Archeological Exploration
Peering within the dusky entrance, Simon felt exultation swell his chest. Long had been the road to gain this cave entrance, but he knew now it had been worth it- a cave deep in an isolated part of southern France, incredibly ancient, and undiscovered! As a researcher of all things archaic, this classicist was as excited by this discovery as a typical man would be by finding a chest of glinting gold coins and precious gems of shimmering colors.
All alone he had gone on his quest, led on by reading obscure ancient texts, many banned by church and state alike, in arcane and ancient tongues. The only son of a wealthy family, he had used up most of his treasure in pursuit of his historical pursuits; namely pursuing ancient artifacts, an all-absorbing study of the learning of the European ancient world, and a tireless seeking of all things old.
While all of those about him of his young age were absorbed in the here-and-now, amusing themselves with the latest electronic gadgets and devices, and totally committed to finding ways to make as much money as possible, as fast as possible, and with the least work involved as possible- Simon Stanton had spent most of what he had to discover as much as he could about the past. And this cave was the portal to something far more ancient than anything he, or anyone else in the modern world, could have ever imagined.
Squeezing his muscled upper torso through the gap he had dug in the hillside, Simon trained his flashlight within. A long, totally black tunnel stretched before him, narrow and yet smooth on all sides, as if painstakingly chiseled out of a hard, dark rock. The walls of that tunnel were so smooth as to appear almost polished, and in his excitement and total amaze he pushed himself all the way within- and began sliding! Slow at first, but quickly picking up speed, he plunged along down the polished rock chute, completely and rapidly unable to control his rapid descent.
He retained his grasp of the flashlight, but that was all, as he shot quickly down, deeper and deeper into the ancient earth. He thought ruefully of his pack left behind, of his gear, cell phone, and charts; everything really that had guided him on this great quest, this adventure that was going out of control despite his careful preparations. The bright blaze from his electric torch reflected wildly as he plunged with ever greater speed, showing an obsidian black all about, only the bright sheen of the reflections temporarily blinding him as they shot back into his bright blue eyes.
He strained to slow his downward spiral, planting his rubber-soled shoes against the rock, to no avail. Briefly, he wondered at the skill required to engineer such a smooth path of stone, and knew that his original supposition had been right- this ancient cave, of undeniable Neanderthal origin, given its age, showed the intelligence of this once denigrated ancestor of modern humans- but, with that thought, suddenly he was launched into the air, deep within the earth! He steeled his muscles as he hurtled through the deep, subterranean vault, as his torch illuminated all at once not only a huge hall, but statues of vague, anthropomorphic shapes lining gargantuan walls of not just black, but green, azure, and crimson colors! Amazed, he still tensed himself manfully against the fall, curling himself into a knot of muscle, knowing his life depended upon it.
Simon struck hard, as he knew he would, striking the rock floor that broke his fall while tensed into a muscular ball, his head bunched against his chest, his strong arms and legs all curled together. The impact would have killed a lesser man, but Simon Stanton, despite being a cloistered scholar, was also very much a physical culturist. He spent as much time improving his body as he did his mind, following the advice of the ancient Greeks to have a ‘strong body in a strong mind.’ The erudite professors with whom he communicated via computer and the mail would have been astounded to see the massively well-built man that they assumed was a spindle-shanked scholar such as themselves, that hunched over books and screens and never gave a thought to their physical bodies.
Slowly rising from the rock floor of the large cavern he had shot into, Simon was lacerated and felt as if shot from a cannon- but his limbs worked, and he was alive. He stood, gazing out upon a scene that momentarily made him doubt his very survival. For what he saw was a vast, colorful cavern; a great Hall that looked engineered, with columns supporting the massive weight of the arched roof, and shadowy, gigantic forms- huge statues, that stood along the walls. And all was lit with a light that emanated from within large crystals set in the walls; yellowish multi-faceted gems of a sort that glowed with a golden light. Standing there, Simon was an image of primordial man, unconquered, looking out upon a mystic hall of the gods, gigantic and awful, that looked down upon him with strange faces of perfection.
