Tiny man

@miss-lillipants

Glad you enjoyed that detail ️.

@diogenisis changed now hope that’s right

The Ones Above Us, Chapter 3

Date:- November 6th, 2008, 38 days after initial discovery.
Time:- 02:12 am
Location:- Greater London, Hackney

To be homeless in Hackney was a dangerous task. Crime was rampant, deaths abundant, and being innocent meant nothing when stray bullets or knives were ready to stick into any target they could find. Sticking to underpasses was one of the only ways to avoid gangs and the truly vile among us. Some grouped together in private communities, finding safety and shelter in numbers. Others went off alone. Brave, or perhaps foolish lost souls with only what they could carry lumbered onto their backs.

Simon was one such lost soul, a relic veteran of the Falklands war that never truly found his footing in ‘proper society’ again. PTSD made living on the streets feel almost homely, for what was London at night if not a domestic active war zone? To stay alive and keep warm, staying awake at night wandering the streets was the only form of survival. Anything less and you’d freeze to death, an alabaster corpse come daylight. Years of Active service made the self torture that much easier on the shaggy, greyed man, legs standing firm as the 50 year old man wandered further than he normally would. All the way to the underpass near the Olympic park. Parks were particularly viscous, so who could say what drew the man so close, perhaps the need for a hit of the buzz called danger. One thing for sure though, the thick growth of plant life under the huge pillars around the underpass made for great cover. He could stay here and wander aimlessly with little threat to contend with.

The A12 duel carriageway hummed above, the odd car or lorry passing by. This was as close to peace as the man was going to get for the night no doubt. Lugging the heavy backpack from his shoulders, his essentials of lion bars and cigs sat at the top. He’d kicked the habit a couple months ago for quite some time, but the itch is never truly, fully scratched. Inevitably, when the months became sour, the call made itself known, and in the last couple weeks the habit was once again picked up. Ducking down to get out of the wind tunnel produced by the bridge, a lighter was pulled forth from a pocket, and a small flame beacons forth. Cig in mouth, the light burnt the end. The dry spell left the effects much stronger than Simon could remember, a chesty cough and a dizzy spell flaring in his eyes. Were they always this strong before?

Thump.

God. Blinking back the waves blurring the land from the sky around him, Simon realised he’d dropped the thing from his mouth in the confusion and began patting the ground for his lost nicotine.

Thump.

No luck. Pulling the lighter out as a last ditch attempt, the orange glow gave off just enough light to see a small halo on the floor. Dancing around, the ache was beginning to set in on his aged knees. The veteran needed to find it soon.

Thump.

The white and tan roll sat in a wet patch of grass, luckily not too damp to be relit. Snatching it back up, end stuck back in his mouth, another hit was drawn before the full effects of the last drag wore off.

“Screeeeeeeeech!”

Thump.

“What the fuck-.”

A van came from nowhere, smashing into the ground like a stepped on coke can. Crumpled.

The poor man threw himself back, lying down to escape getting caught in any debris. It must’ve fallen off the highway above. There’s no chance anyone could be alive falling from that height, the bride was meters up above. Didn’t mean no one was alive though, the van fell from a carriageway after all. Perhaps a phone was accessible inside the vehicle to call the police or ambulance service from. Quickly getting to his feet, the collapsed metal sat just out from the underside of the bridge. There was only so much time, the electric could create a fire-

Thump.

Squash. What little remains of the crash site was left was sickeningly crushed suddenly under something. A chorus of screeching metal folding under immense weight and bone being snapped, popping out from splattered flesh squelching. In its place sat a pillar of solid black, etched out from the sky.

“Wha….what the FUCK-.”

A flame burst forth. Viscous. Some loose sparks had finally managed to find fuel and came alight in a haze of nightmarish glory. The pillar became illuminated in a raging bonfire, sparks bursting forth.

No…that wasn’t a pillar at all.

It was a leg.

A huge. Fucking. Leg.

“HOLY SHIT!”

Turning tail and running in a mad panic, all previous military training turned to dust under the terrifying grip of basic animal instinct. He HAD to get away, no matter what nor where. Ducking further under the bridge, Simon ran for the other side, desperate to go in any direction that pale white foot, splattered by gore and fire, wasn’t.

This couldn’t be real, right?! This was a bad trip. Something must’ve been laced in those cigarettes. IT HAD TO BE THAT!

