-''This is geologically impossible.'' Shana stated with an unsure voice.

  -I know the readings told of a strange nothingness, but I was expecting... something! Water, or a very thin layer of an earth formation. But this...

  -''How far does the emptiness go?'' I prompted.

  -No reading from the damn thing. I'll reset it. Hmm, the tectonic sensor is still acting up. It keeps jumping between three hundred and seven hundred meters.

  -So something's out there.

  -But it shouldn't have been like this! All this dirt must have compressed against something irresistibly more dense and immovable to have formed such a dense crust of diamonds!

  -The pressure needed for something like this to have formed is almost inconceivable! I was thinking of lava channels and the sorts, but this... this is unheard of!

  -''So what could have been here in this empty space before?'' Asked Provence.

  -No idea. But I'd like to find out.

  -''The air readings are finally coming in.'' Shana spoke before instantly barking into the radio.

  -All teams present within the terminal shaft. Seal! Seal! Seal! We have a large breach of non-respirable atmosphere venting inside our sector!

  The air quality sensor was coming in with the newest data on the monitor. An influx of carbon dioxide, sulphur, argon, nitrogen and a few other minor gases. The air that was coming in our shaft was unbreathable. And while our ventilation system would continue to do its job to its full capacity, for the moment it was not feasible to risk it. Not until we would determine that the atmosphere here would settle to our desired properties. Or until we sealed the breach with a separating makeshift wall.

  -''Report in and prepare to withdraw the bore machine once safeties are attached. Hudson, get your team and bring me some mobile light towers over here!'' Shana barked her orders with renewed confidence in the radio.

  Half an hour later we were on the lip of the engulfing blackness before us. Nothing could be heard. Nothing could be seen. And it was beyond eerie for the construction crew. Only me, Provence and Cement having dared come so close to this great unknown.

  -''Magnificent, wondrous... I can't see shit! Where are those lights!?'' Shana spoke.

  -''Coming!'' Replied a voice behind us.

  A pair of heavy industrial lights were brought besides us and plugged in. At her order heavy beams of light pierced the seemingly unnatural darkness. Yet, as powerful as they were, they only shone far enough to reveal a dark hand spearing towards us!

  -''Aaaah!''

  I turned around to the unfortunate worker.

  -''You alright there buddy?'' I asked simply, unperturbed.

  I looked back to the gigantic beam with its thin appendages springing out of it. Scrutinizing it closely we could see that it had the form of an antenna. But underground? And it was incredibly large. Its main spike paralleled by six others coming out near the end of it.

  -''Well, that was unexpected.'' Said Shana.

  -''And pretty useless, I still have no signal on my phone down here.'' Provence spoke, more amusedly to dispel the gloom.

  -''Let's turn some of these lights below us.'' I suggested.

  Shana had calculated for the boring machine to reach the middle section of the oval chamber. Rightly having her concerns that if we came too low we risked a flood in if there was any body of water present. Too high and we might have been flooded by more ignitable gasses that tended to be lighter than most. Below us we could distinguish what seemed to be a semblance of the floor with the same round or oval characteristics as our tectonic scanner had showed.

  -Do we have more powerful lights?

  -''Yeah, but we need to bring em out from storage all the way from the surface.'' Shana answered me before asking her own question.

  -So, your take on this?

  -That antenna or whatever it is, connects to something. If we follow it we might get some answers.

  -''Or more questions.'' Answered Provence. ''Ruins always bring more questions than answers of the past.''

  She would be right. In her years as a catastrophe messenger, perusing all the ruins of the Barrenlands that she could find... she would know. But as she found me, a relic of the past to her fortune, we might as well still find something of value here. But of course fate would have a differing opinion on that. Not an hour later while we were taking a break in one of the airtight chambers an alarm came through the radio.

  -''Swarms! The slugs are swarming over the hole! Shit! Shit! Run!'' A panicked voice radioed in.

  -''Bloody Hell! I meet those fucking buggers on every dig!'' Shana expressed herself irritatedly.

  -''I'm going out to mitigate the problem.'' I spoke while Provence rose with me, being of the same mind.

  -''I ain't no pushover, I'm coming with you!'' Replied Shana. Slamming her incredibly heavy concrete shield to make her point.

  -Hicks, stay here and radio the surface! The slug cleaning crew on stand by can finally get off their asses and earn their pay. Call them in!

  -Yes ma'am!

  Provence swiftly attached her mask in tandem with her safety helmet. It was a tactical ballistic mask, made of alloys strong enough to stop even smaller calibre bullets. It was of a black-grey shade, with two reinforced glass covers for the eyes that had a bluish coloured UV protection as well as integrated night vision. It had a hose connected between it and the oxygen canister that nested by her back. The mouthpiece where once clear was painted over with the jagged toothed mouth of a wolf. I attached my similar but plain black mask, checking the seals before heading into the fray.

