On this grey Monday, unlike most people at work, Sarah was overjoyed as she typed her password into her work computer. The excavation of the antic mausoleum they were studying was progressing at a great pace, and she hoped her team could enter by the afternoon, maybe sooner. After checking her mail, and suppressing a few from desperate students begging her to join her team, she read the reports she sent every week to her university.

Everything started eight months ago, when a petroleum company investigating the depth of the Atlantic got an anomaly in their readings. An investigation revealed a gigantic hollow bubble embedded in the oceanic floor. Of course, several scientists from various universities and state agencies showed up at once. And they went from surprise to surprise. What they thought of as a geological curiosity turned out to be an antique city, caught inside a solidified lava bubble. The media went wild after an historian claimed this was the mythic Atlantis of the ancient greeks, causing the typically bored public to take interest in this. Only one month later, after the bubble was separated from the oceanic floor and lifted to the surface, they started opening it. Thought the material of the bubble seemed to be simple basalt, it turned out to be much more unyielding, and required top-of-the-line machinery to pierce it, which slowed down the operations. When that was done, each university present got the right to search one area. Cambridge was one of those, and Sarah, as the youngest archeologist on the team, was given the right to choose first which sector of the ten by ten kilometers area she would work on.

And how lucky was she! The spot she picked at random happened to contain only one building, a colossal dome almost two kilometers wide. Her architect friends were already going crazy trying to figure how it was built. After some of the exterior was freed from its rocky prison, she was able to start working. She was disappointed at first, since this building was strangely crude, devoid of any of the ornaments her colleagues were finding everywhere else. But she changed her opinion when they found a door. A door big enough for a plane to pass through, and covered in strange red paintings, vaguely reminiscent of the diagrams used by alchemists of the past.

The language used was unknown, but the frenzied global effort of all the archeologists and linguists was starting to pay off, and some of those words were translated in the weeks that followed: “Herein slumber the ones who shall never rest.” While her team was trying to free the door, she searched in every mythology compendium what that phrase could refer to. As a fan to the great Georges, she could almost hear the scraping steps of a zombie horde! But she was a professional, and she would never draw any conclusion, let alone such crazy one, from a single sentence.

And even if her research was fruitless as of now, it didn't matter, because today she would be able to see what it meant with her own eyes!

“Miss Lomrow, the door is almost free. Sarah thanked the old man. Henry Braind was the engineer in charge of the extraction team, and the one who assured her that the door was still intact. Sarah went up, grabbing her backpack before following him to the search site. As always, she was awed by the sight of it. The door was colossal, two hundred meters high, with two twenty meters wide panels, made of obsidian. As they were closing in, she saw one of her assistants, John, approaching. He was a PhD student in archeology, specializing in antiquity. And, most important, he wasn’t vain, nor pretentious, like most of the applicants that answered her when she assembled her team.

“Miss, the spectroscopy is done. It's blood, probably human.” He seemed quite perturbed by it, and she could see why.

“What, all of it?” The door was almost covered by paintings and writing, all done in a strange ochre pigment that intrigued the researchers, pushing them to do some analysis. She couldn't even start to guess the quantity of blood that would be needed for that.

“Yes, all of it.” A chill ran down her spine, as she wondered what pushed people that far. What’s inside that’s so precious that so much human blood would be used as a decoration? Unless it had a religious signification? Even then, it was still too much.

They stopped some distance away from the door, and Henry stepped in, coordinating his team as they started the machines that would open the door. Four mechanical cranes started pulling steel cables anchored to the doors by the engineer. While there wasn't any resistance, the sheer weight of the stone blocks meant it would require hours before they were completely open.

And Sarah wasn't going to wait hours. After ten minutes, the young woman and her team slipped through the small opening and entered the darkness. As the light from their lamps swept the place, they quickly realised they would need more powerful projectors. They were unable to locate the top of the room, nor the other walls, which probably meant this was a single room, hundreds of meters high. And everywhere around them were statues. As far as they could see, hundreds and hundreds of statues, men, women, even beasts, all standing and looking towards the center, all shockingly lifelike. Sarah approached one, a young woman with haughty features, feathery wings and what looked like a leather armor. She was carrying a short axe and a round shield. Sarah was fascinated by the work of the artist that managed to create such a lifelike masterpiece. She could see the strength in the statue’s eyes, despite them being made of stone. She touched the regal face, almost expecting human warmth, but she met only cold stone.

She was interrupted in her contemplation by a cry of alarm from Lise, another student she took with her. Looking around, she saw a beam of light to her left, going up and toward the wall. Sarah ran as fast as she could, and arrived there just before the others. Lise was as pale as death, looking at the wall covered in bloody inscriptions, similar to the ones on the door, except they seemed fresher, perhaps less damaged by time. Quickly sweeping the wall with her torch, Sarah saw what frightened Lise. There wasn't an end to the writings. If the door alone was impressive and awe-inspiring, trying to imagine the amount of blood needed for all of it was truly terrifying.

While John was comforting Lise, Sarah proceeded toward the center of the room. On the way, she saw that the floor too was covered in symbols and runes. It became denser and denser as she walked, until she was in front of a continuous red line. After it, there seemed to be nothing, and the light she beamed there was quickly lost in the darkness. Looking behind her, she saw the door, the distance dwarfing it. For the first time in a while, she felt it was a true adventure. At least, I will reap the fruit of all these studies. Aventure, here I come! She could almost hear the whispers calling her forward.

She walked bravely while humming the famous theme of her favorite archeologist-adventurer, and crossed the line of blood. Suddenly, the world around her changed. An enormous orb of prismatic lights rested there, and thousands of whispers called for her. She walked to the orb, which was at least ten times her size, and basked for a few moments in its warm light. She felt better than she ever had. She could feel the blood flowing in each part of her body, and her mind was crystal clear. She wanted to take her flight toward the battle, to let her rage free, to let the blood flow! To crush her enemies. See them driven before her. And hear the lamentations of their women.

When Sarah opened her eyes, she first checked herself. Everything was how she left it. She didn't know how long this strange dream lasted, but it couldn’t have been that long, since none of the others had come for her. What was that? All the things she felt were so… real. Picking herself up, she went for the orb. Resisting the sweet heat it radiated, she touched it, trying to guess the material. As soon as she did, an intense pain coursed through her whole body, petrifying her where she stood.

“BREAK IT! BREAK IT! FREE US! BREAK IT!”

The voices in her head were nothing like the whispers that had come before. Those were orders, absolutes. But at the same time, she could feel a deep despair emanating from them. The pain was becoming unbearable, and her heartbeat turned erratic. Her vision blurred, and she barely managed to not collapse. She managed to lift her right hand, and she swung at the orb with her lamp. Nothing happened, but it was her only idea. She could feel her life slipping away, and she redoubled her effort. At some point, her lamp broke, but she continued with her fist, until it broke too. As she felt her brain slowly succumbing to the pain, something flared inside her. Lifting her broken fist once again, and ignoring the pain, she struck. To her surprise, the orb seemed to shake a little. Reenergized, she hit it again. She couldn't see anymore, but she felt the orb shatter, and the voices stopped. As she fell unconscious, she heard a final voice.

“Thank you...”