Turning back to assess the situation, the veteran stopped in his tracks just beyond the other side of the bridge, mouth gaping as sweat dribbled down from his forehead, from the heat or pure adrenaline rush who knew. Didn’t matter though, something was wrong. The leg. It was gone.

Where.did.it.go?! Was it really all a trip? Was he going mad!

Thump.

Suddenly, airborne. Just for a second. Then a collision with the ground. Something popped, his shoulder? Leg? Who knew, either way he was in a world of pain. Looking everywhere, the world was a blanket of black, even the navy sky didn’t shine through. No streetlights. Just solid black. All except for one thing starting down at him, piercing his soul and holding him down to the ground.

Eyes.

Huge, neon blue eyes.

The Ones Above Us, Chapter 2

Date:- November 5th, 2008, 37 days after initial discovery.
Time:- 18:42pm
Location:- London, Victoria And Albert Museum

“It’s nearly 7, Fatima. Can we please call it a night?”

“Siobhan, you were the one that explicitly said you wanted to stay longer so you’d be ahead for tomorrow when the coroner visits. If you wanna gawk at the celebration of some medieval king-“

“-Jacobean-“ Siobhan interrupted.

“-Jacobean king not dying, then be my guest. I have stuff to do.”

Thank god for the Cast Courts room. Yes, the air was so musty you could taste the varnish eroding from the planked floor, and yes the room was cold enough to freeze your nipples off, but it was huge AND tall. The undertaking it must’ve been to remove some 200 plaster statues ranging from simple busts to replicas of temple columns must’ve triggered at least a couple of premature deaths. Or at least a heart attack at the mere prospect. What probably finished off the rest of the crew and budget manager for the museum along with the mayor of London was the fact that a whole wall had to come down.

A whole wall.

This building has 5 separate floors and is well over 100 years old, and somehow the manager (Mrs Stevens, lovely woman) leading our excavation had managed to convince who knows how many people to tear apart one of the most historic buildings in all of England. Maybe the world. Just for me and the autopsy team to have easier access to research facilities for this behemoth.

Worth every penny and hurdle.

Currently the body was in a ninety degree sitting position, back to the fire exits and feet to the pillared entrance across the ballroom floor. Scaffolding was up to the head, high enough you could touch the textured ceiling with your own hands, and went round in a full three-sixty degrees. Parts that weren’t being worked on were covered by opaque, plastic sheets (mostly for the visitors tomorrow, though I suspect the cleaning staff were very much appreciative of them too). Fatima and Siobhan were by the right eye, pinned open by clamps, taking photos through the keyhole pupil under beams of awful white, overhead lighting. After this visit tomorrow she was going to sit down the staff running this museum and ask them what made them think an overhead beam was a great idea in any situation, and if any of them had ever held a camera before.

Siobhan huffed, water vapour steaming the air. As an add on, maybe asking for some heating would do some good as well, old buildings really weren’t designed with insulation in mind.

“Well, weren’t you the one who said to me this was all a hoax? You change your mind that quick? I get that I’m not actually in the autopsy department like yourself, but even I can see that’s some piss poor work you’re doing here if you can’t make a definite decision on what that thing actually is. Take a break! otherwise you’ll be scraping the bottom of the barrel tomorrow.” Siobhan ribbed playfully.

“I’ll be fine for tomorrow, that’s not your problem.”

Siobhan didn’t forget that Fatima wasn’t challenging her former accusation, just avoiding it poorly. The older historian wanted to say something, but their relationship was still on the cusp of blooming from colleagues to friends. Any form of open defiance at this stage would kill it at the roots. Electing a less powerful show of disappointment, the ginger instead leaned back on her leg and crossed her arms. The universal judgment pose.

“Do what you want, Fatima, but you need to make up your mind if this thing is legitimate or not by tomorrow, ‘cause they’re gonna be unimpressed if you can’t give a definitive answer. And not to rain on your parade of hyper fixation, but some of us want to see our family.” And with that Mike drop, the ample woman took her leave.

Fatima didn’t look up from the back aching crouch she was in, too focused on her subject as kitten heels clinked against metal metal steps, and a nasty mutter about wearing ‘the wrong fucking shoes to work’ whispered out into the cavernous room.

“Whatever.” She muttered to herself.

Standing up straight, the sharp stab of wincing aches creaking along her spine. Note to self, don’t lean over unsupported for more that twenty seconds. The shots from this angle must’ve at least revealed something: the two lenses (one for blocking reflective uv light, the other a microscope) were the best in the business. But what was she looking for inside the pupil you may ask?

