The Genesis Plague

69

While the marines were preoccupied with the strange box-like structure at the cave’s centre, Hazo had just made a discovery of his own. As he’d squatted to catch his breath, his flashlight tilted towards the cave’s outer wall and highlighted a most unusual anomaly, easy to miss in the enveloping blackness. Amid the cave’s natural rock formations, anything man had touched stood out glaringly. And what he saw was nothing natural.

Resuming a standing position, he directed the light at the spot where the rock face had been smoothed flat around a modest arched opening burrowed into the rock maybe a metre up from the ground. It reminded him of a mosque’s qibla niche that directed Muslims towards Mecca during prayer.

He considered calling out to the others. But he needed to conserve his energy. A profound lethargy was settling into his limbs and his fever was spiking. Perspiration was welling out from his pores.

Compared to what the others had found, this was something he could inspect alone.

Mindful of his footing on the uneven ground, Hazo made his way to the wall in stops and starts. He squared his body with the niche and directed his light inside it. It ran much deeper than he’d thought, extending maybe two metres into the rock like a small tunnel. The interior surfaces were covered in hash marks. Hewn with a chisel, he guessed. A deep lip the width of his hand had been carved around the rim of the opening. Probably meant to keep in place a seal — a thick seal.

Perhaps the seal had never been set in place. Or more likely: the seal had been removed. It stood to reason that the contents had also been looted.

That got Hazo thinking about what might have been stored inside the niche.

The implied width of a seal that would seat into the rim also downplayed the idea that the niche was intended for repeat usage. That meant the contents were intended to be locked away or protected long term, maybe indefinitely. Anything placed deep inside the niche would require someone to squirm on his belly to reach it. Therefore, the design was best suited for something long and narrow that could be slid inside.

As he thought about the cave’s known mythology, the realization hit him like a wrecking ball.

‘A body,’ he whispered.

The niche’s dimensions could accommodate perfectly a prostrate corpse, he was certain of it. With some help, he himself could slide into it and still have room to spare.

Scrutinizing the base of the niche under the light, he noticed stains and dried material on the porous rock, which also supported the hypothesis. It appeared as if decomposed flesh had left discolorations in the rock.

He concluded that this niche had been designed to be a tomb — a most legendary tomb, despite its modest appearance.

Lilith’s tomb.