From Yesterday, It's Coming, a Fantasy fanfic

Okay. I started this last night and got two parts and a portion of a third done. This is a short story, so it'll be in parts. It's for a writing contest on GaiaOnline, and the prompt is "I wept for seven hundred years." The story needs to begin with this line.

I can't remember what I was going to use this plot for before...I remember wanting to set it to the amazing song "I Dare You" by Shinedown. Haha, the singer's voice sounds like that of Clay Aiken in some parts, but the song is definitely not a Clay Aiken song. And speaking of Clay, he was here this past Saturday. XD

Anyway, enjoy. Yes, this first part is supposed to be italicised.

The title comes from the 30 Seconds To Mars song "From Yesterday". They're my newest obsession. Jared Leto and his eyes equal love.

"I wept for seven hundred years."

The archeologist stood, dropping his dusty paintbrush to the ground and checking the movement before his head smacked off the low ceiling. He had finally managed to translate the complex writing on the base of the pedestal. After days of trying, he finally had the first sentence. What it meant in relation to the ancient culture, he had no idea--it was simply the fact that he had translated it that made him rush through the maze of tunnels to the dig master, passing other members of the team as he went, ever cautious to watch his step so the whole cave wouldn't fall in on top of them all.

"I got it," he reported to the site manager. The sunlight outside of the tunnel in which he had been working burned his eyes. "It says, 'I wept for seven hundred years'."

"What does it mean?" the manager asked, knitting his eyebrows together.

"I'm not sure yet," the archeologist admitted, his eyes momentarily dropping.

"Then what are you doing out here? Get back in there." Any other site manager would have been congratulating him-- or at least grinning at the break-through--but Richard Probst had a face as hard and worn as the stone he studied.

The younger archeologist descended the stairs into the cave system again, dodging around the other workers with less speed than he had before. He found the pedestal again with ease. Before he knelt down to continue translating, he paused to take in the sight before him. A heavy door stood atop the pedestal, appearing to be carved directly from the orange rock of the cave wall. Its ornate decorations were nothing less than beautiful, a tribute to the people who had carved them. An almost alien dialect was carved around the outer rim of the door, and it completely covered the pedestal from one side to the other. In the center of the door was a carving of a body, its spine twisted and its arms tied over its head. Its bare feet dangled, not quite touching the pedestal. The face was that of a man, tilted downwards as stone tears leaked from its eyes.

Kneeling before the monument, the archeologist whispered, "What are you trying to tell us?" Shaking his head, he sighed and went back to word on translating the text on the pedestal. He carefully brushed away sediment and pieces of rubble from the area and picked up the notebook he had left sitting beside his dropped paintbrush. Using the characters he had already translated, he was able to figure out a bit more about the ruins.

"'I wept for the losses and war, and I will weep until it is time for me to awaken,'" he read, writing it in the notebook. "' When this centuries old air escapes--that is when I will be needed again, and that is when I will awaken.'"

Sitting back on his heels, the archeologist stared up at the magnificent life-size carving of the man and shivered. "The air is gone," he said. "Now what?"

As he expected, nothing happened. He turned his attention to the pedestal again.

From above him, he heard a cracking sound, then small bits of orange rock dusted his hair and hands. He looked up at the door, at once noticing the fine cracks that were slowly tracing designs in the stone. With a final blast of rock and a blinding flash of light, the archeologist pushed himself away from the pedestal, unable to get up.

When the dust in the air cleared and the black spots disappeared from his vision, he took his arm down from his face. In the rest of the dig site, he heard people rushing about, trying to find out where the cave-in had occurred. Cautiously, the archeologist looked at the door and pedestal, expecting it to be a pile of broken pieces on the ground. Instead, it was perfectly in tact, save for the body-shaped hole in the center of the door. His mouth dropped open as his eyes moved down the monument, and he nearly stopped breathing when he noticed a body face-down on the ground, wrapped in the same clothes as the man in the door and bound by the wrists.

Barely breathing, the archeologist scrambled to the body, rolling it onto its back as he called, "Somebody get down here! I need help!"

The man's face was pale as marble, cold to the touch despite the sweltering heat elsewhere. Its cheeks were damp as the stone tears continued on their trail down his face as if no time had passed since they had been shed. Copper-colored hair fell across his forehead and stuck in the scrape on his cheek from where he had fallen, the natural golden highlights in the color shining in the light of the archeologist's lamp. As he felt the man's cold neck for a pulse, he realized that he was more a boy than a man, or possibly in the stage between the two.

Two other members of the team came rushing into the cave, one sliding as he rushed to the boy's side. Obviously, neither realized what exactly was going on. They began feeling for any injuries, also asking the archeologist if he was hurt.

Without warning, the boy's back arched and his eyes flew open as he took in a gasp of air. The same color of copper as his hair looked around frantically, as if the boy were trying to figure out where he was. He continued to take gasps of air, each one accompanied by a rough sound that hinted that the boy's lungs hadn't been used in years—possibly centuries.

For the first time, the other two archeologists realized that the boy wasn't a part of their team. They stared wide-eyed and dumbstruck as the copper eyes continued to fix momentarily on parts of the room before moving somewhere else.

As suddenly as he had awoken, the boy's head rested on the floor as he passed out. Even so, his breath was still audible and rusty.

I am currenly reading the book Twilight by Stephanie Meyer, so that's where the reddish-brown coloration came from. You'd know what I mean if you read the book...

Okay. I'm going to go upload the second part if I have time to. I'm in Info. Systems right now and we ahve no work to do, so it's jsut a simple insertion of the disk and I can work on this here. XD Okay. I'm going now...