Revelations

The dim luminescence from the glow-ball hanging overhead provided more than enough illumination for Doctor Treadmore, a fourth generation Martian and the planet’s current Director of Archeology. His perpetually dilated pupils gave testament to how quickly man can adapt to his environment; in this case, the weak solar presence on a planet much farther from the sun than the home world of Earth.

Tonight, like most nights, he was working alone on his pet project, deciphering the tangled texts that filled shelf after shelf deep down in the Archival Caverns. In nearly every dig, they had come across books. They were as prevalent as broken earthen ware back in the days of the first Egyptian digs.

After more than two centuries of collecting the books, no one had ever been able to translate a single word.

Until now.

It was too good to be true! Three weeks ago, as he sorted through some of the shelves, he came across a particularly plain and tattered volume. For no discernable reason, he decided that he would dig into this one- amongst-many. Over the next several days, he began to see patterns where none existed in other works. He’d found the Rosetta Stone of Mars!

Treadmore painstakingly transcribed each rule, directive and symbol into his computer. Once that was done, all he needed to do was scan in any text and the program would translate it.

Hours later, he sat in a corner of the dimly lit room, shaking and mumbling over and over, “No, no, no …”

Each book translated into the same thing:

“You of the water planet, enjoy your remaining days for they are numbered. You have now found the key that unlocks us. We are free. We are coming and with us we bring your prophesized End of Days.”

Word count 300