That was all Alhia could find. She had gathered up the pages and put them in an order that seemed to make sense (as much sense as it could). And that was where it ended.
She wanted more. It couldn't just end there. It wasn't fair for it to just end there. There was so much left unanswered. What happened to the writer, Zach, for one? And what about the other guy that he lived with? And who was Lucy?
She felt betrayed by someone she'd never even met before.
And now, she realized, she had a choice. Go forward, deeper into the cave and see if there were more pages scattered around, or head back home where her parents were undoubtedly worrying about her. She had been up here for hours, sorting through and reading these pages of lost, disjointed thoughts.
They were incredibly alluring. This, these scribbled pages, were a perfect snapshot of history, as it happened. If she could get to the bottom of it, it would be groundbreaking to learning the truth about what happened to humanity 300 years ago.
Nobody knew. Someone destroyed the records, or maybe records were never made. But an unknown catastrophe struck the human race. They were rebuilding, slowly, rising in numbers, but no one knew why they had to. They knew that they had been glorious, once. And they knew that they weren't, now.
And if a sixteen-year-old girl were to discover the truth? It would be extraordinary.
She weighed the options and decided to go home for the night and then come back in the morning and make her way deeper into the cave.
Alhia stashed the pages of writing neatly under some rocks and then descended the hill headed back toward her community. Her mind didn't leave the journal that she'd left in the cave, however. She just kept repeating the question "What secrets does it hold?" again and again mentally.
She knew that she had to be the one to discover the answer. She wouldn't tell anyone about her discovery.
She wanted more. It couldn't just end there. It wasn't fair for it to just end there. There was so much left unanswered. What happened to the writer, Zach, for one? And what about the other guy that he lived with? And who was Lucy?
She felt betrayed by someone she'd never even met before.
And now, she realized, she had a choice. Go forward, deeper into the cave and see if there were more pages scattered around, or head back home where her parents were undoubtedly worrying about her. She had been up here for hours, sorting through and reading these pages of lost, disjointed thoughts.
They were incredibly alluring. This, these scribbled pages, were a perfect snapshot of history, as it happened. If she could get to the bottom of it, it would be groundbreaking to learning the truth about what happened to humanity 300 years ago.
Nobody knew. Someone destroyed the records, or maybe records were never made. But an unknown catastrophe struck the human race. They were rebuilding, slowly, rising in numbers, but no one knew why they had to. They knew that they had been glorious, once. And they knew that they weren't, now.
And if a sixteen-year-old girl were to discover the truth? It would be extraordinary.
She weighed the options and decided to go home for the night and then come back in the morning and make her way deeper into the cave.
Alhia stashed the pages of writing neatly under some rocks and then descended the hill headed back toward her community. Her mind didn't leave the journal that she'd left in the cave, however. She just kept repeating the question "What secrets does it hold?" again and again mentally.
She knew that she had to be the one to discover the answer. She wouldn't tell anyone about her discovery.
