Part 1
The following words are taken from a letter, hurriedly scratched in stiff handwriting. The page it’s written on seems to have been torn from the patient’s chart sitting at the end of the bed where the letter was found.
To whoever finds this,
You have found the last will and testament of Dr. Saorise Marie O’Connor.
Born December 13th, 1979.
Died—well, will die in the coming days.
If you’re reading this, I am sorry.
I have no family left and no one else to carry out my last requests, so I ask that you help me do so. Do I know you? Or are you a stranger to me? I’ll never know but I’m sorry all the same.
The following story is true, the only truth I have ever sworn by in my life.
My final wish is that it be shared with my colleagues Dr. Carmen Ortega, head of anthropology at UC Berkeley and Dr. Anthony Riordan, head of archaeology at Oxford.
I would have sent it myself and not burdened you with this knowledge, but my stay at this hospital has not given me the resources to do so.
I mostly had a good life. A life that challenged me and rewarded me for my efforts and I have no regrets about the path I chose to lead. There were rough times, of course, such is the human condition.
After my parents died when I was seventeen, I was on my own. All that I had were memories of a loving home and a settlement check from the ensuing legal processes related to their deaths.
I was heartbroken but determined to forge ahead. I used the money to go to school in America and my desire to ignore my grief pushed me hard into my studies. At the end of it all—at the end of exams, lab work, field studies, and a ridiculous amount of papers unrelated to my area of study—I emerged as a doctor. Dr. Saorise O’Connor, PhD Archaeology. I was proud—am proud of my accomplishments.
When I assisted on digs during my graduate studies, I started to make a name for myself. Some of it was not flattering, I admit, but it was me. Hard working, quick-witted, and more than willing to get dirty in pursuit of knowledge. But, I was also known as being a bit stiff, a bit cold to my peers and not always easy to work with. “O’Connor’s got a stick up ’er ass, eh?” I overheard one of my fellow graduate students say when he thought I couldn’t hear him.
He wasn’t wrong. I realized too late what ignoring and suppressing emotions does to a person. As I got older I found it harder and harder to relate to anyone and didn’t know how to deal with powerful emotions like anger, sadness, and affection so I just stuffed them back down. I had a couple of close friends but we haven’t spoken in years now. I even attempted a romantic relationship once, but after four years he threw in the towel. I don’t blame him. His claims of me being cold and unreachable rang true after all.
I’m telling you all of this for a reason. It’s pertinent to the story because it properly shows you that I am not one prone to spinning tales. Nor does my family have a history of mental illness. If you have doubt, ask my peers—those I have spent months with on remote dig sites. They will tell you I’m a straight-shooter to the point of being rude and I don’t let emotions interfere with my judgement. Now that we’ve established that, onwards.
I heard about this dig in the Central Anatolian region of Turkey and jumped at the chance to go. I hadn’t spent much time in Turkey so the thrill of a new adventure excited me. The details of the dig were a bit foggy but I ignored it because of the promise of knowledge.
We were to investigate a series of tunnels rumored to be the center of activity for a cult in the Dark Ages. I can’t remember what the name of the cult was in Turkish—my command of the language is abysmal at best, especially since the word is in a very old dialect—but in English it translated to something like “gatekeepers” or “jailers” of something. The last word was one we had yet to find a translation for or much reference to in our research. That was what we were there to find out.
It started out routinely enough. We set up a basecamp near the mouth of the cave system and did some scouting of the area. We started a few surface digs after finding some chunks of pottery and the dig lead sent a couple of crews in for a shallow exploration of the main cavern.
There was a small town about forty minutes from the site where we would replenish our supplies. The locals were incredibly welcoming the first few times we went and we asked questions about the cave system. Every single time, the exact moment those caves were mentioned their faces would fall and their skin would pale. “Lanetli! Lanetli!” many of them exclaimed at us before quickly shuffling away. Cursed.
We, the ever-arrogant academics, dismissed it as superstitious nonsense and carried on our way. As time went on, the villagers were less and less warm. Almost like they were scared of us. They gave us a wide berth when we entered town. Some shop owners refused to do business with us and those that did were curt and rushed us out as fast as possible.
God save us, we should have listened to them.
Since I was an experienced caver, I was chosen to lead deeper explorations into the tunnels to begin mapping them. The first one was fine. Everything went according to plan, no accidents, and we were able to map a significant portion of the first two tunnels branching off the main cavern.
We were giddy with our finds, too. In one of the tunnels we came across what looked like a dormitory. Most of it was rotted away to nothing but the little alcoves carved into the rock looked like they once held sleeping bodies. Remains of rough-woven cloth and small trinkets were peppered throughout the large chamber including little figures carved of obsidian.
Those were the most interesting. For the most part they looked similar but each one was obviously carved by a different set of hands. Some thin and tall, some with arms and some without. They all shared one odd similarity though: two holes drilled straight through to the other side where eyes should be. We thought it strange and worth studying but gave it no more thought than that.
It’s the second deep expedition that things took a turn. We only had one tunnel left to explore and the intention was to do an initial mapping of the first little bit of it. We left basecamp equipped with everything we could possibly need—including emergency equipment and provisions. We had five members: myself, Dr. Kayla Albert, Dr. Javed Amir, Oliver “Ollie” Stoneham, and Elias Boretto.
Only two of us returned. When things started to go wrong, Javed went back to the surface for help and was spared the deaths of his peers. I hope he knows how lucky he is.
The locals told us that people have gone missing in these caves and told us the land was cursed. We didn’t listen. Our arrogance quickly became our downfall. Why didn’t we listen?
A tremor shivered through one of the caverns and sent a shower of stalactites raining down on us. We dashed forwards but Kayla misstepped and a long sliver of mineral impaled her thigh. Her shriek echoed around the cavern as we dragged her into the safety of one of the smooth tunnels ahead.
Once things settled, Javed said he would run back to the entrance for help while we prepared her for the trek back to the surface. We all agreed and began seeing to Kayla’s wound. It thankfully missed the artery and didn’t pierce all the way through.
While we waited for Javed to return with help, Kayla began to wither in front of our eyes. Not become weaker, like her skin began to dry and her cheeks started to hollow. She was quiet the whole time, not making a single sound after her initial yell when she was struck. We were baffled and began panicking. We tried to keep her hydrated but it didn’t seem to have any effect.
We were only about thirty minutes into the tunnel and we had been waiting for hours for Javed to return with help. That dark ominous feeling began to deepen as Kayla got worse and worse. We needed to get her out of there or she wasn’t going to survive.
We made a decision then. As gently as we could, we slung her between the three of us and began moving. As soon as we entered the cavern Kayla started wailing, telling us to stop, telling us to go back. She was thrashing with such strength that we nearly dropped her. We’d have to wait for the medics to come with tranquilizers and a stretcher.
We made our way back the way we came. The cramped corridor we were camped out in was too tight to be comfortable so we decided to move a little further in. That’s when we found the cavern with the skeleton.
The first thing I noticed was a word painted on the rock above it. Ten letters that made my skin crawl. The threat was obvious but we didn’t take it .
İzliyorlar. They are watching.