“Now THAT’S interesting.”

The retina, exposed to light, came alive under the camera. Cone cells, rod cells, pigment epithelium. But what were those? Bolts of neon blue, flashing like those firefly squid from that Attenborough episode last week. Veins? No too reflective for that, they’d blind you at the right angle. A specialised system for night vision? Sure it wasn’t human by ratio and lacking organs, but the body held all the cells necessary for coloured vision as we know it, meaning that it probably lacked good night vision naturally, and these unusual veins were a cure for that. No. That can’t be, even under the microscope there was no signs indicating that the structure was made of any kind of cells. Was this thing a huge cell?

“Maybe we should see if we can cut one end so that it’s still attached to the body and try to put it under a much stronger microscope tomorrow.”

RRRRRRRRIIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNNNNNGGGGGGGGGGG!!!

RRRRRRRRIIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNNNNNGGGGGGGGGGG!!!

RRRRRRRRIIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNNNNNGGGGGGGGGGG!!!

Shite. What’s it this time?

Pulling her Nokia out her back pocket, flipping over the top, a resounding “FATIMA!” Called out. Crap. Family.

“Hello Mum-”

“WHERE ARE YOU?! IT’S LATE, YOU SHOULD BE HERE WITH THE FAMILY! DO YOU NOT LOVE US?!”

Why would she say that? “Of course I love you, I just have so much work-“

“NO! NO MORE WORK! COME HOME NOW, YOU NEED REST!” That’s the final straw that will break the camel’s back. Even an utterance more will turn the fine balance into madness.

“… I’ll pack up now.”

“GOOD, SEE YOU SOON FATIMA!”

Click.

The process of packing up on a usual evening would stretch to around thirty minutes. Putting away equipment, locking up, turning off the lights and signing out. She did it in fifteen. You don’t argue with mum.

Walking with purpose to the fire exit corridor leading out, the last light overhead her work shone like a halo over that much more grim sight now that she had a chance to sit back and examine the scene. He looked like a prop from a Saw film set, eyes pinned wide and shocked, completely opposed to the frowning mouth and waxy skin. Even in the heat of rushing round, Fatima couldn’t help but be drawn back to her work. What would those cells look like in full darkness? The switch sat taunting to her left, just calling to her. Surely it wouldn’t hurt to see?

Slowly reaching over, almost as if she felt she was being judged for her actions by some unknown force past or present, the raised edge stood stiff against her shaking fingertip. Why was she shaking, there’s no one here to judge her! If anything, the universe should be thankful for her contribution to the pursuit of scientific advancement and the first unveiling of a fact long dead. This was just one step closer to understanding.

CLICK

…Sigh.

“Stupid, getting excited over nothing.”

The back entrance slammed with a resounding slam onto a ratty backstreet lit by LED lampposts. Bloody waste of time.

Time 19:07pm. The doors would be reopened in precisely nine hours and fifty three minutes. Nothing should be moving from this point onwards.

All this fuss over something that she should’ve just taken as a hoax all along.

Time 21:30pm. The doors will be reopened in precisely Six hours and thirty minutes. Nothing should be moving at this point.

She’d told that arsey detective so herself, now look at her going back on her own words.

**Time 23:47pm. The doors will be reopened in precisely Five hours and thirteen minutes. Night vision cameras 674 and 676 activated for one minute and five seconds on west wing on the outside building. Movement: minor. Decision: ignore. Nothing should be moving at this point. **

This thing was clearly not real, not in any way. The cube law theory explained that.

Time 01:08am. The doors will be reopened in precisely Three hours and fifty two minutes. Night vision cameras 43, 45, 41 and 40 activated for two minutes in Cast Courts Hall. Movement: minor. Decision: ignore. Nothing should be moving at this point.

Nothing humanoid COULD get that big.

Time 01:59am. The doors will be reopened in precisely Three hours and one minute. Night vision cameras 43, 45, 41 and 40 activated for five minutes in Cast Courts Hall. Movement: major. Decision: call security. Something is moving at this point.

Looking out the windows of the family bungalow, cheering echoing outside at the neon lit sky, everything makes sense here. Everything can be explained by science. So this thing couldn’t have ever been alive.

Right?

ERROR: CAMERAS COMPROMISED.

