something other than caution drove him.

 

He could cover thirty meters a minute. Not enough air to get him to the inner structure. He pushed, ignoring the pain. His hands began to welt and blister. Swelling knots on his face. Blurred vision. The small flashlight on his forehead dimmed and brightened in cadence with the throbbing pains. Coughing came then, his lungs falling victim to the harsh environment.

 

Each wracking cough thrust another part of his body into the stone. He glanced at his hands. Where was the blood coming from? Still, Richard pressed on. He had come too far to return. His oxygen tube hissed out his precious air as he released the seal around his lips. More coughing threw his head into a stalactite, destroying his flashlight. Pitched into a black void, he kept crawling forward.

 

His tank near empty, his bloody body unraveling, the darkness consumed him. This quest was nearing its end, but not the end he hoped for. His breath became ragged as the tank fizzled out and pinged against the cave walls.

In the distance, a pinprick of light–forty, maybe fifty meters ahead. Fighting to retain consciousness, Richard pushed further.

 

Each meter agony, Richard finally saw it. Beautiful. Like the old-world Earthen structure of Stonehenge, but in metallic alloy. Machine sharp edges, deep grooves of strange symbols, and all arranged in overlapping concentric circles. The ground beneath was similarly scored, ravines tracing patterns across the opening, sun beaming down on the entirety of it from light-reflecting mirrors situated towards the stone.

 

Richard collapsed over that strange pattern. His blood trickled down, and the slick-smooth surface of the groove beneath him whisked it away towards the center. The rest of Richard’s blood pulled away from his body. Richard’s broken, glassy eyes reflected an unmistakable sadness as he perished.

 

The blood pooled in the center, seeping down out of sight, alighting the structure. A deep, thrumming pulse rumbled the ground everywhere all at once.

* * *

Still beside herself with grief and pain, Betty was unable to leave the rock. That deep sound compelled her. She tore off her helmet and followed in Richard’s footsteps.

They called her.

 

“I’m coming,” she whispered.