For Simon knew, from his many, and arduous studies that what he saw now vindicated his long suspected theory- that the ancients, those that modern men called ‘Neanderthals’, were not of a sub-human, ape like people; no, rather they were quite the opposite. For what he saw ranged about him, the statues that ringed this vast hall into which he had plunged, were the statues of gods, of beings that, although undeniably human in aspect, were in reality more than human. It was as if the pantheon of the Greek gods were carved into gigantic statues- there was Artemis, the goddess of the hunt, lithe, deadly and agile. And over there- Apollo, with more than human beauty and holding a lyre and a bow- ready to sing a song using the one, and a more deadly sort of song with the other! And so it went, as Simon paced about that huge hall, he saw statues carved with more than human skill, depicting the ancient gods and goddesses with a realism that was fantastic.
This was beyond what he had hoped to discover. Simon knew, knew beyond a shadow of a doubt from his laborious research and endless studies, that the ancient ones, the so-called Neanderthals, were not lowly pre-humans, slaughtered by the invaders from Africa and replaced by them as homo-sapiens. No, he knew that their brain capacity far exceeded our own, and he knew their suggested simian features were far from the truth- but this! He continued pacing the hall, which had gained the aspect of being a museum, a repository of ancient truths and wisdom. He was eager to explore it all.
It was like a dream, exploring a hall of such antiquity. He knew that the age of this subterranean vault was far more ancient than any of the current scholars would believe, hundreds of thousands of years was his considered opinion. He knew his spindle-shanked colleagues would gasp with incredulity, but he also knew he was right. He knew too that the skill to create such a subterranean hall, and imbue it with a strange light over the eons, was far beyond what modern man was capable of, even now in the age of computers and nuclear weapons. Simon walked like a man in a fantastical dream, looking at the very mythical gods that he had read of and revered in his youth as the avatars of the perfect men and women of mythology. And here they were, depicted realistically in stone!
Eerily, it was similar to the ancient cave paintings he had seen before in the south of France and Spain, and in Croatia- those paintings had been of animals, aurochs and many extinct species of mammals- and they had seemed to move, to be given life, in the light of torches within the darkness of those caves. And that was wonderful, and impressive beyond belief… But THIS! These huge statues appeared to live, and the light that leant them this aspect of life was engineered by these same folk to illuminate this hall. The implications made his mind reel.
He saw the entire pantheon of the ancient Greek gods, from Neptune, to Pluto, to mighty Zeus himself! All were huge, and yet somehow true to life, as if modeled on actual men and women who had strode the earth long since. And all were of awful antiquity beyond the ken of men!
And there were some figures, carved like the others, and yet unrecognizable to the scholar within Simon Stanton. There were statues with the heads of cats, and the bodies of women. One had the evil aspect of a baboon, and four legs like a goat. Some were like lionesses, and others like spiders. But the most hideous was the serpent god, with glowing red eyes like those of an evil madwoman.
Quickly turning around, Simon raced back to the main hall, within which were the main gods of the Hellenic pantheon. They seemed like familiar friends to him, and he sat at the feet of Zeus. The yellowish-golden light suffused him here, as if he were in a dream. He wondered what to do now- his pack was outside, he had no means of communication; in fact all he had of the outside, modern world was a flashlight! He was exhausted, having spent months finding the entrance to this cavern, and his head spun, knowing that not only did no one know where he was, but that what he should do next was hard to fathom, since he had no food, water, or anything else.
He was a man of action, of thought and purpose- but, for the moment, despite his momentous discovery- he had no idea what to do next. So, as a practical man, he decided to rest, and gain new purpose, by going to sleep.
As he slept, he dreamed. However, instead of dreaming of his fantastic present, in a huge subterranean cavern deep within the earth, his consciousness instead was unexpectedly diverted outward: to the modern world which he had tried for so long to ignore. To the decadent world of modernity, where Western Civilization itself was under attack, from corrupt politicians, a deluded, ignorant populace, and from the self styled global elite.
As liberal elitists posed and pandered to racial minorities for their own gain, sacrificing the very western democracies they were entrusted to preserve and guide, civil discord was running rampant. Crime, especially black crime in the inner cities was out of control, and the very police were not allowed to keep law and order because it ‘wasn’t fair’, since the vast majority of criminals were of minority races.