The Ones Above Us. Chapter 1

Date:- September 30th, 2008, 14 days after initial discovery.
Time:- 18:42 pm
Location:- Ireland Peat Bogs

Flicking a cheap Poundland lighter, sparks spat in the morbid matt of a pure black atmosphere out on location in the back arse of nowhere (somewhere far off Ireland’s version of the M6 he’d been told). Winter winds were of the worst kind: didn’t matter how far inland you made it, or how thick the walls on your house were, they traversed the land with albatross wings wide and undaunted by what they came into contact with, smacking into any surface with no regards to slowing down. They didn’t seem to have any regard for detective Arthur Fleming‘s Marlboro either, a stiff left hand shaking at the switch, and the right vainly trying to create shelter for the cigarette.

“For FUCK sake.” Singed fingertips for his troubles.

“Serves you right. No smoking on the job detective, you know better.”

Head Forensic Pathologist Fatima Alva. A 4’9 willowy thing with a short, plump bob, damn near bobblehead proportions and a tendency to get right under his fucking skin like the irritating shit she was. She’d succeeded young and now all that arrogance she hadn’t quite worked out her system from (what should be mandatory in his opinion) the hard labour of working up the social ladder had only boosted her tendency to tighten her favourite black brogues far too tight, straighten her back like a bloody ballerina and fix that rod she’d shoved up her arse however many years ago a little bit deeper.

“I’m ten yards from the sodding site and wrapped in a white, walkable body bag, I think we can both agree me being over here isn’t going to tamper with shit. And not to challenge your dictatorship, luv, but you’ve got winged lashes big enough to take off under those goggles o’ yours. Now you go back under those useless gazebos, and I’ll happily freeze my arse off out here.” Turning back round to face the empty, Arthur cursed himself for getting a buzz cut rather than a short back and sides a week ago.

Fatima despised this part of the job. Working with middle-aged, greying twats like this one that clearly hated their jobs, but seemed to have this vendetta against the mere mention of career change. Yes, she was aware as you age, getting a new job gets harder. Surprise though, so did being fresh out of uni. Life sends these little tests to fuck us all over, not just you mate. Must be the bitter taste of Thatcher’s rule that’s left him slow to change. Scarred from the days when not having a job meant not eating, full stop. Doesn’t give the trout-mouthed, once-upon-a-time aryan flag pole a reason to snap like a pissed off Chihuahua.

“Why don’t you stop trying to get your next sad excuse for a hit of nicotine, and come over here and do your actual fucking job?”

“No respect.” Muttered Arthur to himself, giving up on his lost cause and unzipping the top half of his polymer suit to shove the cigarette into his oversized shirt pocket.

Finally the standing misery addressed the short woman face to face, a shake clinging to each syllable, “What the hell d’you need me for? It’s obvious this isn’t a normal murder case, IF we’re even calling it a murder case. I mean for god sake, Fatima, the grave is over 50 feet long! Whatever we’re uncovering obviously isn’t a human, it’s a fucking dinosaur! Why am I here in the back-arse of all points nowhere, rather than a load of archaeologists?”

“Because what we’ve found so far isn’t making sense, and last time anyone checked, dinosaurs were fossilised. BONES, detective, not skin. This body is so fresh, there’s absolutely no decay at all! Then there’s the skin, it hasn’t been stained by the acid, nor caked in mud. It’s like the skin is coated in some hydrophobic layer. This body was buried in a shallow grave, no signs of decay. The body hasn’t been dyed by the soil so it’s fresh, both of those signs lead to the possibility of a recent murder. None of this should be possible, but it is.” A sigh slipped the last of Fatima’s adrenaline-fuelled spitting out, she was tired. Tired of him, tired of working, tired of being in the cold. “Look, personally I think this is probably an elaborate hoax some twat on YouTube with a fringe or whatever has decided to plant in a well known historic location for views. The arseholes will probably be waiting for the news report on TV so they can have a laugh at our expense. None of this is natural, and frankly it’s starting to look ridiculous. However, so long as our shitty superiors believe this to be a murder case we stick to finding out how this thing died, understood?”

Scathing way of saying it, But a hoax was something Arthur was desperate to cling to. Of course, this was nothing but staged and faked beyond belief! None of this could be real. Give credit where credit’s due though, the bell-ends that did this were thorough. Tutting, Arthur knew he couldn’t argue his case anymore, and started to strut off on those stilts for legs back to the beams of spotlights, Fatima trotting along after him just to keep up.

“Glad to see you’re helping.”

