I awoke with a start, the darkness pressed in around me. The dream I had just had was so vivid, I still cannot say for sure if it was just a dream, or if it were actually from experience. I was walking down what seemed like an endless corridor, the only light coming from dimly lit candles dwindling from the walls. Where I was going I know not, nor where I was coming from. Only that it was important that I arrive to where I was going. The darkness continued to encroach upon me. To the point that the only light shown as pin points from the candles on the walls. All was black beyond that, all hidden from my sight. I could feel a dark presence, watching me, waiting for a moment to strike.
I continued to move forward, for I had no choice. Some unseen force bid me to keep moving, I felt drawn as if the choice to go back would mean certain death. So onward I marched into the blackness. After A time I finally seemed to come to an opening. Though cavernous, it alleviated the claustrophobia I had began to feel. But at that same time I felt more trapped than before. This was bare rock, not something man made. Where was I? Why was I here? It was important, I knew that much, but still my purpose eluded me. There was some great table at the center of the cavern, I approached it as though it held a familiarity.
When I had entered within reaching distance of the table, my hand shot out to touch it. I could not stop it, for some force was compelling me not to. The instant my hand touched the grainy rough stone, Images began to fill my mind. Some joyous and of celebration, some of a darker, more insidious nature. As I began to find my baring among the torrent of images, I found myself being shaken awake. Ellison, my caretaker, was standing by me bed with a look of concern on his face.
"You were screaming in your sleep sir." He stated and then added, "It was loud enough to wake the dead."
His mention of waking the dead brought back images from the torrent I had seen. Images of men climbing from the ground, of sarcophagus's being slid open from the inside, of aged hands decaying even as they moved to free the body's they were attached to. I shuttered.
"I'm fine Ellison, it was just a nightmare, nothing more."
"Do you need anything sir?"
"No, I'll be fine, get some sleep El, we have a busy day tomorrow."
"Indeed we do sir, ground breaking for your new museum promises to be quite a spectacle. Good night sir."
There were no more dreams that night, and the ground breaking went smoothly. It was not until a week later that I received that fateful call from the construction crew. They had found something while digging and felt like I needed to see it. So I arrived with due haste, and saw that in the midst of the foundation dig site, there was a rather large sink hole. The crew had tried to fill it in, but every morning they would come back and it would be there again. I chose to enter it, against the urging of the construction men. To this day I cannot explain my actions, only that I felt compelled to enter. They agreed to lower me down after some encouragement, and I began my decent into the abyss.
When I had reached the bottom I saw it, the entrance to some ancient long forgotten crypt. Again the compulsion to enter it overwhelmed me. Things began to look familiar, candles somehow eternally lit giving the only light. And a corridor with no end, the one from my dream. I walked onward, though my mind bid me turn back, my feet and legs would not obey. Soon the corridor gave way to a vast cavern, again the one from my dreams, only this time it was dimly lit by numerous small crystals in the ceiling. It almost looked like a foreign starry sky, fully equipped with its own strange constellations. And there in the middle, lit from some unknown source, sat the table, only it was not empty. On it sat a small model of my museum, and beside it, a presumably small model of an ageless temple. It had no placeable origin, yet it also had ties to many ancient peoples. My description will not do it justice, but I will attempt to describe it with our pitiful and limited language.
Its shape was that of the great pyramid, however where the gold capstone would have been, there was a towering monolith. At its base were columns, such as those the Romans had, but atop the columns there sat gargoyles clearly from the Gothic era of Europe. Stranger still where the lights, strings of lights with no candles, stretched from the gargoyles to the base of the monolith at the cap of the pyramid. There was much more, but I find it impossible to describe.
As I stood pondering the structure, my thoughts were shattered by a pronounced thunder. The way I had come was now closed, not by a simple door, but a gigantic immovable stone. I realized then, as I realize now, that it would be days before the construction workers would find me, and longer still for them to find a way through the stone, so in an attempt to forestall panic I searched for a second way out. There was none, and presently, there still is none nor any sign that my rescue as even been attempted. I stand here, writing this by the light of stars I no nothing about, in hopes that my final words will be heard by some soul. If it be this century, or another, I still hold out hope that someone will find this. Perhaps someone more fortunate can decipher the writings along the edges of the table. And the endless whisperings that have started to haunt my waking hours.
I leave my thoughts now to the ages as there is not left for me but madness.