Searching for salvation

"They'll be here soon".

The words were ancient, the paper they were on even more so. The markings on the paper were dated at approximately a thousand years old but the paper itself was at least ten times that. When they found it it was sitting in a room, bland in nature. Eggshell-white walls, drained of any inspiration or creativity, as if to draw any visitors into the exhibits. The note was found in 2006, a plaque in its new home reads.

The plaque is dusty and ignored now, twisted and bent by the failed attempts to remove it. One day, a hooded figure cracked open the case and the nearby window and let the crinkled note go. Police could never find the figure or the note and quickly the case was dropped. A barely passable artefact lost in an act of vandalism, it wasn't worth anyone's time.

However, the idea of the ancient paper and markings developed a bit of a cult following, be it online in the dark corners or on the more forward facing ones. Over the years, much more so recently people have sighted more notes travelling in a random unexpected breeze. It seemed to appear in ancient texts and drawings we found in caves and other ruins. The notes I gently retrieved from the ground with my own hands or from stories online, clips. Of course there were the edits, the conspiracies. Signs of lost civilisations, of forgotten mysteries.

But if the conspiracies were loud the actual evidence was louder and deafening. Drowning out the sea of misinformation that was shared online, printed on paranoid pamphlets. Evidence was everywhere, places we thought we'd looked and more. A crumbled, decimated barely note was even retrieved by an automated submarine in the mariana trench. They tested it and somehow it was the same age as the one in the eggshell-room and had similar carvings that somehow were still barely traceable despite the pressures and the environment it had been in.

Fakes of the ancient notes came in quicker than we expected, my department, a small town archeology guild, suddenly back in need. Even if it were just for paper, it made us feel good, it made us feel needed. Our small knit team got donations from well wishers and the curious and also from the paranoid and panicked. As if we could simply explain away all the new evidence.

Not that we really wanted too, anymore. Our shelves were full of notes, of etches and sketches, of pictures, of samples and our wallets were heavier than they'd even been.

It was a business, if we acted like it or not. It made sense that sensational, prophetic notes would come along. But no one ever took to them, we tried four times over four months, using samples we cleaned and removed the etching on to create our own. But no luck. There was no interest, anything over two words simply didn't match the trend, the pattern that had emerged in the evidence. So we went more basic.

And for a time, it looked like the seeds might sprout, like maybe we'd be able to cash out on an idea or that we could influence a local election for good or something.

But people didn't care about paper in the street after a while. They wanted the mystery, the elusiveness of notes emerging out of the wind in the desert, in a rainforest.

We couldn't forge those as well and the supply of paper that could be verified from that era, well we weren't finding it quick enough. And like that, the game was up, we had to go back to being plain archeologists who couldn't make our own luck.

Our department suffered and for a time almost in parallel the evidence and newly discovered notes began to ebb.

Till the coves of Cornwall, a mysterious note announced would be the scene of what we needed, what I needed. To feel the rush, the pulse, that extra surge of adventure, of pushing the boundaries, of doing something a bit morally grey. I was alone in the office at the time when the note came in. I didn't think, didn't want to let the others know. They'd call me stupid, for trusting in a dangerous note left by who knows who. They'd be right, they are right.

I raced down to Cornwall barely acknowledging the scenery, the dark twisty winding country roads. The image of that solitary slip of paper floating down past the bannister of our old, draughty office burned in my mind. My skin tingled, my mind raced and I reached for a blanket from the back of the car. I’d left my own note, it felt the right thing to do, to leave one on paper, handwritten as if to ensure my friends, my colleagues would get it. Maybe it would even float to them as they opened the door as if it were me greeting them with fresh tea.

The night played tricks on me, around every corner leaves on hidden trees looked like notes suspended from the night itself, not yet activated waiting for the right person, for me. My phone lay silent in its holder, my fingers twitched over the screen as I peered into the darkening night. The note hadn’t said a timeframe, no note ever had, but I knew tonight was the night. Something about the way the cold gripped my shoulders and the hairs on the back of my neck stood in anticipation, made me sure tonight was the night.

My car creaked and groaned and the fuel gauge was in the wrong half but these were issues for later. My eyes were set on the distant gleam of the approaching sea. The flickering and rocking motion is a silvery beacon. Only there, would I find answers, only there would be the salvation my department had strived so much for.

I pulled up to an empty car park. It was twenty to ten, the moon hung in the sky, a silent judging observer and the wind bit and clawed at me brutally as I got out and gathered up my jacket and a head torch. I strapped it on, regretting it almost instantly as the cheap fabric squeezed tight against my head, compressing the sticky cold sweat. The feeling of claustrophobia grew and grew, the beach walk to the cove was pinned in by vast arching dunes and the light barely extended off the sides of the rotted wood planks. I heard a loud, erupting bird call and I jumped, the shadows descending and rushing past in a flash. My car was right there.. I could just.. No. I had come all this way, I had to know what this was all about, I pulled my keys between shaking knuckles in my pocket and carried on.

Shadows seemed to twist and snap at my heels, retreating sharply when I spun round. More vivid, more animated with each and every step. The breath that I was holding forced its way out, emerging as a loud gasp that carried further than I could see into the night as if trying to escape me and my fate. I struggled to control my breathing. The rhythm was quick, panicked, sharp. My lungs and stomach heaved and ached as I stood for a second letting the fear wash over and past me. Though like seaweed, some remained clinging in unreachable places.

Finally the cove was in sight. Just in view, a narrow slit in tall, dominant white rocks, just as the note had described. I approached, turning the head torch up as I got closer. The smell of sea salt and seaweed assaulted me as I breached the entrance and I crossed my fingers, whispering a small prayer that somehow it would protect me, hide me or assimilate me with whatever evils lay inside. Each considered delicate step drove home my new reality that I would not leave empty handed. My department would no longer remain hidden, unnoticed.

The cove twisted, darting away from me, a place to catch my breath always just out of reach. I rushed, then raced, my back arching under an unseen weight, my heels felt like they were on fire. My head torch flickered, just like in the movies and I swore loudly. But it held and I raced on till eventually I found what was instructed: a small stool like structure protruding from the sand and rock. The light bent around it, almost repelled. The top was worn and smooth and my hand struggled for purchase as I rested against it, panting.

I looked around when my breath came back under my control and my heels and arms didn’t feel quite so on fire. There were two paths snaking away from the stool, which one had I taken?

The one behind me looked familiar, that sharp right turn round the waist height protrusion looked about right, but the one in front of me looked like my footsteps were just there, fading in front of my eyes.

I heard fluttering and my neck hairs shot up and a cold shiver erupted down my back hiding between trembling shoulder blades. The paper, a note hanging in the air, floating, spiralling down like a dancer towards my trembling hand. With no obvious concern or fear that I would break it. The paper hung in the air for what seemed like an impossibly long time, twisting round in slower and slower rotations. Then it collided with my sweaty, sticky palm, the unexpected weight shaking my hand slightly.

Screams, shouting, the sounds of bones and metal being dragged along the ancient walls erupted from behind me, no, in front of me. The note almost trembled almost in recognition of the sounds, of the unimaginable chaos hurtling towards me, then a beacon out of the blue, the voices of my friends, the disorganised rushing as they fumbled for torches, for weapons.

I screamed, calling for them, as the note in my hand vibrated and seemed to swell, taking up most of my palm, weighing my arm down more and more, till my hand ached with exertion and my eyes were drawn to the note. The parchment seemed more bone white than the previous ones and the etchings on it seemed to glow and shimmer. Just one sentence.

One sentence that shot fear and adrenaline through me, even as the wind broke in a million piercing bone like shards on my back.

“They are arriving”.