“Just talk to me about what’s going on so we’ll be able to document this and go back to the hostel.” Spat Arthur in retaliation. He hated this job. These people. But most importantly, that thing.

Entering through the only available entrance, the two nearly ran into another detective. Useless idiot. Despite this temporary flimsy building being the size of a football field, there was barely enough space among the number of personnel of all ranks and professions, technology, storage facilities and dig sights to separate the wood from the leaves. To add to the misery, despite being as frosty inside as it was outside, the scent of dank earth and petrol from the excavation diggers still managed to permeate the trapped air. God it stunk.

Taking on a note of interest as she got into her element, Fatima called out as she moved out the way, “Right, so we are at the feet end, and up there at the other end of the canopy is our head. We’re going there first because that’s what the two witnesses found during their initial dig.”

Taking off briskly, the forensic pathologist seemed unfazed by the sheer size of the foot sticking out like a meteorite fallen to earth just a couple of meters from the entrance, not even gracing the thing a glance. Arthur had no such laissez-faire-attitude, frozen in tunnel vision. This is why he didn’t wanna come back in. The damn toes had the familiar, unique swirling pattern of calloused skin seen on humans, and blotches of brown that must’ve been freckles, as they lacked the blotchy, wet texture of mud. Veins passing like eels under ice became exposed near the epidermis, shining icy blue. On an intellectual level, the aged detective knew a foot his height in length couldn’t possibly exist in the real world. If they did, someone would’ve surely reported such a sighting.

On a primal level, instinct was sending adrenaline shooting to his heart and his lungs could scarcely fill themselves in time to keep up with the demand of oxygenated blood. Those feet looked too alive. The raw power the thing’s hands must’ve possessed, accompanying such ginormous feet! All of this reminded him of his honeymoon with his wife on Safari, watching a pack of saltwater crocodiles descend in a snapping furry upon shared prey, crushing a zebra’s skull in a death roll. Red and bloodied teeth, marred palate facing the animal’s terror-struck gaze whilst it still vainly screamed for its herd to come to its aid. The vocal cords snapped, eventually silencing under the sheer force of those jaws collectively ripping the head off in one piece. Two crocodiles sent the thing flying twelve feet in the air in pure territorial aggression, neither caring that they’d just murdered another being, before the Wiley victor went after the splattering mess to claim its prize. None of the herd even dared approach the brutality. Would his colleagues do the same if he were captured? Would they leave him to the beast?

“Arthur, c’mon.”

Back to reality. “Sorry.”

Just focusing on Fatima’s back seemed to do the trick, heart rate levelling out below 100bpm. Don’t look round and it won’t be there. Arthur didn’t have it in himself to self scold for such a ridiculous reaction; he knew he should’ve stayed outside.

Still set on her headstrong track, Fatima chose to not bother with looking back and risk painfully smacking into some poor soul, so delegated talking to the air in front of herself, hoping he heard her through the ruckus around them. “The head hasn’t decayed, following suit to rest of the currently exposed limbs, though there does appear to be damage. Face appears to be male, middle-aged 35 to 50’s. Noticeable marks being three precise third degree burns across the face resembling a striped pattern. No sign of healing or breakdown within the exposed areas either, which would suggest the burns were created after death.”

“Has anyone tested a sample of skin to see why there’s no breakdown?”

“We tried, but every single time someone has come in with a scalpel to remove a piece, once removed from the body the entire piece seems to crumble instantly to a fine blue dust and disappear.”

“What, Like Indiana Jones style? We found the crusader knight?”

“Please try and take this seriously Arthur, I wouldn’t mention our findings if they were false.” Tutted Fatima.

Arthur knew he was deflecting to shield himself. “I am. Can we at least try collecting the dust?”

“No use, I meant it when I said everything disappears.”

“So anything we test or observe must be on the body at all times or it’s essentially worthless?”

“Correct.”

Well that made everything just that little bit harder. JUST! They’d been reduced to the detective abilities of the bloody Edwardian period. No testing beyond what could be extracted from the soil (and judging by the lack of messy bodily fluids, the thing probably didn’t have any), and they had yet to uncover the rest of the body to see if there were any signs of obvious trauma that would account the reason behind the death. This was going to take forever. Every waking moment in this shithole was a second wasted. Whoever made this thing was one sick fuck.

“If I ever find the shitheads responsible for this prank, I’m gonna hand em a fucking life sentence. The law be damned.”