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  Outside the sight was more worrisome than even the live feed we had witnessed before. They were truly swarming in, crawling over every surface. I deemed them a waste of my blade's sharpness to dull on, so I grabbed some makeshift weapon. Taking for myself a sturdy looking piece of a titanium pipe, and throwing a crowbar to Provence.

  -''No use wasting ammo if it's not needed.'' And we got to work.

  -''Keep those buggers from chewing the electrical lines! Those are the lifelines of this shaft!'' Shana howled.

  -''Good to know.'' I said as I took a stance, and with great force had made contact with a big slugger. Propelling that ball of flesh and rock back into it's swarm, confusing a bunch of its mates.

  -''This ain't even a fight!'' Expressed Provence as she was trudging, kicking and hitting the damn things by each second.

  -''Hah, I guess we're the emergency roach patrol on hand.'' I joked.

  -''I've had it with these mother fucking slugs, in this mother fucking shaft!'' Shana boasted angrily as she levelled an entire floor of the slugs with her massive shield.

  I swung my pipe. Obliterating three more slugs before grabbing my tactical radio and pressing the transmit button.

  -An ETA on that relief team?

  -Sczzzz, they are on their way down the lift, sczz, at least twenty minutes.

  -''Lovely.'' Spoke Provence in response just for me. Having been tuned in to the same frequency and having heard everything.

  -''One of those days I guess.'' I said as I rolled the pipe in a circular manoeuvre before swinging it into a fat slug. At this point feeling like having more fun with this pest issue than anything.

  After all as long as I kept those things off the power lines it was mostly a waiting game for the clean-up team. Only Shana taking them more seriously than us. And I let her be. It was probably a personal thing anyway.

  By the time the clean-up team arrived along with the bigger light towers, Provence needed another shower again despite the coolant circulating through her suit.

  -Well you wanted to come along and keep me safe my lupa.

  -''Hah, I never complained over a little workout.'' She said, breathing in just a bit more heavily.

  -I wouldn't get worked over these little critters. Saving energy when you can is a thing in of itself.

  -I know, but I'd rather not take too many risks so deep underground.

  Within the hour the clean-up crew would finally get the chance after six months to be worth their damn fat salaries. To their credit they swept the place with quick efficiency. And soon all the workers of the day shift were back installing a separating wall as well as setting the even heavier industrial lights.

  Sitting at the precipice I pointed into the darkness far ahead of us.

  -I can see the ending at the root of the antenna.

  -''I can barely see anything. Can you describe it?'' Asked Shana.

  -Not really. It's all a smooth surface as long as I can see.

  -''All these antennas have to be connected to something deeper inside.'' Provence pointed out.

  Even greater beams of light were punching out of our precipice. Revealing many more gigantic and enigmatic antennas further away. A small fleet of drones buzzed around in the great darkness, illuminating and charting this great hall.

  -''So where do we aim from here? I was paid to reach... well, this weird thing. And then wait for more orders before progressing.'' Said Shana.

  -I want your team to build a scaffolding way downwards, as well as building a bridge straight ahead of us until it reaches the surface on the other side.

  -''No problem. We should reach the bottom today and build it upwards. Will take two days. The bridge might take four or five days though.'' Shana spoke as she checked her tablet. Constant feeds updating her every minute.

  -''Any ends to the chamber or the thing in front of us Shana?'' Asked Provence.

  -No, aaand not really. The cavern stretches far beyond even the drone range. And whatever is in front of us is just a smooth, impenetrable surface. Not even our tectonic scanner can get any reading behind it.

  Whatever it was it had definitely acquired my interest. Five days later we were again in the mineshaft, coming closer to what awaited us within. We met with Shana inside the new pressurised container right before the new wall delimiting the other side of the precipice.

  -Good morning Shana.

  -Mornin' Tacet, Provence. My dear surface dwellers finally decided to visit me!

  -Oh come on, we come down almost every day!

  -I know, I'm kidding, I'm kidding.

  -I've read the reports. Nothing interesting I noted, except for the worrying part.

  -Yup. Big hole of nothing. The cavern floor has a body of water. Nothing too deep mind you. Goes up to your chest at most. Or over my head in my own case.

  -Though I wouldn't venture to trod through it. There are scattered holes beneath it. And the cavern stretches far out surrounding this... well, egg-sphere shape, or whatever it is.

  -As for that queer structure from which the antennas stretch out of, it is made from an unknown metallic material. Completely smooth. No entrance, and none of our machines can bore into it.

  -Not even with the diamond drills we have. Probably worth the fortune of a mobile nation if we can get some of it to study and find out how to use.

