In the dim light casted by a lamp, Professor Gabi Blake was scheming over an ancient map of the Gobi Desert. His advisor stood at attention, a mute statue perspiring beads of sweat that were forming in the thin brow of hair that stood out of his bucket-shaped helmet.
“Sir?”
“Just a minute Riley,” Blake said, paying little attention to the silent group now forming around him in the olive green tent, silent except for the few ragged breaths and coughs that came from the back.
It had taken them a total of three months and enormous funding from the museum to even come upon this seemingly endless set of dunes. In fact, if they failed now, there would be no second chance. The board had made it very clear that the waste of good money would soon outweigh whatever discovery lay out there.
The Gobi Desert was a treasure trove of discoveries. The Mongolian dinosaurs of the Cretaceous, the endless tales of the Death Worm, and the legends of lost cities and armies, buried underneath its inconspicuous sands, were all that was needed to drag foolhardy men from all over the world in hopes of catching something special. Well, not as many as Blake had hoped for.
It was true, he had no interest in the desert, preferring the cool evenings he would spend his time in the study. His house was near the theater, where the blare of music and chatter of the rich and wealthy would blend into a harmonious tune that no machine could mimic. It had been on one of those nights, that he came across the package that would change his life.
It had been delivered by the museum, a simple square covered in brown, packaging paper that was held by a thin shoestring. A faded note told Blake that Sir Romulus had found something during his safari in South Africa. The following was the man’s testament, which seemed to be a piece from his journal, the ridged edges smelling fresh of glue.
Words cannot describe what I am feeling at the moment. I must write down this entry before my mind loses the tight grasp it had kept.
I had been stalking a pair of antelope when I lost my footing to a pothole hidden in the grass. That “pothole” turned out to be the entrance of a cave, apparently hidden by dry leaves and brush. You could imagine I was dearly terrified at being trapped, but saw that to my amazement, it was a passageway- the smooth walls that sloped upwards told me so-. So, curiosity getting the better of me, I followed it to a large, circular room at the end of the passage. The architecture was nothing like I had seen before. I have tried to recreate it in my head, but I only draw blanks
That was when I saw it.
A mural of sorts, colorful to that of a child’s book. A yellow, star in the sky, presumably the sun, seemed to cover the majority of it, although a colorful array of equine-like animals embracing it were present near the bottom, where I could see pictures of rolling green hills. Following the mural, I came to see a castle, similar to that of Europe’s castles, hanging like a branch on a mountain.
It suddenly occurred to me that I had no light source, and I realized that the light was coming from a white fire in the center. However, this was no natural fire. It was floating above a stone pedestal, and was as bright as any street lamp. Other drawings adorned the room. They displayed different creatures found from various mythologies. Griffins, manticores, and even dragons! However, all accompanied by these four-legged, candy colored “ponies”- this title seems appropriate to what they look like. The light seemed to cast a monolith of a shadow near the far end of the room.
I crept closer, and discovered a second passageway. Using the lamp that I had just realized I brought with me for no apparent reason, I walked inside, where a series of events were played before me by several crude, but detailed, paintings. One depicted what I interpreted to be zebras running around a village, the same flower-like sun taking over the sky above. I saw alternations of night to day and back and forth, the zebra settlement growing into a town, now filled with the ponies I saw earlier. Then suddenly, there was the odd shape of what I recognized as a human.
As I reached the end of the passageway, I came across a second room. There was no light to show me what lay inside, so I raised my lamp, and nearly dropped it. Around me, there stood another imposing mural that could only be described as a barren wasteland. Small, stunted trunks were all that remained of the vegetation. The sky was now a blood red, and below, stood the skeletal remains of its inhabitants. I was mortified. All that remained in the sky were thin wisps of jet-black vapor, hanging over the skeletal remains. And men constructing primitive huts.
By this time, I could hear voices above from the group I was traveling with. I called out to them and tripped over what appeared to be a book. I hastily grabbed it and managed to climb my way up.
The dig teams later on reported that the room was a mystery. No culture ever recorded in history had this type of architecture. They told me that by the looks of it, the room could even be older then the Assyrians or the Mesopotamians, maybe even during the dawn of man. No human remains have been found, only a few skeletons of what appeared to be zebras, which has only casted more confusion on the situation. I decided to report my findings to the museum near my house. Which brings me back to where I am now. I am feeling a headache come over me and feel the need to take a nap. Hopefully, the book I found will be of some use to the museum.
Blake tore through the package, and found a dusty brown tome, clearly showing signs of exposure to the elements. However, the pages were only yellow, indicating it could not be older then the first empires of man. Blake couldn’t wrap his head around it. Why would someone leave a book, and he realized that, it was impossible judging by how well hidden the entrance had been. Yet, here before him lay a book.
He decided to lift the cover, to find that most of the pages fell out, their contents washed away by exposure. The only thing that remained was a map of what appeared to be Eastern Asia. But just then Blake dropped the book in shock.
The map had a title. And it was in English.
Equestria and Neighboring Countries.
“Equestria?” Blake had never heard of such words before. There was no mention from the Chinese, or the Romans of an empire like this before. In fact, the empire seemed to be settled within the Gobi Desert. His thoughts drifted back to the journal of a silk trader who had been lost in the Gobi Desert for two days before being discovered by another caravan. Through his ramblings, there had been a mention of a mysterious tower that had been jutting out of one of the dunes. The merchant had said that he had seen nothing like it before. Could this be the remant of the Equestrian Empire? The Mongolians had ruled the merchant out as having hallucinations, which makes far more sense. Yet, the only evidence of its existence lay in this tiny, ruined book.