Just missing a collision with another photographer, the head finally came into full view. Even from this vantage point above ground, the thing didn’t seem small in any way. If he’d thought the foot was massive, the head was a new beast entirely upon its own pedestal. Surprisingly peaceful for a dead person, no expressions of pain or strain, just a suspiciously perfect sullen face (aside the burns of course). Knotted, greying-blond hair splayed out in dregs from the skull like old depictions of the sun’s rays, haloing the face and drawing you to the pair of closed lids. He wasn’t pretty by any standard, Arthur vainly self-noted. Weak chin jutting thin lips out from the round face, a high hairline accentuating the large forehead and a heavy brow ridge. If he weren’t the size of a four story building and significantly burnt, he’d have been extraordinary ordinary. Forgettable even. The detective knew he shouldn’t be saying that. It was a ‘victim’ after all.

“If we can’t remove any body parts, can we perhaps open the body up instead and take samples of anything inside the stomach, lungs, chest cavity etcetera?”

A grimace pulled at the woman’s lips, marring her usually stoic face, “Already done it, we had Liam go inside with a contamination dry suit whist you were outside. It’s the kind of stuff sewage divers wear at human waste plants.”

Arthur couldn’t help turning his own nose up at the prospect as well, shuffling unconsciously just a little further away. “And?”

“There were important pieces missing. A full, undisturbed respiratory system: lungs, trachea, the works. Oddly, absolutely no digestive or reproductive organs what so ever. Weirder yet, there were no signs of sabotage or surgical removal, it was like they were never there in the first place. What really caught my eye on the camera feed was that he had, what we think, are a series of air sacks integrated along the connection between the lungs and the diaphragm.”

“Meaning?”

Poor Fatima was looking at Arthur like she was trying to explain how to use the toilet to a three year old, a strong side eye from her place parallel to him

“MEANING this thing had an incredibly resourceful breathing mechanism.”

“So no basic necessary functions like the need to eat and reproduce, but a top quality breathing system. And you wonder why I’m not taking any of this seriously? Why couldn’t we just send a report saying it was a hoax and save time? It technically doesn’t even come under the scientific detention of alive.”

“Well certainly not now it doesn’t.” Arthur gave his own stink eye back.

“… Look, why don’t we try and get the body transferred over to London? Our proper, large-scale testing equipment will be at our fingertips, and we’d be able to at least stick this problem on some stupid lab rats and be done with it, what d’you say?”

Fatima finally stopped half-hearting her disgust to focus on Arthur face to face. “Arthur, where d’you think that kind of space and discreetness would be possible in the middle of London city? This body is over fifty feet all, we wouldn’t even be able to keep it cool enough to stop potential decay-“

Arthur butted in, “- This thing has been out the ground for two weeks, Fatima, and hasn’t so much as lost a hair naturally. We don’t need to worry about decay. Yes, transferring the body would disturb the ‘crime scene’, but if we get this thing sent off as archeological dig remains, the disturbance won’t matter, and we’d be off the case. I don’t wanna be stuck with this shit anymore, do you?” Was he sounding too desperate?

She knew she shouldn’t mention it, not to herself and DEFINITELY not Arthur, but within her selfish consciousness, Fatima couldn’t agree with that. This may be a hoax to Arthur, but all these findings were starting to settle saplings in the garden of her imagination. These Findings weren’t Styrofoam cut outs painted with acrylic, nor were they polymer clay held together over a skeleton. whatever material this was, it was unlike anything she’d seen before. Maybe all this was a hoax, maybe all this was a waste of time.

But secretly, she wished it wasn’t.

“…I’ll see what I can do.”

@diogenisis ah ok sorry I’ve never posted a story before

Prologue

Device:-Sony Handycam DCR SR85
Input:-Film
Location:-Ireland Peat Bogs
Date:-September 2008
Time:-6:35.
Title:- YouTube vlog 68, metal detector finds.

Hi, everyone, it’s Neil again. Today on this lovely misty autumn morning we’re back on the peat bogs of Ireland for another early treasure hunting session. I’m here today with Mark- Mark say hi to the camera!

Hello everyone.

Mark’s here with me again afterrrrrr, err, god how long has it been?

Three or four months, give or take.