  -''I'd like to hear more about the worrying part.'' Provence intervened.

  -Increased seismic activity, I'm sure you felt it even on the surface.

  -We have.

  -That, and we have been getting readings from our seismic grid readers that the fault line nearby is getting rowdier by the day. Doesn't bode well for continued operations in the future.

  -''Does it affect us now?'' I asked.

  -No. But the slugs are a worrying sign.

  -Hmm, I understand.

  -''How so?'' Inquired Provence.

  -''We've attracted their attention with our activity here.'' Answered Shana before continuing. ''That, or they are running from something. Most likely the fault line. They are not a problem in of itself. It's the tunnels they might be boring to get here, away from the other side. Or really just in general parallel of our position here.

  -''Oh Terra... if the fault line becomes active those tunnels will be flooded with lava.'' Spoke Provence with realization.

  -That or worse. It could cause further tectonic shifts, though the diamond cover that forms the cavern's structure acts as a safety wall. If everything starts going to Hell the diamond shell should keep everything more or less in the same shape. At least long enough to evacuate.

  -''Are there any signs of that happening?'' I asked.

  -Tale tell signs yes. Some of the tunnels at the bottom of the cavern are bringing in heat and sulphuric gazes. Nothing too worrying at the moment though. The amount has been mostly the same since we stumbled upon this place.

  -''It's not too reassuring.'' Said Provence.

  -''It is not. That is why we must make best of the time we have at hand.'' I spoke to both of them before addressing Shana. ''I've brought Closure's newest scanner. Perhaps with this one we can get some answers.

  -''Hope so, this place is uncanny as Hell to be in! Who do you think left this here? Aliens?'' Shana asked in reply.

  -''Ancestors.'' I answered.

  We entered the delimiting wall. Inside there was a progression chamber before we passed through to the other side. Each of us three checked each other's suits and oxygen tanks before opening the last door. We were faced with the lit walkway of a modular catwalk stretching all the long way to the Capsulae Temporis. The ample lighting along the surety of the reinforced steel we were walking upon should have been comforting. But I wasn't.

  I had a concealed disquiet as well as a thrill as I was walking towards what was supposed to have been Humanity's gift to my people. It was the stuff of legends. Many stories were told about it to us when we were little. From the first and foremost, the primest, the oldest, and wisest of humans from ancient Terra itself. To have come all the way here when the world was baptized with its name, and the first touch of Humanity had caressed it.

  They had given my people a great gift by the immense size of what I was seeing. They and our ancestors back then had high hopes for us... And we in turn squandered it all. Destroyed the promise of a better future as we ate and butchered at each other in tragedian fashion. We had let the worst of us take reign and disregarded reason. And so the lineage of the first Terrans fell into extinction, by their own hand.

  I felt a gentle palm rest upon my shoulder.

  -''Cassiel.'' Provence spoke, having sensed me.

  -I'm alright.

  -''Grab these and let's get a move on.'' Shana prompted.

  -''Electric scooters, nice.'' Said Provence.

  -Beats walking seven hundred meters.

  Time was of the essence. I couldn't put more risks on their lives by being here more than we had to be, and nor mine. We had two pups to return to back home after all. Needless respect and heroism wasn't becoming of me if danger of life was stalking opportunistically at the corner.

  We met the last crew of the night shift heading back to the surface as we passed by the immense antenna by the catwalk's side. Soon finally reaching the end of it. The catwalk ended in a winder T-junction prompted against the immense object.

  -''This... isn't welding I'm seeing.'' I said.

  -Nope, it's super industrial glue. We couldn't weld anything to the thing's surface, so we glued the whole end of this catwalk to it! Don't worry, this thing is as strong as a welding connection!

  -''That's good to know.'' Spoke Provence.

  I opened the suitcase that I had brought with me, pulling out Closure's new experimental scanner. After I plugged the device in one of the sockets by the light cords I was preparing to boot it up when a tremor shook the scaffolding.

  -''Shana?'' Provence asked.

  -We've been having those since we got in here. Nothing out of the ordinary.

  The mini screen turned on as I positioned the scanner array towards the smooth surface of the strange alloy. A good ten minutes had passed, and the eighth scan just came in.

  Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

  -''Guess Closure owes someone a refund.'' Provence spoke in good humour, trying to light up the mood.

  -''I guess so.'' I replied somewhat disappointed. And I closed the device back in its suitcase.

  Another tremor, stronger than the first lightly shook the gallery and our catwalk. After it passed I walked up to the great capsule as the girls waited for me.

  ''It's about time to go. I guess I don't deserve your secrets, my ancestors.'' I thought as I ungloved my hand and touched the cold, smooth surface. For a few moments nothing happened. And then, everything happened, as Hell opened its earthly gates.