Placing it on his shelf, Blake swore to himself that he would figure this out very soon.
As he researched the topic, it came to be that more and more maps similar to the one found in Africa were being unearthed all over the world. All of them pointed to one, particular place. The Gobi Desert.
And now here they were, all huddled silently as the sandstorm raced on by.
“I don’t get it!” Blake slammed his fist on the wooden table, startling a few of his colleagues.
“Blake,” they began, “do calm yourself."
But it was impossible to calm himself. Blake knew too well what was at stake. The funding, the museum's reputation, and his career.
“No,” he silently uttered under his breath, “we must find Equestria.”
***
The next day, the group was surveying another dune, thought it looked as uniformed as its counterpart from last week. The men were beginning to stumble across the sand, and cursed under their breaths. They had been combing the desert for an hour.
Two hours passed by. Then three. Then four. By early noon, it seemed as though the sun was scorching down on them, weakening their bones and asking them to drop dead.
That was until the shriek of one of the diggers caused everyone’s heads to swivel in his direction. Soon, there feet began to carry them forward to the sound, as if it was water or mana from the sky above.
Blake was the first to reach the top of the dune, and before him, barely, making it out, was a tower much similar to that of a castle, with a cone-shaped tower. For a moment, there was only silence. Then gasps, which morphed into cheers of delight and joy.
“Gentlemen,” Blake said, his grin was wide as the sky, “ welcome to Equestria!”
The report came in and the museum promised Blake that he could expect a promotion upon his return. They also said that a second, well-equipped, expedition team would arrive to document the spectacular find. However, Blake wouldn’t wait for the photographer and group of archeologists to arrive. After all, it was his discovery, and he ought to be the first to see what treasures lay within.
Taking a group of his finest men, they gathered ropes and descended through a hole in the tower, whose colors were faded to a dull tan.
The chasm of a hallway lay underneath their sand-covered boots. The rope, thankfully, managed to get them to the very bottom. The floor, however, showed a tiled floor, decorated to mimic the black and white boxes of a chess board. On the walls, there was preserved stained glass windows depicting enormous seas and day and night. It was breathtaking to say the least. Truly something that had never been marked down as appearing in Asia. In fact, the whole structure seemed to be held by magic, as cracks could be seen where sand could be exposed above.
Other then that however, most of the contents that had been left inside were beyond recognition, their surfaces crumbled into rock. The tough, leathery remains of some sort of rag laid over the tile, abandoned in a corner. On another side of the room was an equine-like skeleton, though it had a large protrusion coming out of its forehead.
“Amazing,” one of Blake’s partners said, gaping at a what appeared to be the throne room. It seemed to rise above the rest of the floor, as if it dominated the entire landscape. Endless hallways stood in every direction. As Blake moved closer, he thought he could see something, a flicker of light that had been reflected off a surface that shouldn’t be there.
“Why gentlemen,” he cried in his fervor of excitement, “there appears to be a…”
But his sentence was caught off as the deep rumble caused a tremor to shake the hallway before them. Several of the workers dashed for the ropes, but Blake could see that the ceiling was going to collapse.
“Quick Blake, grab on to my hand before…” but his colleague never finished as a avalanche of sand crushed the bones and muscles in his body.
And then there was nothing but darkness.
***
It took him an hour before he woke up, to his amazement, his lamp was illuminating the mixture of debris and stone that had become his prison. Blake began to claw through, but realized it was futile. He would have to wait for the dig team to come back for him.
If they still thought he was alive.
For him, there was nothing he could do but get down on his knees. And weep. His sobbing continued for several minutes as his lamp began to flicker. He was trapped, in his own discovery. Now what he had gone too such great lengths to get into was now the very thing he was trying to escape.
But it was a pointless effort, the rubble would only wear him down. Eventually, the sobbing subsided into whimpering and the grand explorer watched the lamp flicker on and off, until he noticed a peculiar glow reflecting off the walls.
Then, it was as if the darkness was coming off the walls. The only problem, however, was that it was doing exactly that. Blake backed away, his heart beating faster every second as a shadow of pure black vapor materialized before him.
They stood there, motionless semicircle of around six clouds. He could only watch in horror as one of the vapors came close to him, causing goosebumps to rise from his skin as its tendrils touched it.
His mind went blank and darkness surrounded him. He found himself thrusted into another time, passing marvelous cities, and mythical beasts frolicking to and fro. He saw what could only be described as a utopia on Earth. But as time gradually flashed past him, he saw that the whole kingdom began to deteriorate. There was the smell of blood permeating the air as man came in hordes, ancient tribes who had no means of recording their battles. However, the rode on the backs of defeated equines, who were broken beyond sanity.
Then there was a flash of white as a soft voice spoke out. "This was our land before you came here."
"Now what remains are little more then what you call deserts, our ruins buried beneath the sands of time itself."
Blake felt a chill run through him and the white aura he was in faded into a impenetrable black.
"You used ourselves against us. You left us to rot when you were finished"
Blake could only listen, as he was completely immobile in his current state.
"Well," it seemed to almost snicker, "one day, we will come back...and use your own men against you."
And with that final statement light flooded through the earth itself.
***
When the workmen finally pulled Blake out of the structure, there was a great rumble as the ceiling broke off. Sand flooded the elaborate foundations and the castle was lost. The museum credited the expedition to Blake and the discovery was closed off.
When travelers asked what happened in there, the guide would always point out to the lone explorer trapped for three hours. And how he could no longer utter a single word.