Three of four MONTHS. Bloooody hell. Well, it’s good to see you again. I hope you lot watching at home appreciate this too! God. Anyway, let’s get on with today’s episode. As you already know, these bogs are well known for harbouring very early bits of Celtic jewellery, coins, knives etcetera back from the Iron Age, so hopefully the peat will be kind to us, though probably not with these conditions, and our combined shit luck. Ground’s gonna be solid. Never mind. Mark, you ready to start?

Yep.

Great, let’s get started!

How far the land goes on when undisturbed by human intervention, it almost makes the world seem endless from human perspective. Of course, these factors wouldn’t dampen the hopes of these history hunters, these foolhardy men. No, they knew what they desired lay within this earth they stood upon; this largely untapped treasure trove of history. And with miles of potential at their fingertips, where to begin?

You start east, I’ll go west. Nice and easy, take your time.

Heading west, Mark with crows feet beginning to form at his eyes and a steadying decline in an ability to accept change, lacked the years of experience his jovial east-bound counterpart possessed, but with at least seven previous sessions under his belt, easy to use equipment and an expert within earshot, nothing could go wrong, right? Just scan and dig, how hard could that be?

Right, Mark’s gone east and while he’s off I’ll start with the introduction to the land we’re on because you never know when someone new is going to see our channel.

Harder than either could have anticipated.

Peat bogs form when plants don’t fully decay in acidic and anaerobic conditions. Anaerobic being a fancy word meaning without oxygen. Peat is made up of mainly wetland vegetation, like mosses, sedges, and shrubs. As it accumulates, the peat holds water which slowly creates wetter conditions that allow the area of wetland to expand. Despite now present conditions, these areas used to be land occupied by early human tribes and thus explains why you can find old jewellery, trinkets, even bodies sometimes, in these bogs despite them being uninhabitable now. And yes, you did hear me right, bodies. Well preserved bodies actually. Unlikely to find any of those though, seeing as we have a metal detector and not a sniffer dog, Heh. Plus they’re usually found about a meter deep in the ground, and they blend in so well that you probably wouldn’t recognise it as a body if you were just scanning the ground. Ah well, let’s keep going.

Peat preserves bodies near perfectly, save for the flesh becoming tar and shrivelling to the texture of old tanned leather. The hair similarly goes through a transformation, becoming bloody red, dyed from the acid. The mummy of Old croghan Man (who was discovered in these very bogs) was so perfectly preserved, that the first archaeologists whom discovered the corpse, disclosed after they finished that they felt queasy examining the remains, as the torso was still retaining the vivid wounds of severed flesh and a cut spinal cord frayed with ends of a thousand year old nervous system where the man had been decapitated and disemboweled violently after death. Bones are one thing, you can’t quite empathise with something lacking a familiar face and form. Seeing something so akin to a recent murder is quite another.

NEIL!

Yeah!

NEIL! COME QUICK!

EYYYYY, looks like our amateur may yet be a masterrrrrrrrr! WHAT YOU FOUND?!

I DUNNO, BUT IT LOOKS WEIRD!

Mark hadn’t gotten far at all, barely a few yards; today was a lucky day indeed for the pair. Jogging over, letting his own excitement bleed through, Neil was by Mark’s side in a moments’ notice with a full blown grin, gums peaking through. What could it be?! Pointing to a nearly glowing spot in the earth that seemed to reflect the moody sky with its blindingly bright hue, the two kneeled down together to look further.

Neil, where’s the spade?

Here! You dig first, it’s your find.

Being handed the spade, Mark began stabbing the rock solid earth, frozen through as all that trapped water became solid ice.

COME ON!

They should’ve bothered more with chipping away at diamond, might’ve made more progress then the two were now. These tools were inefficient. This piece of history didn’t want to come out.

We got anything else, Neil?

I’ve got a chisel?

Let’s have a go.

It was time for harsher methods. Neil marked the spot with the chisel tipped in a minor dip in the earth. Mark became the hammer. STAMP! Nothing. STAMP! Still nothing. SSSSSSSTTTTTTAAAAAMMMMMMPPPPP- CRACK! A fault burst open like a spider’s web. Small, but there.

YES! Keep stamping!

There was no stopping now. So close now! Uncovering buried treasure like the archeologists of Egypt finding their next greatest discovery. Would it be silver? Gold? A rarity beyond material that could shake the very foundations of history as we know it?!

SPLIT! At long last, the earth shattered beneath the determination of man. The unnoticeable became revealed. Flesh. Bone white flesh so large, the pattern that made up the texture of skin could be seen clear as day. They’d found a corpse

…Mark, call the police.