~2026~
The earth was never meant to remember.
Yet, for over two thousand years, it had guarded a secret beneath layers of stone, snow, and silence.
"Careful!"
The sharp warning echoed through the excavation trench as a young archaeologist brushed away the last veil of hardened soil. Around him, the ruins of a citadel shimmered beneath the pale morning sun. Weeks of digging had yielded little more than broken pottery and weathered beads—until now.
His brush struck metal.
Not bronze.
Not iron.
Something else.
The object emerged slowly, impossibly intact despite the centuries that should have claimed it. It was no larger than his palm—a cylinder of dark metal encased in flawless crystal. Intricate engravings spiraled around its surface, unlike any script the team had ever seen, glowing faintly as though light slept beneath the glass.
"...Professor."
No one answered.
Every pair of eyes was fixed on the artifact.
Professor Richard Morgan stepped into the trench, removing his gloves with unusual care. Forty years of excavating forgotten civilizations had taught him one lesson above all else.
The oldest discoveries were often the most dangerous.
He knelt beside the object.
There were no signs of corrosion.
No cracks.
No decay.
It looked...
new.
"That's impossible," one of the researchers whispered.
"It shouldn't be that preserved."
Morgan didn't disagree.
A geological survey had dated the surrounding sediment to over two millennia. Nothing manufactured with such precision should have survived untouched.
And certainly not something that looked...
engineered.
The professor carefully turned the cylinder.
A single engraved symbol caught the morning light.
YOU ARE READING
A CHASE THROUGH TIME
Historical FictionWhen a mysterious artifact shatters everything a young doctor believes about science, she is thrust into an ancient world standing on the brink of annihilation. An invisible enemy is spreading through the land, a ruthless empire is willing to sacrif...