Even the universities, the supposed centers of learning and culture, which had come to mean the secular temples of Western Civilization itself, were now run by liberal apologists, post modernists of a recent tradition that had utterly abandoned all of the laborious long upward climb of rational thought, replacing it with leftism, and white guilt at all of their forebears great accomplishments. It was not enough for them to have equality- no, it must be equality of outcome- what you earn by risk and toil is mine by right- as much as he who earns it!
And in a final paroxysm of insanity, the Left, those ‘useful idiots’ used by the Marxists and Socialists as unwitting tools in the very destruction of their own advanced civilizations, were advocating to eliminate the borders between nations themselves, which could only succeed in making those civilizations of the west into Third World cesspools as they were invaded and overrun!
All of this Simon saw in his nightmarish dream, although it was not really a dream, since he knew in his conscious mind all of this was already happening. But, in the dream, which he realized was being given to him by the great statues of the ancient gods that were all about his prone form- he now saw the future revealed as well. Along with the collapse of the great European founded civilizations around the world- the U.S., Canada, Germany, England and France- he sensed another menace, heretofore undreamt of: a disease. A disease that had struck before, that many thousands of years ago had forced the Neanderthal people underground for eons for the very survival of their race.
The statue of Zeus spoke to him then, only- it was not a statue- no, it was the living, breathing, magnificent god Zeus himself, his long white beard moving as he spoke to him. “My son, although only a small part of you is of my race- those you call Neanderthals- still, that perhaps 20% of you is what sets you apart from all other races on the earth. You whites, you they call the Europeans, have our blood and intellectual ability within you. Even the Asians, in the far east- they have a smaller portion of our DNA, but yet they too are part of our blood and destiny. Only the blacks, the homo-sapiens-sapiens are of all African past, except for what little has been mixed into them by your own folk.”
Simon’s dreaming mind reeled, since he knew that genetic testing had revealed the truth of the god’s words, although only recently. It explained so much, and yet in the modern world of political correctness, most of it could not be spoken of without harsh and violent censure. Zeus spoke again: “We are the Cycladian people, those you term Neanderthals- and vastly more ancient than any others. Atlantis was the last continent we ruled, and it did not sink as the legends say- we simply left it and went underground to save ourselves.” He looked deeply into Simon’s eyes, and spoke in his rich, resonant voice again. “We were escaping disease- a deadly, genetic disease- something that only effects our race, and only in a short period that occurs once a millennium or even less frequently. There is no cure, only to sequester ourselves underground can we save ourselves, and so we have done, over and over, throughout history. It comes with changes within the sun itself, and only by avoiding it during these intense fazes of the sun can we save ourselves- otherwise, the rays alter our DNA, the very strands of life itself within us, regressing us within a generation or two into brutish creatures of lesser intellect and brutish aspect. These regressions of us are the crude skeletons of our people you have in your museums, those who did not escape, and…regressed.” The god sank his head upon his mighty breast in a mute expression of sadness. Then, he roused himself.
“But they are not us!” he said, and gestured about the great hall. The magnificent statues, the representatives of the ideal human forms, both male and female, surrounded them both. And as Simon gazed upon them, he felt himself gradually waken. The statue of Zeus was behind him, huge and awful, but before him, at the normal size of a tall man, stood a well-built man with a similar white beard, albeit trimmed close. He smiled, and reached out a tanned, strong hand to help Simon to rise.
“Welcome to Cycladia,” he said. His voice was deep and resonant, the voice of a born leader. His gray eyes shone with vitality and wisdom, he really did resemble the huge statue of Zeus next to him. He smiled, and spoke again. “Nay, I am not him,” indicating the statue with an inclination of his head, “but I’m sure we are related. We all are…” And as he said these words, a stream of people came striding within the hall, comely folk all, men and women. They wore simple shifts and tunics, and some had gold or silver bands about their brows, and they were smiling, as if meeting a long-lost relative at a reunion.
“Welcome!” each one said, one after another. Simon’s head was reeling, in sheer shock, but he had a wonderful feeling within- a feeling that somehow he had come home.
