Naya

Year 2342

“Doctor! Doctor, come look at this!”
Looking up from his can of beans, Doctor Ezra Lincoln spotted the flailing arms of his rather irritating intern. Her voice was distant, but he understood the basis of her message. Knowing he couldn’t outright ignore her, he set down his meal, pulled on his boots and heavy coat, grabbing his flashlight as an afterthought. He then made the short climb of rocky terrain towards the cave they were excavating.
“You won’t believe this,” his intern breathed excitedly, already jumping down the small ledge into the inch deep water of the cave.
Sighing, he followed her, already thinking it was just another cave drawing of animals well preserved in the decently sealed off cave. His intern got excited about everything they found. While it annoyed him, Ezra still remembered being that enthusiastic not too long ago and strode to great lengths to keep her from getting under his skin.
It took them five minutes before they reached the rest of their team which consisted of Ezra’s ex-military father, two archaeologists from the museum, and an odd scientist that made Ezra uneasy. Ezra could have done just as well with the other archaeologists, but the people he worked for insisted on the scientist and Ezra’s father for protection. He didn’t understand what they needed protection from and it was beyond irritating.
“Son,” his father nodded his acknowledgement, his hand on his gun as always. It never seemed to move away from that spot on his hip.
“Dad,” Ezra responded, turning to the wall that everyone was so hyped up about. His breath instantly left his lungs.
“Have you ever seen anything like this?” Dean, one of the archaeologists, and Ezra’s oldest friend, asked. “Because I sure as hell haven’t.”
“It’s beautiful,” his intern beamed, whose name slipped his mind at the moment.
“Yes,” Ezra agreed. “It is… immaculate. The condition it is in…,” he touched it with a gloved hand and to his surprise, warmth spread from his fingertips to his shoulder. He pulled it away warily. “Have you scanned it?”
Dean stood up from where he had previously been kneeling. “Yes. It’s definitely Aztec.”
“What is it?” Ezra murmured, more to himself than his colleagues. He was absolutely fascinated. He couldn’t tear his eyes away.
“Do you think it’s a message? Some kind of warning?” The scientist, Dr. Jordan Hughes, interjected.
“I don’t know,” Ezra found himself answering. “It’s not violent, but look at these symbols here. I don’t think I’ve ever seen these before.”
“Maybe it’s not Aztec at all,” Ezra’s father suggested, but Ezra immediately shot him down. The resemblance of the symbols was clear. It was definitely Aztec.
“It has to be,” Dean confirmed. “Everything else in this cave is. And the fallen boulders we removed indicate thousands of years of concealment.”
Ezra crossed his arms and stood back. With narrowed eyes, he studied the wall. The brown lean person with no facial features reached out towards brown stars. The stars fell into what almost looked like a replica of the Aztec calendar, however, the symbols were not the traditional dates on the well known ancient piece of stone.
The doctor’s eyes were drawn back to the stars, his stomach pulled low in his belly, and everything around him suddenly disappeared. A rushing noise clouded his ears, the stars turned into a bright, eerie blue color. Images flashed before his mind’s eye too fast for him to register what they were. He blinked, his mind instantly clearing. And then it hit him. He knew exactly what they were looking at.
“Oh my God.”
“Dr. Lincoln?”
“We found it,” Ezra laughed. “We found it!” He pointed his flashlight beam on the stars. They glowed a faint blue. “Look at the stars. It’s a jaguar. The person is reaching towards a jaguar. This was the home of a knight.”
“I don’t see it,” Dean frowned, exasperated.
“I do,” Dr. Hughes said. He looked at Ezra, his cruel gray eyes grilling into his skin with an emotion the doctor didn’t recognize, yet caused the hair to rise on the back of his neck. “You truly are brilliant, Dr. Lincoln.” They all paused to look at what was now a magnificent discovery. “So… what do we do now?”