Day 248 - Canyon Story

Canyon Story

Matthew Ryan Fischer

During the second great war, while the country was distracted with more pressing concerns, a small expedition set out on a recovery mission to a remote part of the Grand Canyon. Most of the men involved had little or no idea as to what their purpose truly was. Years earlier President Teddy Roosevelt had outlawed the removal of certain natural resources, including gold, from the Grand Canyon, when he declared it a national park. Most of the men believed they were speaking in code when it was said this was to be a hunt for certain ancient artifacts. Most of the men believed they were looking for illegal gold and the euphemism was to prevent the arousal of suspicion from surrounding communities.

These men could not have been further from the truth. In actuality their purpose really was to look for a series of ancient artifacts. The leaders in charge knew the mission but not even they understood the importance or purpose of these artifacts. Their sponsor was a private man that felt no need to explain his motivations. He paid well enough so that the men in his employ didn’t care either.

Years earlier there had been a similar expedition, one that used rumor and lies to misdirect the local media.  This mission made outlandish claims and implied they were there to discover an ancient and lost civilization – one that could have connections dating back to the first civilizations. The local media was intrigued and for a brief moment their journey became a national sensation. When no evidence was presented, the stories were soon forgotten and buried in the journals of the past, but still a small and distant legend and rumor persisted.

The private sponsor had been the youngest member of that earlier expedition. He was now too old for proper adventuring, but made the resolution to be nearby in case this new team found what he was looking for. Some of this was to ensure his hand in the discovery. Some of this was to make sure they didn’t abscond with his spoils.

Several millennia earlier something had been buried. Something powerful. Or so the legends supposed.

The private sponsor didn’t know if that was true or not, but he hoped it was. He felt it was. He had faith. He believed that belief was a powerful and mystical tool. He had been a skeptic when he was young and was only on the original expedition to make money. Since then he had met many mystics and sages and his entire viewpoint had evolved.

He had met a group of men while traveling in Europe. These men practiced witchcraft and had regular séances. They gathered mystical energy from obelisks and understood the shape of the pyramid was central to understanding the universe. They used crystals to heal and could predict the future because they lived life on a separate plane of interconnected spirit forces.

The private sponsor had been a skeptic most of his life and could have chosen to remain one, but there was something so powerful and inviting about this group. He was entertained and enthralled by their theories and became a true believer.

The men knew of his earlier expedition and knew that he was destined to find the link to the lost civilization of man. It was ancient. Before Egypt. Before Atlantis. It was the connection between the eras of man. They were the ancients and they would have the answers to help guide modern man into the next age of spiritual awakening.

The private sponsor liked the sound of this. He liked the idea that he was a chosen one, and that he would help cure humanity of its flaws and heal the world from sin.

And so his new expedition began. He tried to recreate his first trip and retrace the steps traveled. This proved elusive and uneventful. He decided his only course of action was to explore the entirety of the Grand Canyon. Perhaps that was the problem of the earlier expedition. Perhaps they had been looking in the wrong place. He vowed he would not stop looking until he found the right place to look.

And so he spent a fortune looking.

And so it came to be that during the fall of nineteen forty-four, while a nation was at war, a small ground of men came upon a buried and sealed cavern. They dynamited the opening, as they had been instructed to do. And then they waited for their benefactor to arrive, as they had been instructed to do. He wanted to be there, to enter when they entered, to discover what they discovered. He wanted to make sure he was the one.

The men entered the cave, unsure what they would find.

They found an ancient stone tablet. No one was sure if this was the artifact that they were looking for, not even their benefactor.

There was a strange text inscribed, but no one could read the language.

The private sponsor removed the tablet from the cave and took it with him. He would bring it to the circle of mystics and see if they could find the missing answers.

Soon, every man from the expedition was dead, including the private sponsor.

The tablet went missing.

Eons ago a man made a terrible discovery about the nature of death and the demons that haunted man and tortured the soul. He accidentally awoke a mighty beast and paid a terrible price. His tribe was slaughtered, but the beast was unsatisfied. In an act of desperation the man documented what had happened and used a dark and twisted magic and the blood of his former tribesmen to bind the creature to a stone tablet. He carved a warning into the stone and buried it deep in the earth. It was pure evil. It was death and destruction. It was hell on earth. He had unleashed it onto the earth and paid a terrible price – the death of everyone he knew. But he had contained it and locked it away. He had buried it. He spent his life guarding the cave and making sure no one ever unleashed the beast. He told his children to do the same and to tell their children after him and so on and so forth.  It was his fault and so it was his duty to protect the future. Hopefully his efforts would be enough.